It seems to me, as I creep toward the farther side of my brief time on earth, that most of my time with others my age is spent discussing our ‘adult children’, especially where we are trying to improve it. Much has been added to our prayer lists and our hearts, trying to come to grips with something I am not certain can be resolved. At what point do we realize that they are absolutely no longer children, but fully grown adults? At what specific place in our lives will they also know that we finally recognize that?

I am perhaps noticing right now, as I care for my toddler grandchild, that his parents are caught in a similar dilemma. Their cherished “baby” is now walking, having conversations with them and testing their boundaries. They flucuate between picking him up and covering him with kisses to expecting him to mind when they tell him it is time for bed. It is a fluid time for the grownups and often they are not in the exact same emotional place at the same time to define the solution clearly to him. Yet as I observe this I am also thinking of the issue of my own emotions, now seeing the child I once nurtured and held as the adult in charge of leading his own family through the many obstacles of life.

At what point did I, or have I ever actually, stopped thinking of him as my “child?” And yet I am expecting him to make confident, adult decisions every moment of his life, as he has been doing successfully for over twenty some years. When I find myself inwardly cringing a tiny bit as he calls my newly blossoming grandchild “baby”, trying to hold onto that precious part of him for just a few moments or months longer, am I not also doing the same confusing thing to my son? That push/pull of parenting, does it ever leave us? When do we truly release our hold on them? Should there be some kind of ceremony where we let go and commit to fully trusting them, if not to themselves, at least to the God we have assured them we believe in?

I do think we need to re-examine ourselves, and especially the part where we refer to them as our ‘adult children’. This branding does not let us off the hook but may in fact be keeping us and them on it, and not very comfortably so. I see us all struggling, trying to find the new relationship we are trying to achieve with these grown up people we once held and comforted. We were their source of everything in the beginning, yet had to relinquish more and more territory to others and to them as the years went by; driver’s licenses, anyone? For some parents this has looked like a complete void where their children once were; they cannot, no matter how they try, pull them back into shoes that have been outgrown. As I look at how difficult it is to say goodbye to our “baby” in order for them to achieve the full potential on their new horizons, I am struck by the incredibly difficult commitment it takes to truly let go of our “children”. I guess the real point is, what will it cost them to have us holding onto their arm as they try so hard to run ahead?