What’s a Do-er to do?
When the stakes are higher than being trapped at the Springfield Mall in 1998
Heading into the spring semester with a college senior is a challenge in general, and especially for those of us navigating our own issues with control. Essentially, you’re always finding new ways to ask “what’s the plan?” or “how can I help you get where you want to go?” Except the plan is more like fingerprints on a dusty handrail than a map with even a vague destination.
The experience is actually most like staring at a map at the mall with a bright red “you are here” arrow (here, being, in my house) and nothing but options in all kinds of directions and the metaphorical shopper you’re standing next to kind of mumbles “maybe I’ll go to the food court… or Claire’s” but those two places are in opposite directions and also Claire’s filed for bankruptcy so is that really the right direction to head in? And you also know what they really need is actually at The Gap but they’re focused on food or accessories and you’re like… “no you just need some practical pants… what are you doing???”
Not that I’ve thought about it that much and/or had actual nightmares with that scene playing on repeat while able to actually smell the “butter” from a nearby Auntie Anne’s.
I digress.
It’s not just me and it’s not just my kids (or this kid in particular). I recently had lunch with fellow parents of a college senior who are also watching inertia affect their child in real time: our respective objects at rest stay at rest even when we’d very much like them to be in motion. The line between encouraging and enabling a college senior is a blurry one: you don’t want to enable, you want to gently push. You cannot force action but you also very much do not want a recent college graduate living in your home 2-3 months after graduating with no plan (see: tales of the couch vampire).
Since I’m me, I want so badly to make a check list and give super clear guidance but I know I can’t and, if I did, I know it would only make things worse.
My mother, courtesy of her mother, used to say there were two kinds of people in the world: “do-ers” and “be-ers.” The implication was clear: you want to be a do-er. You don’t want to just “be.” Do-ers take action, they own their destiny, they seize control. Be-ers… I don’t even know. It wasn’t discussed. After all, Nike doesn’t tell you to “just be it.” The point was that I needed to be a do-er and, to this day, I try to be one. In my worst moments, I become a be-er, which only reminds me, again, that the optimum choice is to be a do-er.
Step-parenting is the ultimate reality check for a do-er because you rarely get to “do” anything. You get things done to you. For years, so many decisions in my life were made for me based on Jeff’s ex — ranging from little things like custody swaps because of a change in plans to really large things that had a major impact on my life. Once, she asked for an advance on child support out of the formal court payment system and promised to report it so the court would know. Jeff said yes. She refused to confirm she’d been paid and the whole time we spent proving our case to the state of Michigan, Jeff couldn’t get a passport. My entire honeymoon was postponed 18 months because Jeff did her a favor.
In some ways, she did me a favor by setting the bar low early on and showing me how little control I actually had.
Outside of his dealing with his ex, just being a tertiary parental figure automatically moves you from “do” to “be.” I can see what needs to happen, I can propose ideas or solutions to Jeff, but ultimately he makes the call and/or he has the conversation. This isn’t necessarily a problem to fix or an issue I have, just a fact due to the role in question.
All of my experience step-parenting, however, has been amazing practice for having older kids who are fully out of the house. (Obviously, no complaints about that part, since it is, after all, the goal). But the updates you get are incomplete, the attempts to get more information get left on read, and the interest in your feedback, as helpful as it could be, is nil.
We saw it manifest differently with all three kids. Oldest moved across the country and was extremely self-sufficient so she shared very little in the first place. At some point we stopped putting our Oliver Twist hands out begging for crumbs of info and just accepted whatever was handed to us. Middle only wants help when everything falls apart but not before that point (even if you can see clearly things are headed downhill). And after you help, he counts things as resolved so you’re once again cut out of the loop even if there’s still a ways to go. Youngest has a new idea she’s incredibly passionate about every month or two and they rarely stick but you can’t point that out because “this time it’s different” (and to be fair, sometimes it is!).
These are all pretty age-appropriate/personality-specific ways to handle it so obviously the problem, once again, is me; specifically because I am not good at “being” and it’s very hard for me. I was conditioned that way early on but even if the whole “do-ers” vs. “be-ers” dichotomy hadn’t been explained to me I was still raised by the ultimate “do-er” who, if anything, was overly eager to help. I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately as my niece starts the college search process and I can just picture my mother trying to be laid back but not being able to help herself from jumping in and giving (likely very good but probably unwanted) guidance.
I know exactly what she looked like in the moments before she leapt in with an (again, often very good but unwanted) idea — almost like she was rocking back and forth holding her own brilliance in before it exploded outward. I know this feeling well because I have it myself and my own lack of poker face has betrayed it many many times.
I even bought one of those self-help books about letting go (you know the ones with the confident declarative title that promises if you just stop trying to control everything, peace will appear on your doorstep). Outside of more than one example of what not to do sounding like a summary of something I’d already done, reading it mostly made me realize I’m so much of a do-er that I bought a book to teach me how to not do things.
For the New Year, I ended up setting goals to “work on my own mindset around control” and “develop appropriately supportive relationships with all kids.” Yes, they are SMART goals (fine, mostly, I just need to figure out how to measure them). But the reality is I have to “do” something even if that action is learning how to… just “be.”
Can I “just be” in my house with a college senior trying to not put on pressure but knowing once she’s back at school, absolutely nothing at all will happen so this is my window? Can I sit back and stay quiet? Is sitting back and staying quiet wisdom or surrender?
I’m not sure but I suppose if I bite my tongue hard enough the rest of this month it’ll be hard to speak when I stop being able to hold it. At some point when you’re trapped at the mall, you just head in one direction and turn around when you realize it’s not right.
Or when you end up by a Bath & Body Works and the smell of Juniper Breeze makes you nauseous.
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