pamperigouste's comments

Can You Miss Your Kids Too Much?

01 Sep 2008 01:13 PM

Fifteen years ago my daughters, who were 19 and 22 decided that they would go on an adventure. I was thrilled that they wanted to head off together and waited impatiently to hear their plans. I knew that I would miss them but adventures are important.

A week later they called me from college to say that they were taking 4 months off and heading out, with the money they had saved, for 4 months inthe Oreint: a month in Nepal, a month in China, a month in Vietnam and a month in Thailand. I was nervous but excited for them - "Mom, it's okay, lots of our friends are doing stuff like that..."

We agreed they would call once a month, which they did (this was before the days of cell phones) and as the end of each four week period arrived I waited on tenderhooks. Once they didn't call for 5 weeks! When we finally did touch bases their explanation was that it is "very difficult to call collect from a small village in China, Mom."

Was I kidsick? Yes, of course I was. But 15 years ago it was impossible to be in constant close contact with one's children. The children had more space and the parents had less contact and therefore less to worry about because they couldn't know everything that was going on.

A hundred years ago people immigrated and wrote letters. Then we had the telephone. Then we had cheap phone services. Then we had email and cell phones and text messaging. All these things are wonderful but they build an interdependency which may or may not be to our advantage as families. It's all very interesting. :)

Susan thhp://www.HeritageCookbook.com