Independence arrives slowly

There was a line on "Desperate Housewives" a couple of weeks ago when Gaby, the self-absorbed former model and indifferent housewife, berated herself for being such a terrible mom. Her husband Carlos consoled her after a clown-mauling chimp wreaked havoc at their daughter's birthday party. He pointed out that their girls didn't panic like the other kids.

"They are independent and resourceful, and that is thanks to your negligence," he said reassuringly.

I laughed, then flinched. There is more than a kernel of truth that statement. I remember Scott, when he was only about 18 months old, getting into the fridge and dragging a heavy jug of apple juice out, then draaag-thump, draaaag-thump, bringing it into our bedroom.

"Want drink!" he said.

Now before you call DCS and report me for not supplying the kid with enough liquids, remember, this was 18 years ago, and as far as we knew, he was still in his crib, waiting for his morning dose of Juicy Juice. That was also the first day we realized he knew how to escape his holding cell. Keep in mind, it was 4 a.m., he'd been well fed the night before, and we were sound asleep. He just woke up thirsty and decided to do something about it.

I've always been proud of the fact that my kids are pretty self-sufficient. At 16, with his first job in hand, Scott saved his own money for his first Bonnaroo ticket. When it became clear we weren't going to be able to help him with college, he went out and found the grants, scholarships and loans he needed.

Ben, whose school schedule gets mangled every semester, manages to untangle it without Mommy and Daddy coming down to read the guidance counselor the riot act. In fact, I think he does it to prevent Mommy and Daddy from coming down to read the guidance counselor the riot act. He still hasn't recovered from the dressing down I gave one of his classmates after the kid roared through the parking lot at 50 miles an hour and was foolish and unfortunate to park right in front of me. After working in the school system for seven years, I have no reservations about jerking a knot in someone else's kid's tail if I think he's doing something dangerous or destructive.

That might explain why the boys don't like going to the movies with me unless I promise to keep my mouth shut.

I got home from work Saturday afternoon, armed with construction paper and markers to make a crown for Buzz's King Arthur costume. When I told him that, he looked down at his feet.

"Oh," he mumbled. "I already made it."

So he had. And being the artist he is, he'd done a better job than I would have -- which is probably why he went ahead and made it himself. He looked a little worried, though, and I realized he thought my feelings were hurt. Not even close. I was already tired and still facing two hours of chilly trick-or-treating, so one less job to do was my Halloween treat.

The kids know their parents get frustrated because sometimes jobs, money, time and flagging energy levels keep us from doing as much with them as we'd like. They're usually pretty understanding, or at least, they've gotten better at hiding their disappointment when we can't make a marching contest or a class party. It's what they've grown up with and, unfortunately, what they're used to, and it's not just our kids. The days of the stay-at-home mom in the majority are gone, I'm afraid. There are still some mothers lucky enough to do that and I envy their children, and the time and attention that are available for them, but most of us are homing in on the workplace instead of working in the home place.

But on the other hand ... Carlos had a good point. I was a latch-key kid myself, with two working parents, and there's no doubt it affected my childhood and my adult life. After I was 15, when my dad died, that only compounded. There were plenty of girls my age who were learning to cook and clean with their stay-at-home moms, some sort of bonding ritual, I guess, but how many of them knew how to change a tire? You learn what you have to do to survive. Adapt or perish.

My mother had a hopeless sense of direction and when she got lost, (not if, but when) she would panic and fall apart. I learned to be the navigator and negotiator. The little chores around the house that my dad would have done fell to us and I learned how to swap out storm windows and fuses and my little brother learned plumbing. Since he was a touch dyslexic, that had repercussions. The hot water tap in the kitchen spouted cold water, and vice versa.

When my brother was eight or nine, he had to turn in a project -- a Vietnamese hut made out of craft sticks and glue. Naturally, he waited until the last minute to tell my dad. Naturally, my dad, an engineer of sorts, was up all night making the hut while his son snored away, a baseball glove in one hand and a Hot Wheels in the other. After Dad died, and those big projects came up, we had to learn how to do them ourselves. They weren't exactly Smithsonian quality, as his had been, but they got done. Usually.

Because of my and my husband's own shortcomings -- we're much more Dan and Roseanne Connor than we are June and Ward Cleaver -- our kids have also had to learn what to do to survive. They all know how to do laundry, microwave popcorn, cook a frozen pizza, reprogram the universal remote and rewire the TV so the DVD player will work. In other words, the essentials.

I don't think of it as "Tough Love" so much as "Lazy Love."

It does have its drawbacks, though. I barely knew how to cook when I graduated from college. It had been easier for Mom to fix a casserole in the morning and stick in the fridge than it was to teach me how to make it after a long day at work. All I had to do was turn on the oven and put the dish in. I didn't know the difference between all purpose and self-rising flour, but I could turn on a stove with the best of them, by golly! She wasn't working when my big sister was young, so she got to teach her how to sew. My husband won't even let me put buttons back on.

"Sure, honey, you can clean out the bathroom drain, but leave my shirts alone."

Sometimes it bothers me -- everyone wants to feel needed as well as loved, and when I find my kids fixing their own oatmeal, washing their own clothes and writing their own book reports, I feel inadequate. But not for long. Buzz still can't find his shoes in the morning, Ben never remembers to take his coat, and every now and then, even Scott needs me, too. He needs me to rescue a pair of kittens, he needs me to renew his tags, or he needs me to send a check...

-- Mary Reeves is a Times-Gazette staff writer. She can be reached at mreeves@t-g.com.