The parenting lifecycle is anything but straight forward. Once our children are placed in our arms, we diaper and burp, feed and clothe and watch them feverishly for any hiccup in the road.
Along with those parenting jobs, the long-term assignment of teacher kicks in. We teach our young ‘uns to pick up their toys, share with others and say “excuse me” when they burp.
As they get older, the mentoring continues –how to ride a bicycle, how to drive a stick shift and how to buy life insurance.
For most of their lives, parents remain in that advisory role.
Unless children grow up to be smarter than their mom.
That’s what happened to me.
My Aggie boy is a whiz with computers and especially the Internet. He knows I like watching movies but I can’t always get to the Cineplex. He told me about an online movie channel, and the site offers a variety of movies I can watch on my computer monitor.
I lost the password we’d set up, so I called him and he gave me the password over the phone. my handwriting is sloppy and every attempt I made the next night met with an “incorrect password” prompt. I tried everything – uppercase, lowercase and then I just gave up.
Exasperated, I sent my son an email listing the password and asking if it was correct.
His return email was quick and short – “Do not ever email passwords. I will call you.”
I slapped myself in the forehead, and my reply note was apologetic. After I sent the email, I sat in front of my computer and realized the tables were turned.
We’d crossed from “you know everything, Mommy” to “you’re an idiot, Mom” line.
About the time I turned 12, I knew my parents didn’t have all the answers. I wasn’t upset about this revelation. Instead, I began to see my parents as flawed human beings who were doing the best they could.
I did everything to try and keep my sons from seeing me in that light. Unfortunately, real life stomped all over that fantasy, especially as they saw me lose my car keys on more than one occasion, lock myself out of our house and fumble my way through directions for the VCR and then the DVD player.
Forget learning the subtle differences between a Blu Ray and a regular DVD or understanding how fiber optics work. My boys knew these facts like they knew all the hiding places for my extra cash.
But I still felt I had the upper hand. I knew more about pop culture, cooking and the best way to remove grease from a new shirt.
Over time, though, my Aggie boy had slowly coaxed those secrets out of me, and he was probably on par with me in the kitchen, if he hadn’t surpassed me.
In gentlemanly fashion, he didn’t lord his superiority over me. If asked, he’d clean up the hard drive on my computer, rearrange my electronic photos into a more searchable system and send me links to birthday gifts for everybody in the family.
As I look back, all the signs were there that he’d surpassed me on the information highway. It was inevitable. He’s more of a Mustang and Camaro type of guy and I’m still puttering along in the Edsel.
Still, there’s a few things I know he hasn’t figured out yet – how to hem a pair of pants, how to shoot the moon in a card game of Hearts and the best way to carve a Thanksgiving turkey.
For the time being, I think I’ll just keep those secrets to myself. A mom, even one who’s in the slow lane, has to have a few aces up her sleeve.