When Choosing to Do Nothing Means Everything

Today I was supposed to take my son to tour a college campus. He’s talked of becoming an engineer  for awhile now, just like his grandpa, certain he wanted to attend this particular school. We were scheduled to be gone all day, leave before dawn for the long drive. Last night, I reminded him how early we needed to wake up, and he sighed, storming off down the hall to his room. I felt a little bewildered; he had seemed interested if not excited to go. 

A little while later, I asked what the problem was. He complained about wanting to sleep in and enjoy his day off from school. I felt annoyed and slightly angry. My husband and I both scheduled the day to be gone from our work all day. We chided him for his laziness, expressing our frustration that he wasn’t following through with a commitment; not terribly uncommon for 16-year-olds, but a habit we weren’t pleased that he has formed. When he began to storm off again, we stopped him. I asked if there was another reason he didn’t want to go besides just sleeping in. 

That’s when his eyes welled with tears. 

“I don’t want to be an engineer anymore. I don’t know what I want to do.” Instantly my heart sank and I filled with sadness as I realized how much hurt my mini-me was experiencing. After we talked with him a while longer, assuring him we weren’t upset with him for feeling this way, rather that we simply wish he would have told us sooner, I had to sit with my own feelings, all the ways I’d gone wrong, or what I could have done differently to help him better. The negativity spiral was forming.

So this morning, I thought I’d have my time back today to get stuff done. Imagine my surprise when my son gets up before 9 am and asks if we can watch the Star Wars prequels. I told him maybe later, then spent a couple of hours trying to get some business work done. Then he wanted help making homemade waffles. 

I kept getting pulled back to my to do list, feeling like I was wasting my day, that I could have, should have been doing something more productive. At one point I told him, why don’t you just go ahead and shower and get ready for your day. He asked if we were going to watch the movies. At that moment I realized that yesterday I had planned to spend this day with my son. The only thing that had changed was location. 

I looked at my list and asked myself what, if any of that stuff, simply MUST get done today? None of it. Nothing I wrote down was more important than me being there for my son during a time he was struggling for self-confidence, assurance, support, and love. Me simply showing an interest in something he loves was a much bigger gesture than he probably even realizes.

But that didn’t stop me from feeling guilty. As the evening wore on, I kept thinking about how I knew there was no reason to feel that way, which just made me of course feel worse. Feeling bad about feeling bad. And the spiral continued, despite me telling myself that this was a day for me to be present with my son. 

By the time I put myself in the bath for a tension-relieving soak, I knew I had to forgive myself for having those feelings. I made a choice today to allow my son to have his feelings, to choose for himself, to be empowered, but I had not given myself the same option. I chose to blow off some of those tasks to sit and watch cheesy George Lucas one-liners with my kid, but I still felt bad about it. Until I realized that I needed the same grace and empathy for myself. That all those other tasks “needing” to be done today weren’t as important as the one thing I did accomplish: being a present parent. Choosing my son today was the only thing today that really mattered. For both of us.