by Laura Falin posted in Parenting

A few years ago I was with my mom at a barbeque when a friend struck up a conversation. She mentioned to my mother that it must be nice to have all her kids out of the house so she no longer had to worry about them. My mom laughed and said, "No, it doesn't work like that."
I have to say, I was kind of insulted.
I'm an adult, Mom. I have a family of my own. I have a mortgage and kids and a dog and responsibilities and you can stop worrying about me. I'm good.
Then my kids started to get older, and I realized my thinking was way off. I believed when my children were no longer babies, I'd stop worrying about them so much. At that time, I listened to almost every breath they took. I stayed up all night when they had a temperature. I worried about whether they were nursing enough and pooping enough and getting enough sleep and so many more things.
When they moved on to being toddlers, I figured surely once we were out of that stage I wouldn't stress so much. Toddlers are scary. They put everything in their mouths and try to run into traffic and pull things over and want to climb everything. Once they were older, I knew I'd calm down.
Then I thought when they were out of preschool, I'd get a break from the worry. Preschool was when we discovered whether they would struggle with learning or socializing. They started getting hurt feelings and having friend troubles that made my heart break (and they were still trying to dart thro...