When Your Ceiling Becomes Their Floor

Hello, friend,

As I think about spending time with my family this 4th of July upcoming week, I’m grateful as I know these teen and later years of my kids at home are a numbered gift.

I’ve been thinking alot about this stage lately, as this is the year the older two kids have really experienced the real world in huge ways and thus I’m in a brand new stage of parenting. My kids have real jobs, research, responsibility, and relationships with real adult coworkers of their own.

That is the whole point of it, of course, and that is what we want; hello, I celebrate it.

But friend, it’s a tender thing to watch happen in real time (and I don’t even necessarily like the word tender, much less the experience of it when it’s not a good tender).

There’s so much joy to it, as I said but also a strange ache in this season, and I want to be honest about it.

I’m learning to listen to, to ask for permission (after lots of listening) instead of offering my opinion freely, and learning to wait to be invited rather than rushing in. Even when I am asked, I’m trying not to offer too much, but a few tips here or there help.

For years, I have helped other people walk through exactly these steps with their adult kids in therapy and coaching. The letting go and the trusting were easier to advise on than do - eek. The biting of the tongue, the opening of the hands to God (God actually prying them open, lol), all of it, harder.

And now here I am, just as I have felt with other types of grief, knowing the path and walking the path are two entirely different things.

But here is what is steadying me, and here is what I keep noticing through the ache. The work took.

The seeds planted are harvesting. They are prepared - HARD as it is for me as a 7 to sit with my beloveds in their aches and let them walk the hard roads, they are walking them with grace and truth.

They are competent and capable in ways that take my breath away, doing things, to be honest, I never did at their age.

And the things they are not quite ready for, well, those show up too, and when they do, they cry, and then they come and ask for advice. They reach for help, and then…

It passes and they are on theri way again. And as long as I do not get too carried away with my emotions, as long as I keep it to what they actually asked for and truly allow our nervous systems to coregulate so they can do this themselves, we’re good. I am so used to this from clients, but sooo different when it’s your babies.

That has been the beautiful throughline under the sorrow of having to watch them in pain, sometimes. The relationship is shifting from me leading to them doing it their way, and I’m seeing that me trusting them and God is a more fragile and more beautiful thing than my authority and planning over it all ever was (also true in marriage, indeed).

My son is a little different in this season, and I am learning from him, too. He is not quite ready for my hand off of things in quite so many ways, but in some ways, yes and the funny thing is, he’s analytical like me and he knows it. He feels the not-ready-ness in a way that sits closer to the surface.

He wants time away, too, or with friends, and he has some peaceful type 9 in him, but he also asks a lot, reaching for guidance and wanting to understand how it all works, such as, “What do I do on the basketball court when I don’t have the ball but I’m near the net, mom?” that he asked last night on the way to camp. When I want to say, “Ask dad because I’m not that good,” I’m also honored and the only one there, so I give my best answer (In this case, “Hands up”!)

But with him too, just as the girls the more I overly correct and offer tips (esp. unsolicited), the more he is unsure he can do it without me so sometimes I just say, “Ask your coach” or “Learn through the experience on this one” and he will. He needs some autonomy at fourteen.

Over all in this season, I am learning to choose my words with more care, to lead with encouragement before I offer the correction or judgement, and to remember that the same truth can be delivered in a way that builds up rather than presses down.

And just as I like Enneagram typing for nuancing, so am I learning that getting out of their way does not look identical for each child. Melody likes to strategize and then do it her way, Hannah likes hugs, Jack likes details so he can do things well.

Each one needs a slightly different version of my parenting, now as always, and a slightly different version of my restraint.

As some readers know, I hesitated to share SO much growing up, feeling just like when Jack Nicholson ranted, you can’t handle the truth - and in many ways, my parents couldn’t handle the truth.

So I’m so darn delighted they let me in so much.

The jobs, the independence, the small responsibilities, and the way they are stepping into the world are hard but also so fun to see the fruits of: I love hearing Melody say, for instance, that a woman at Pure Barre thanked her for helping her to stretch, or Hannah doing the research and getting an award after all the painstaking minutiae, or Jack being asked to play a worship song on the spot and then really doing OK with it. After watching, waiting, praying, and hearing them pray and watch and wait and learn, it’s lovely to see them step into their lives.

If you are somewhere in here with me, friend, watching your own ceiling become someone else’s floor, learning to ask before you advise, learning to put down the advice and pick up the trust, I just want you to know you are not alone in how big it all is.

It is hard, and it is also exactly what we hoped for. Both things are true at once, and I am feeling all the feels. That seems to be the whole work of this season.

I am right here in it with you in whatever season you’re in, they all have their place..

Love living intentionally with you,

Christa

PS. If you are in the thick of the little years right now, the sleepless nights and the endless snacks and the feeling that it will never change, hear me gently: this is where the readiness gets built. The ceiling you are reaching for so exhaustedly today is the very floor they will stand on tomorrow. It counts, friend. Every bit of it counts and builds them up well.

PPS. For our deep divers, a few more musings and questions to sit with this week are below the fold.