You know your kids have really grown up when ….

There has been a lot of talk lately about kids who leave home, then come back, and then (hopefully) leave again.  Yes, I had one that did that, briefly, but even she’s gone (again) now.  So how do you know when your kids have really grown up and left for good?  For me, it was when I had to start meeting them in a bar to ever get to see them!

No, we’re not all lushes, and no my kids don’t hang out in bars all the time.  They’re actually great girls, responsible people with jobs and families and the like.  [In the interest of disclosure, one has a job and a steady guy, and the other has a husband and family which is as good as a job in my book.]  Maybe this is why the whole I’ll-meet-you-at-the-bar-for-karaoke-night thing worked so well:  because they are such responsible kids.

Anyway, I had been trying for weeks to get them to come by my house.  I even told them I had gifts for them from my vacation.  It didn’t work; they didn’t have time to come see me.  Enter the karaoke idea.  This is my fault, well, and also their father’s fault.  We raised them to be hams.  They would go to karaoke with me in bar restaurants (emphasis on restaurant) where kids could stay until 9 or 10.  It was fun.  We would sing old Carpenters’ songs that nobody really wanted to hear but we loved to sing!

So in sheer desperation, having not sung karaoke in at least 10 years, I hatched a plan.  I would offer to drive up to their neck of the woods and meet them at a bar on karaoke night.  It was pure genius.  Nevermind that I’m 51 years old, happily married, and don’t “do” the bar scene any more.  My girls were all over it.  It was a snap to get them there.  I took my presents with me.  Might as well kill two birds with one stone.  I get to visit with my busy, busy kids, and give them their gifts, too.

Being karaoke night, the bar was full of the “regulars,” all of whom, I discovered, my children could call by name.  I sang a couple of songs, reasonably well, watched them sing and perform their own choreography to “Proud Mary,” and we laughed, and had a great time.  After only 1 Cosmo and a dozen glasses of water (poor waitress), I said goodbye, blaming my husband for my early curfew.  It was a fantastic experience.

My “kids” are both almost 30, and I suppose it is time I realized that they’ve really grown up and have lives of their own.  Still, it really startled me when Jamie had Lasix surgery on her eyes (her one-and-only pair of eyes!) and didn’t even tell me until it was all over.  Mandy got a tattoo without even asking me; okay, so what if she was 25 at the time?  She’s still my daughter!

It occurs to me that this “they’re all grown up now” must hit every parent at one time or the other.  I remember well the first time I really felt like my father considered me an adult.  My mother and I had had a big fight and weren’t speaking to each other, which wasn’t really too hard since she lived 90 miles away.  My father, ever the peacemaker, decided to do something about it and showed up on my doorstep one day and invited me out for a drink.  A drink!  My father was inviting his daddy’s little girl out for a drink!  I must have been in my mid-thirties at the time.

I’ll never forget; we drove to Judge Roy Bean’s.  I had a gin and tonic, and we talked.  He told me a lot of things about my mom that I didn’t know, things that made me look at her more as a person, not as my mother.  He shared a few of his tips and tricks that had kept them married and communicating effectively all those years, and I came away with a new appreciation for them both.  It was really a turning point for me in my relationship with both of my parents.

My kids are adults now, too.  I’m both happy and sad.  Their father and I worked hard to give them both roots and wings, and the wings have carried them into their new lives.  It’s okay, though. The “root” has a secret weapon to use when she gets lonely:  karaoke night at the local bar!