My daughter turned 26 this year. I was 26 when I gave birth to her. So I’m exactly twice the age of Sarah now. I recently began a sentence to her like this, “When I was your age I was having babies.” After I said it out loud I felt terrible and ashamed.  How often I use my life as a measuring stick for my adult children’s life is a problem.

I was proud of my own accomplishments at twenty six and felt a bit of smugness about my degrees and successes as I compared them to my own mother. Why is there is an eternal need to compare ourselves against another? All of my family systems training screams out in the last sentence, so I’ll say it this way: Why do I feel the need to compare myself with others? (For the record, my mother was a trailblazer and worked hard all of my life. She was one of the first working mother’s that I knew in my circle of friends. She taught me so much about balancing work and home. She gave so much to herself to her family. I hope to one day be the kind of woman that she is now.)

Each generation has unique struggles. I’m still trying to figure out how to be a parent to my adult children.

That’s how you look in the middle of the night when they take your picture at the hospital

I thought it was hard when she was this small, but I’ve discovered that newborns are mostly a marathon against exhaustion. The parenting game as my child becomes an adult requires me to step back and to shut up. My words and advice are not needed, unless requested. My role is to encourage and affirm, mostly.

I am convinced that every age of parent is the hardest one because each age is new to that particular child and to that parent with the child. It’s a lifetime of work.