Let me clue any young parents in on a secret: Membership in the parental fraternity is temporary. It may not seem so now — what with the challenges of juggling carpools and basketball games, carefully monitoring screen time and marveling at first-grade homework — but it passes in a flash. Before you know it, your kid is 3,000 miles away and you’re driving to a birthday party in Benicia on a Friday night with your wife, your young friend Ray and his new even younger girlfriend, who could actually be your child.
You’re able to hang out with millennial Ray and his girlfriend because, like you, they don’t have kids to worry about. They’re at the beginning of the road, whereas you — who once couldn’t fathom the freedom of accepting an invitation to an adult birthday party without first coordinating playdates and/or $20-an-hour babysitters — have reached the stage where parenting is a part-time consultancy, not a full-time management business. Tomorrow you will go to dinner with more age-appropriate friends. The dinner, set for 7 p.m., gets planned at 5. Why not? You’re flexible. You’ve got options.
But it’s not just that. Although Ray and girlfriend are so young that being with them negates any hopes of referencing something you saw on TV in 1970, they are also years from entering kid land, and so will not spend the evening talking about the kid issues listed above. Frankly, having already lived through them, you may not be so eager to speak about them yourself.
To wit: Yes, your son’s macaroni collage is fantastic. He is definitely showing artistic genius. And yes, they really should take another look at Common Core math.
That will not happen tonight. Nor will it happen tomorrow night. And maybe that doesn’t break your heart. There will likely be a time, shockingly soon considering how recently your increasingly addled memory insists you played high school baseball, when there are grandchildren, and you will re-enter the world of little kids — albeit from a safe distance. Until then, don’t beat yourself up if you glaze over while listening to a fellow partygoer relate a tale of independent-school kindergarten screenings.
Instead, remind this harried parent that it is, indeed, temporary; that while right now he might feel overwhelmed, his daughter’s “no!” phase will not last forever. Far too soon he will be having dinner with her nervous teenage boyfriend, using all of his mental powers to maintain a mask of calm upon hearing the phrase “We’ll probably go to (insert name) party after the game” and, finally, getting blindsided with the full force of 3,000 miles of distance one day because he sees a 4-year-old reach up to hold his father’s hand before crossing the street.
It’s not only temporary; it’s lightning fast. So fast that you’ll need to create a catalog of videos, because the minute your son’s voice changes you’ll immediately forget what he sounded like before. So fast you can guarantee that by the time you’ve adjusted to the latest challenge, it’s already been replaced by another one, and this one makes that one look like a walk in the park.
The good news is that you’ll have other empty-nest friends. Together you’ll have some 20 years of shared experience to discuss — and they’ll get your “Gilligan’s Island” references. But your Ray friends are important, too. Being around them reminds you of where you once were and what a great ride it’s been.
You’ll see Ray and girlfriend holding hands at the birthday party in Benicia, seemingly unaware of the chaos around them. Then you’ll look at your wife across the table and feel that little zing run through you for the 10,000th time in 24 years and think wistfully, “Man, that was us.” You’ll remember when you were like them. And you’ll hope — maybe Ray will, too — that they’ve got what it takes to someday end up like us.
Larry Rosen is a San Francisco writer, editor, host of the podcast “(Is It) Good for the Jews?” and a recent empty nester. Reach him at [email protected].