Just Wait

“Just wait until you have kids.”

This was a phrase my brothers and I heard often growing up. Usually when we were doing something that tested my mom’s patience.

She would say it with that look. You know the one. Half joking, half warning. We always rolled our eyes thinking inside, “sure Mom, whatever you say.”

Fast forward to this week. Dustin made scallops for dinner which he and I devoured. Emma, not so much. She took one bit and chewed, and chewed, and chewed. She then sat there, with the food tucked in her cheek like a squirrel stockpiling nuts for winter.

We gently encouraged her to swallow but there it sat.

Frustration started to bubble inside me and Dustin. We had finished our meals. The kitchen needed cleaning, but we were waiting until she was done. We wanted to move on with the evening but there we sat. Stuck at the table, waiting on one stubborn bit of scallop.

I turned to Dustin and said, “This was me.”

Between my brothers and I, I was always the last one to finish dinner. Tiny bites. Endless chewing. Strategic stalling. I believed that if I sat long enough, the food might disappear but that never happened.

My mom had one rule: we didn’t have to get seconds, but we had to finish what was on our plates. I have vivid memories of sitting alone at the kitchen table with pieces of steak staring me down. I could hear my brothers in the living room playing, but there I sat.

And here I am now. Mom, you were right. Payback has come. But what surprised me is that it didn’t feel like payback, it felt more like a shift in perspective. A lesson in patience and empathy. An opportunity to see myself inside my daughter.

Sitting there watching Emma work through that one single bite I suddenly understood something about my mom I hadn’t fully appreciated before. She wasn’t just trying to get dinner over with me. She was practicing patience. She was holding a boundary. She was teaching us to finish what we started.

I miss her deeply in moments like this. I wish I could call her and say, “you’ll never guess what just happened at the dinner table.” I can hear her laugh and know she would bring up stories of when I was small.

Sitting at the table I felt a softness wash over me. Remembering that I once needed that time. I once needed that grace and that same steady presence at the table.

It turns out “just wait” wasn’t a threat. It was a promise.

A promise that one day you will understand.
One day you will see yourself across from you.
One day you will realize your parents were doing the best they could.

We did eventually get that scallop down and two more bites after that. It did take over and hour and a half, but it happened. And somehow, in the slowest dinner of the week, I felt closer to both my daughter and my mom.

Mom, I get it now.

Sometimes the moments that test our patience are the very ones that quietly teach us compassion. Compassion for our children and for the parents who sat across from us.