So God Made a Mother is Here! 🎉

I have an adult child.

My oldest son walked across the stage a few months ago and received his high school diploma. I have practiced saying this to myself silently, but it has taken some time to be able to say it out loud.

In my mind, I secretly don’t think I’m old enough for this new stage of parenting.

I watched him walk across the stage and I thought that was just me yesterday.
He is the same age now as his father and I were when we met. I was 18 years old, a new high school graduate on top of the world, naïve enough to think that everything I had planned would go just that—according to plan. My son arrived approximately 16.5 months later and blew every plan I thought I had out of the water. Yes, we eventually added four kids after him, but he was the one who made me a mom. He was the one who taught me patience, and how to revel in the simple things, and that I was much, much stronger than I had ever believed.

And now when people ask how many kids I have, I never know how precisely to respond.

“Well five, but one is an adult.” It seems like the right answer, but the wrong one at the same time, a conundrum of explaining how the years flew by in the blink of an eye, but during the hard phases seemed agonizingly slow.

Yesterday he was a little boy recklessly flying down the sidewalk on his first bicycle. Now he scares my mom heart with his driving and his use of power tools.

He has been the child whose hand I most frequently have ended up holding in the emergency room. He is the child I had to be careful not to entitle as “the man of the house” when his father and I divorced because I felt that was too much of a load for a teenage boy. And somehow he assumed that role anyway, willingly fixing the sink and mowing the lawn when he probably should have been out making mischief with his friends.

As he reaches this new stage in his life, I question where my role as his mom is supposed to take me next.

Is my work here done?
Did I do enough to teach him how to be a responsible adult?
Do I still call him my “kid?”
Is he still going to need me?

I think this is how it works when you have an adult child, but I’m not quite sure. Like we did the day he was born, he and I are learning to navigate this new stage together.

He comes and goes, and I don’t ask as many questions as I once would have about where he’s been or what he’s doing. I know I have to trust that he is making the right decisions.

He is an adult now, a high school graduate, a young man with two jobs and his own life. He has his own ideas for what his future holds, whether I agree with all of those thoughts or not.

I should remind him that not everything always goes according to plan, but part of letting go is letting him figure that out on his own.

I know the day is coming where he is going to walk in the door and say “Mom, I got my own place.” I can feel it. And I dread it.

But for now, I still ask him to pick up his socks. And I still yell at him when he leaves a mess in the kitchen.

Once my kid, always my kid.

You may also like:

When Your Little Boys Aren’t Little Anymore, This is What You Can Look Forward To

Let Us Raise Boys Who Have Respect Running Through Their Veins

So God Made a Mother book by Leslie Means

If you liked this, you'll love our new book, SO GOD MADE A MOTHER available now!

Order Now

Amy Geurden

Amy Geurden is a single mom of five, writer, marketing specialist, advocate for early childhood education, and lover of all things outdoors. She believed in the power of imagination, positive thoughts, and having your "village" to get you through the hard days.

A Mother Doesn’t Lose Herself—She Grows into Someone New

In: Grown Children, Motherhood, Teen
Son kissing his mother's forehead, outdoor photo

A part of us dies when we have a child. And we don’t mind at the time because the child becomes our world and fills the gap that was formed. And me becomes us and I is forgotten. We’ll get our life back one day. We’ll get our self back on track soon—perhaps when they are toddlers, or go to school, have sleepovers, or become teens. But we don’t. Because our life as we knew it has gone. It simply drifted away. And as much as we tried to cling to some small part, it crumbled as we touched it...

Keep Reading

I’m Letting Go of My Toxic Mother

In: Grief, Grown Children, Loss
Daughter holding mother's hand, color photo

My mom died. She died, but I became free. For the very first time in my life, I’m not worried about what stories and lies she’s spreading about me. Even though we lived thousands of miles apart from each other, she had everyone around me in the palm of her hand. They believed her. I was a horrible child, rebellious teenager, and spiteful adult.  You see, I was never good enough for her. Her fantasy of what she believed a daughter ought to be is something I simply could never live up to. When I realized the behavior was transferring...

Keep Reading

My Childhood Home Is Forever a Part of Me

In: Grown Children, Living
Mother, father, daughter, older color photo

Of all the places I will roam, home is forever part of me. I can see the bright, orange poppies coming out to grace the springtime hills. I can hear the classic hymns being played on the familiar piano—its notes drifting God’s praise throughout the house. I can smell the fragrant aroma of brown sugar, butter, cinnamon, and oats mixing together to make the cookies of my childhood. I can touch your warm embrace—the firm hug that has always communicated that it will all be okay, that God has us held in the palm of his hands. I can taste...

Keep Reading

When the Last Baby Graduates

In: Grown Children, Living, Motherhood
Graduate with parents smiling, cap and gown

We’ve been through this before, so we know the waves of emotions that roll through us. When our kids graduate—be it from preschool, elementary school, middle school, high school, or college—we moms come to terms with one season ending and a new one beginning. RELATED: I Blinked and You Went From Kindergarten to College When it’s your last child who is graduating from college, this can feel like uncharted territory. Yes, we know that we find new rhythms to our relationship from having gone through this with our other child(ren). But we as moms have not yet left the college...

Keep Reading

Full Circle Moments and Precious Memories

In: Grown Children, Living, Motherhood
Father and young daughter, old photo next to adult daughter in classroom, color photo

Parents often leave imprints on their children’s hearts. As a mom, I sometimes find myself wondering if this is true, but as a daughter, I know it to be true. This is because growing up, my dad left such a big imprint on my own heart. He imprinted the love of reading into my life when I was a young girl. He would read stories to me at bedtime every night until I could read them back to him. We would become immersed in each story, and I savored this bedtime ritual through the years. RELATED: It Doesn’t Matter How...

Keep Reading

5 Money Tips to Set Your Kids Up for a Strong Financial Future

In: Grown Children, Kids, Motherhood, Teen
Father putting quarters in child's hand

As parents, we want to see our children become independent, but the transition to financial independence has unique challenges. I get it. I have three children of my own, and each of them deals with money differently. The transition can be especially difficult if you are a family that doesn’t talk openly about money. Regardless of whether money has been an open topic in the past, as your high school graduate moves on to the next chapter in their life, it’s important to help them start thinking about their financial future. College tuition, rent, and other expenses can be overwhelming...

Keep Reading

Mothering Doesn’t End at Graduation

In: Grown Children, Motherhood, Teen
Mom hugging new grad

From the moment we hear our baby’s cry after giving birth, we are on a beautiful hamster wheel of stages, phases, and 24 hours of endless love for these humans we created. Long sleepless nights, doctor appointments, diapers, bottles, sippy cups, baby food, first steps, first words, first illness, first milestones, first bus ride to school to the high school diploma—it’s almost impossible to quantify everything that happens during the first 18 years of life. We’ve all had a love/hate relationship with our weekends flooded with scheduling—for us, it was Little League games, tennis tournaments, and eventually competitive baseball showcases....

Keep Reading

As a Mom of Teens, I’m Rounding the Corner on An Empty Nest

In: Grown Children, Motherhood, Teen
Mom and teen daughter

I’m reaching the age where friends are becoming empty nesters. I see their heartfelt posts about leaving their youngest child at college, their baby moving cross-country, or their last child leaving home for some other adventure and realize that as the parent of two teens, my turn is coming.    My friends’ words are so brave! They acknowledge that their big emotions are an indicator of the love they have for their children. They share that though they are heartbroken by how their own lives are changing, they are over-the-moon grateful for this new chapter in their children’s lives.   Many of...

Keep Reading

Moms Show Up and It’s What Matters Most

In: Grown Children, Motherhood
Mother and adult daughter, smiling, black-and-white photo

I think I’ve decided that maybe the most important thing in parenthood is simply showing up. It could be picking your child up from school or daycare. It doesn’t matter if the afternoon is going to be chaos or if there are 101 things to get done. In those moments your child comes out of the classroom door and they spot you, their face is all the thanks you need. Even if it’s only for a second, there’s always a smile that says I’m happy to see you.  A sports game, or up on stage, school assemblies, even a bench...

Keep Reading

My Adoptive Mom is My Mother

In: Grown Children, Motherhood
Handwritten note that says I love you! Mom and a flower drawn

She patiently cleaned the chocolate ice cream off my shirt the first day we met, even as I vehemently asserted, “You’re not my mommy!” She carefully laid out my new room, created an introductory picture book that I still have to this day, and kept calm in the volcano of my emotions that I angrily graced her with within days of my moving in. She wrote me notes to remind me of her love—little sheets of paper with her signature flower drawing that I still have to this day. She taught me basic skills no one else had shown me,...

Keep Reading