Caryl asks: Am I Mom Enough for Detachment Parenting?

As is often the case,  I am a living statistic of my generation.  This time I embody the parent whose beautifully educated child beaten down by an unforgiving job market must return home to heal and regroup. I have another child too at grad school arming herself with more degrees--this time vocational--and racking up loan money she'll have to repay when--and if--she gets a job in her new field. But that's another statistic.

Is it any wonder then I sat out Mother's Day in the country alone? By choice, I'll add. Our little family of three needed the space to recharge. I did so by sitting on my Havana day bed in the garden peacefully finishing The Newlyweds.  Then nature sent me a metaphor.
 Right there in the tree closest to me was a nest with two just-hatched baby robins.  And flitting from tree to fence to rooftop and back again were the mother and father birds fetching food, guarding the nest, chattering to each other. It was exhausting just to watch but I envied the birds for the easy arc of their parenting.  The robins were giving their offspring roots and worms, strengthening their tiny wings for flight.

We did too.  We gave them roots, wings--and everything else: ballet classes and music lessons, cultural outings and educational vacations, semesters abroad and summer internships. The list goes on.  We were so attentive that we were dubbed helicopter parents; our involvement in their childhood and adolescence knew no bounds.  But now that some of them have returned to the nest, none of us know quite what to do. There's no manual yet for raising grown children. Vibrant Nation has advice from other mothers--always a good place to start--of adult children returning home.  Sally Koslow's upcoming book Slouching Toward Adulthood: Observations from the Not-So-Empy Nest sizes up the situation with stories of frustrated parents and their frustrated offspring.  Reina Weiner, one mother quoted in Koslow's book, posits: "If you step back, they'll be able to step forward." Send the helicopter to the hangar.

I am already practicing detachment parenting. This new child-raising style isn't about tough love, it's about tough times. Unlike previous generations, our kids have been slammed by a brutal economy.  They grew up with high expectations only to have the world crush them down. (Did we forget to teach them resilience?) That's why last Sunday I was sitting in my garden  reading about young marriages and watching baby birds.  Life goes on, I learned from my first life.  But it doesn't get easier, I am finding out from my second life.  This detachment parenting is hard, even painful work. I hope I am mom enough to do it.