Many of us, dare I say all of us, take our parents for granted. Once we have our own children we start to see how hard it might have been for our parents and that maybe, just maybe, we owe them 100 million thank you's. Better late than never.
Some of us feel this even before we have our own children. Personally, I was somewhere in between, my kids are as well. Unfortunately I didn't hear the parenting advice to stay silent until after my kids were grown. I wish I had heard this over and over again while they were still little so that by the time why were in middle school I was prepared not to speak when they finally started to talk.
Regardless, I am not sure I would have heard this piece of advice. I am a living breathing connect the dots. As soon as someone mentions they are looking for a job I am ticking through an old timey rolodex in my brain. Who did I talk to that said....I just saw an email that said.....where was I the other day when.....
And it doesn't stop at a job, or a place to live, or a babysitter. It goes for every subject. "How was school? What are you learning in physics class?" "Like you would understand Mom!" insert hysterical laughter here "So teach me?" I genuinely want to know, I am curious. I like to learn new things to add to the rolodex. All of the information becomes a dot at some point. Maybe it's number 5 maybe it's number 2,379.
This habit of curiosity and connect the dots has to be annoying as hell for my boys. When all you want to do is be heard and your mom is asking you 150 questions and telling you about someone she knew in college once, a podcast she heard, and a book she read 10 years ago but can't quite remember exactly. Annoying!
I do my best these days to be silent. Just listen. Hear them. And they do their best to say, Thanks Mom. I slip up from time to time and go all "I was just listening to a podcast about this...." and they go all "Mom I am not a child! I got this!" Overall there are more Thanks mom, for everything. I'll take it.
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