A magnificent weekend with my recently-turned-adult children has come to an end. It was wonderful, so why is there such a large lump in my throat? Wasn’t motherhood supposed to get easier as they got older? 

It certainly wasn’t easy when they were younger. The overwhelming sense of responsibility that came with the birth of my first child was intricately intertwined with the wave of love that came with it. The urge to protect her at all costs was primal and terrifying. Every moment that followed, came with the knowledge that there will be sadness to come, and this sadness will somehow be proportional to that love.

It is hard to fathom, but when you have a second child and a third… the enormity of the love that swells inside your chest doesn’t get divided up between them. It compounds.

The need to protect our children is so strong that we forego our own needs to keep them safe. Walking away from your crying infant seems wrong. But sometimes you must, even if it’s just for a moment. Maybe someone else offers to comfort them… but it is so hard to hand them over. Sometimes you do, and you wonder if it was worth it since you just wanted your child back in your arms the whole time.

Now that they are young adults, I know my children for the amazing humans they have turned into. Now the love is personal… bigger even… but no less primal. Knowing about the potential for proportional sadness is terrible. I still try to protect them, but as they grow, their world grows too, and my ability to control the portion of it that they interact with, diminishes.

When I started on that long road of motherhood, I believed I had two paths to choose from. Even now, I jump between those two paths.

The obvious choice is to keep them as safe within my loving arms as humanly possible. Protect them from germs and dress them in countless layers of clothing at the first sign of a drop in the temperature. Strap on knee and elbow pads when they ride their bikes. Bring them only to playgrounds with rubber surfacing and put safety barriers on the trampoline at home. Forbid sleepovers and hikes in the forest.

The other choice seems much harder but is the one I still try to follow… depending on how strong I feel on the day. Let them get dirty; some exposure to germs helps to develop a robust immunity. Let them get a bit cold; babies and young children need fresh air. Unless it’s dangerously cold or hot, being outside can help to build resilience. Let them have a few stumbles and falls. I know it’s so tricky picking that sweet spot – where your child might fail, but the consequences of that failure aren’t that bad. They might learn not to do that thing again, or they will do it better next time. Real life doesn’t always offer up safety nets and beveled corners.

My own mother set a great example for me. Growing up in Denmark, I, (like all babies) slept outside in a pram. Like everyone else, we played outside and got dirty. I figured out not to walk on thin ice the hard way – literally. She let me. We climbed tall trees. We set off our own firecrackers on New Year’s Eve. We went outside in blizzards to see if the wind would blow us over.

In hindsight, my mother must have been terrified most of the time. I put her through even more stress in my twenties. I traveled on the roof of buses in the Himalayas. I got very sick in India. I lived and worked on a kibbutz in Israel for a year. I hitchhiked and I went fruit-picking with strangers in rural Australia.  She let me go, even though I’m sure she wanted me to stay where she could keep an eye on me. I didn’t even know she was ‘letting’ me do anything. But she did, by being happy for my adventurous spirit and reveling in my joy.

My daring mother has also been a strong presence in my own children’s lives. When I went back to work, my mother would send me photos of their adventures; my young children in the top branches of tall trees, balancing on a log over a fast-flowing stream somewhere exotic. With my own children, my mother was ‘braver’ with them than I was. Sometimes I did ask her to turn it down a notch. But I let them go. I determined that my mother could judge that sweet spot.

Right now, my adult children are doing what I did at their age – giving their mother (me) grey hairs. I worried two years ago when my eldest moved interstate for work. Now she is so independent and brave. She goes on solo adventures and deals with complex and intimidating circumstances in her job. She is thriving. I’d tried my best not to communicate my worry. I ‘let’ her go with a smile plastered on my face.

My middle child moved out of home around the same time for university. He recently went on a solo backpacking adventure, traveling around Asia for 4 months. I was worried before he left. I knew he was trying to separate from me (and his family) a little. When he realized I wasn’t crowding him, he turned back to me.

My youngest turned 18 and has recently started university. When he passed his driving test, it seemed just a moment later, that he had his own car, and the world was now accessible to him. Every day, he is stretching further into the world.  I am not holding him back.

Somehow, it seems we need to adjust our style of mothering to accommodate where our children are at. It’s like a dance. They lead, and you follow.  If we try to lead too much… we’ll stifle their natural style. If they stumble, we pick them up and remind them how to dance… but mostly, they will lead. Let them dance with someone else. Let them dance to a different song altogether if they want to. They need to leave you sometimes. Let them.

If you are lucky, they will still want to dance with you from time to time. This is where I am right now… dancing with my kids when they want me to join in.

My 18-year-old and I were in seventh heaven to have his brother and sister home for a long weekend. Both joyously told me, that they were so glad that they left home when they did. While I might have felt sad at that, my heart soared. By leaving home, they realized that they were much more capable than they had ever imagined.

It was the right thing to have ‘let them go’.

At the end of this joyous and wonderful weekend, my mummy-heart is full again. But it is complicated.

They were getting in the car together and my maternal instinct was screaming at me to tell them to ‘watch out for the slippery roads after the rain’. What I really wanted to say was, ‘Actually, why don’t you all just stay here with me.’

But I didn’t. I waved goodbye, smiling broadly, and didn’t say a word. They were chatting animatedly to each other as they buckled themselves in –  my youngest at the wheel. I went inside and continued with my day… my swollen heart forming a very large lump in my throat.