A little less of the empty nest syndrome

I'm looking at my kid's messy room, the kind that is akin to the Augean stables, and know that once again, he will forget to buy the tickets to the graduation ceremony, like I asked him a million times already, or at least it feels like that. He's left his wallet on the floor again. Actually, considering all the things parents have to go through to raise a child right, I think we are owed that "asked him a million times already" feeling, especially through the teenaged years. And I know I'm going to ask him this afternoon, where are the tickets? And he's going to say, oh, yeah, yeah, I forgot. And I'm going to feel this little burny sensation, and go through all the reasons I love him and why he's really a good kid, and then I'm going to open my mouth and give him what for.

Because I worry. I think, he's a procrastinator, he's messy, he doesn't know how to handle money like he should, he has putrid phone manners, and soon he's going to go to college. Without me to nag him, he'll leave his dorm room so messy, he'll trip over his backpack and slice his hand on the bounced check he left on the floor, it'll get infected, and he'll die of blood poisoning, or at least be hounded the rest of his life by Bad Credit (which figures in my mind as this huge hairy beast with Really Big Claws and one eye fixed on your pocketbook). And then, with this picture in mind, I yell at him as soon as I see a snitty teenaged eye-roll--which may happen within the the first few minutes of him walking into the house from school--because I have to get my licks in to set him straight on the narrow road to redemption in the few months I have left as mom-in-residence.

The few months I have left to get it right.

Yeah. That's what it's all about. Me getting it right in the last few months with this kid. Just in case I didn't get it right the last 18 years.

Taking a deep breath.

There's a Bible on my desk--I left it there from Sunday, so you can guess where my son gets his messy nature (hey, so I don't want him to be like me in this!). I distractedly open it up, and it falls to the story about Jesus when he got in trouble with his parents. I breathe another deep breath--of relief.

You know the story. The one where the Holy Family goes to Jerusalem when Jesus is an adolescent, along with friends and relatives, in a nice big happy party. They do the Passover gig, and then they start off to go home to Nazareth. They're a day away from the Big City, and then Mary turns to Joseph:

Mary: Dear, have you seen Jesus lately?
Joseph: No. I thought he was with you.
Mary, beginning to feel anxious: No, I thought he was with you!
Joseph: He's not with his cousins? Or his friends?
Mary: No, I just looked!
Mary and Joseph, looking at each other in panic: "Oh my God, we left him in Jerusalem!"

So they go rushing back amongst the teeming population of Jerusalem, having nightmares about their boy amongst hostile Romans who'd as soon stick you with a sword as look at you, and greedy acquisitive slave traders who would be all too happy to get their hands on a nice healthy boy, and who knows what other sickos he might encounter that exist in places that a boy might just wander into, especially a friendly sort of boy like Jesus. And then there is this little added tidbit that he is also the Son of God entrusted to their care, and probably the Most High would at least be a little bit ticked off at their oversight.

But they do find him, being all smart and having fun with his new friends at the Temple. And I'm sure the elders there are patting his back and nodding approvingly at Mary and Joseph and saying, "fine, smart boy you've got there, you should be proud, because he's amazing, you know that?"

They are proud, but as soon as they get Jesus on the road, all hell--er, so to speak--breaks loose. "What the Gehenna were you thinking? Didn't you know your mother was crying her eyes out?" "Don't you know you could have been hurt? Why didn't you TELL US WHERE YOU WERE?"

And what do they get from Jesus? Backtalk, that's what, and I bet it was with that adolescent snitty eye-roll, too. "Mom, Dad, I was just FINE. I was with my FRIENDS, and--" he lifts his nose in the air, "Doing my Father's work." As if Joseph's carpentry was just one up on shoveling pig slop.

It says in the Bible that they didn't understand, and yeah, they probably didn't understand how he could be the Son of God and still be a bratty adolescent. But you have to figure, if he was flesh and bone and went from being a little baby to a man, there was all sorts of things like dirty diapers to be changed and skinned knees to be cleaned up, and I bet adolescent hormones and snitty eye-rolls were part of the package. In fact, I bet the phrase "and he was subject unto them," was a nice way of saying that Joseph then and there took Jesus by the ear and said, "you are sticking to us like GLUE until we get home to Nazareth." And Mary added, "you are SO grounded, kiddo."

I'm not sure Mary and Joseph cured Jesus of his back-talk, though. He still was doing a lot of verbal sniping at the Pharisees as an adult. And we know how much trouble that got him into.

But it did make me feel a little better, and let go just a bit more. If the Holy Family left behind their son when he was 12 years old for more than a day in the Big City and got back talk from him, my husband and I, we're not doing too bad. (Hey, WE didn't leave our kid behind in the Big City!) I guess there's only so much you can do with a kid before you have to let him be what he has to be.

--Karen H.