Never too old to be mothered
The conversation started the usual way, just a few lines of text on the screen. But within a few minutes it devolved into a typical and probably annoying bit of mommy-nagging. I just couldn’t help myself.
My son and his fiancée are getting ready to enjoy summer in their backyard. First, a fence so their dog can run around, then a fire pit, and then this week, the news they’ll be buying a grill.
And what was this mom’s first thought? How nice it will be to cook outside? That there’s nothing like that barbecue smell on a summer evening?
No, not that. This.
“Don’t use a wire grill brush,” I texted. “Those little wires can get into your food and get lodged in your body.” I went on to tell them the story of a “friend” who ate a burger that had a wire in it and she “got an infection and almost lost her esophagus.”
Was that true? It doesn’t matter because I told that story for emphasis, to scare them.
“Get another kind of grill brush,” I wrote, which led me to what’s become a predictable Phase Two of my mother worry. Stamp out the anxiety with money.
“I’ll have a safe grill brush sent to you,” I texted, but my son was planning to buy the brush at the same time he buys the grill.
“Then I’ll send you some money for it,” I texted.
And that is how small bits of money tend to flow on cash apps from my bank to my children’s – not because they ask for it or even need it, but to calm my parental nerves.
Now that my children are adults with their own lives, I have settled into a pattern of catastrophizing. I wasn’t like this when they were younger: bruises or bug bites were just that. But when they grew and flew I began to magnify, gaining a reputation with my son and daughter for being “so dramatic.”
It doesn’t matter that my kids don’t complain much. Even a quick call from my daughter about a patch of dry skin (hers) or an itchy ear (my granddog’s) sends me to the cash app with a note to get some cortisone cream.
Check your brakes. Lock your doors. Be sure to put the gas cap back on after pumping in case someone tosses a lit cigarette out a passing car window. Don’t sleep with your phone next to your head. Keep your butter in the fridge so the ants don’t come around. Seriously, how did these fully formed human beings survive all these years living away from me?
“I’m not dramatic – I’m concerned,” I tell my kids. Sometimes they shrug and laugh off my advice, and sometimes they humor me. And sometimes, I land one right where it’s needed. My daughter and her husband are about to move to a new house.
“The No. 1 reason dogs run away is when the family is moving,” I warned. “Doors are left open and dogs escape.” Is that true? It matters not, because my daughter said she hadn’t considered that danger, and she thanked me.
As for grill brush wires, I looked it up just now, and yes, people have gotten really sick from swallowing them. My son is going to get a non-wire brush, so one less thing to worry about.
“And be sure to keep the grill far away from the house,” I told him. “People have been known to catch their house on fire.”
I just had to get that one last one in. I can’t help myself.