A couple of weeks ago my youngest daughter turned 18 amid a wave of excitement which I kept dampening. I couldn’t understand what could be so different about this particular birthday, one day it’s Friday, the next day it’s Saturday…end of story!
“Oh but” she kept reminding me, “one day I’m 17 the next day I’m 18!” What’s the big deal? Particularly in MY house? I imagine she thinks she’ll gain full independence overnight, like magic. She has a new phrase in her vocabulary; when told she cannot do something (as in “NO”) she looks me full in the eye and says,
“Yes I can.”
And we’re not talking about reading dull text books on her own, or performing a quadratic equation, we’re talking defiance, plain and simple.
Anyway after turning 18 she asked me to accompany her to have her ear cartilage pierced. The tragus to be technical, as in trailer trash tragus. Notice she didn’t ask IF she could have it pierced, she informed me that she WAS having it pierced and invited me to go with her. As I said to my husband, who looked as though he was going to have a heart attack, “it’s only a piercing, it’ll heal.”
To date, that’s where homeschooling has led me, unscathed or so I thought, until I entered the first tattoo, piercing parlour of my life and saw a full sized statue of the Virgin Mary staring me in the face. A typical homeschooler? Me? I don’t think so!
Well hello there! My name is Vivienne McNeny.
I am an empty nester exploring life as a Boomer…you could say I'm happily Boomering along!
As a homeschooling Mum I have finally quit the job of role model and mentor to my four children. I do what I want to do, eat when I feel like it, enjoy life with my blue eyed cowboy and clean my house once a month or so whether it needs it or not!
In true English form I write about the emergence of my true identity now that I can no longer hide behind my children as their Mum.
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