This past Wednesday morning came with an intense bout of worrying about our adult children. Career, School, Apartment – these are the most pressing concerns in my mind. Child One needs to start her official career. Child Two needs a credential. Child Three needs an apartment. Our two twenty something adult daughters live at home w/o much responsibility beyond their own care, and our son, a recent graduate to adulthood, is about to be on his own in approximately 41 days.

And I committed the most deadly of the suburban-mother sins: I began to think of my children in relation to other people’s kids. This is a trap that I have assiduously sought to avoid throughout my time in Shaker Heights with varying levels of success. Comparison is a fool’s errand that will leave you wanting every time. The husband is consistent in saying and believing that he wouldn’t trade his children with anyone. I am guilty of sometimes believing that if they were a bit more like this one or that one with their academic or professional goals, they’d be more successful and, therefore, happier. Happiness is another pitfall of the suburban mother playbook. And as I’ve seen and known, often diametrically opposed to the triune goals of top-college acceptances; graduation w/ honors; and a great apartment in CHI/D.C./ATL/HOU/NYC/BOS/LA or some similar place in Europe. Success is sometimes defined as getting to visit your adult children in cities w/ great museums and excellent restaurants. And I must confess w/o much detail, that our youngest has given me that form of success. I worry about his safety, professional trajectory, etc., and worry about him being lonely w/o his birth family. But he is launched in and living his dream.

I worry about the twenty somethings for other reasons. Perhaps they are impacted more by the attendant scars of the pandemic and being young Black women in a community, city, and country that too often casts them as supporting characters as opposed to potential main characters. A friend (and fellow transplanted New Yorker) warned me about the perils of raising Black girls in places and spaces normed to white, middle-class values. Reading Charles Blow’s op-ed about Drew Barrymore and Kamala Harris this morning reminded me of all the stereotypes that our collective culture tries to hang on Black girls and women. Reggie and I worked hard, so hard, to instill self-esteem and pride in who they were and are. And the many, many times we had to demand that other adults see them as people with value and feelings rather than as ciphers.

My corner of the world appreciates quiet, respectful, athletic, physically and/or artistically gifted African-American boys. Black girls with the same attributes are perceived and received differently. Too assertive? People begrudgingly acknowledge your talents. Too reticent? People on-purpose overlook you, skipping to acknowledging people who remind them of themselves. Some days it feels like our daughters are recovering from a series of micro aggressions that no amount of time in the school-supported racial affinity group they both participated in could have healed or explained away. And so some mornings when my mind is not occupied with generating a dissertation topic or listening to NPR, I worry about my children and whether or not I set the right expectations for them. Perhaps a different school or community would have mitigated the unique burden that Black girls are forced to bear. In these years between the end of childhood and the arrival of theoretical grandchildren or grand fur babies there is a lot of time to second guess our child rearing choices and philosophy. And what if any responsibility we hold for not blunting the impact of forces beyond our control. So I offer what I/we can, an extended stay in a safe place where there is always an encouraging word, butter, and sometimes a home-cooked meal.