I don't want to grow up, a continuing theme around here...

A few days ago, I found my youngest son on the couch with a few stray tears streaming down his cheeks. He looked so despondent, which was entirely out of character for his usually very active, very imaginative self. When I asked what was wrong, he responded with, “I just want things to stay the same.” 

“What do you mean?"

“Everything is changing. In a few years, my sister will be in college, and my brother will be in high school. Then it will just be me. I want things to stay the way they are now. I don’t want to grow up."

I know how he feels.

I had the same feeling as a kid when I realized that, at some point, I would leave my family, go out into the world, and start my own life. I wanted to surround myself in the security blanket of family dinners, my own room, and what I had always known. As the time grew near for me to leave, I was nervously excited about the unforeseen future, but still harbored nostalgia for Home. Also, as the oldest child, I don’t think I realized how the family dynamic changed when I left—how my sister’s world was affected by my absence. Listening to my youngest son, I’m just now realizing what it must have felt like to be left, and how life-changing that must have been. As I hold him in my arms,  I’m wondering how to hold together our family unit as my children begin their own adventures. I have always felt my job as a Mom was to raise my children not to need me, but what if I still need them? What if they still need each other? What about the ones left? Their story is still being written, and we need all the characters to write their part.

As I look ahead to the few years I have left with all three hoodlums under one roof, it’s become imperative to me that I keep nurturing our family values, traditions, and dreams—the things that make our family so uniquely Scroggins. I know I overwhelm and smother my kiddos by scheduling family bonding activities, and needing to “breathe their air” (as we call it). But, I think I’m hoping that they will hang on to these little tidbits of who they are, and where they came from, and in their grown up lives keep coming back for refills. I’m hoping that once they start leaving Home, they realize that together we are more, even though separately we have plenty. 

And today, as I dry the tears on my youngest son’s face, I’m forced to tell him that things will change, his brother and sister will leave, and eventually even he will leave. I’m holding back my own tears as I explain to him that one day he too will be excited about the adventures on his horizon. He will look back nostalgically at our time together Growing Up Scroggins, but he will pave his own road. He will find his own way.  I tell him that while I love where we are now, I am excited about what’s waiting just beyond our reach. And, we will always be here. Home will always be here. Because that’s what families do. They show up. They carve pumpkins. They support their Home team, and they simply never stop.