I never let my kids look at photo albums from when I was in high school or college when they were young. There are pictures of me dancing in short dresses, a glass (sometimes two) of wine in my hands. There are a few of me with a cigarette holder. It was kind of a joke, because I used to smoke those long skinny cigarettes. I loved that cigarette holder because it made me feel like Audrey Hepburn. It was the 90s, and I probably wasn’t doing anything worse than any other kids my age.
But deep down, I thought if I let my kids see that side of me, then they would think it was okay for them to smoke and drink and raise hell.
I tried to shield them from everything I could because I was scared of what would happen to them. I’m not saying it was effective or the right way to parent by any means, but it was the only way I knew how.
One day my kids were bored and decided to poke around the attic (my hiding place) while I was in the shower. So imagine me running down the hall in my bathrobe, dripping wet, as my kids’ screamed “Mom!” because I thought something terrible had happened.
It kinda had. They found my albums. After the shock from learning their mother used to drink and smoke (gasp!) they couldn’t stop staring at me. My first reaction was to take the evidence and run, but they’d already seen it, and I realized they were old enough to handle it anyway. Then I thought, hey, it’s actually good for them to see how fun I used to be.
Unfortunately, instead of thinking I was fun and viewing me as a human who’s more than just their mom, they told me how cringy it all was.
To them, I’ve only ever been their mom. Their overbearing mom who grew up in the ‘80s and ‘90s; a time when my parents couldn’t track me, it was easy to lie about where I was, and smoking pot behind the building where I worked or sipping a Zima was the norm. But they don’t get that part, of course.
A lot of kids were on their own back then, running free after school, going to each other’s houses, and, more often than not, getting into things we weren’t supposed to. In fact, it was so fun that it caused a lot of us to make some pretty poor decisions. Some decisions we’d never want our kids to make. It was just so easy to get away with more back then because kids in those days just had more freedom. And we took advantage of it. There’s a reason Gen-Xers wonder every day how they made it this far.
Motherhood changed me. As soon as I had kids, I started worrying about what would happen to them if they did all the things I did in my younger years: sneaking out, driving around with people I didn’t really know, lying about where I was. I know firsthand the kinds of things teenagers will do when left to their own devices. It’s funny to listen to them talk about how they can’t imagine me doing those things because I’m so overprotective now. So of course to them I’m a completely different person.
And so even though they’ve seen the photographic evidence that I used to party, I’ve still had to convince them I used to be fun and irresponsible. To them, I’ve always been an anxious person who worries about all the things and needs people to constantly check in so I know they are safe.
It’s funny how different stages of your life literally turn you into a different version of yourself. My childhood helped shape the mother I am today, and I do like the mom that I am even though my kids wish I’d back off a bit … and even if I sometimes miss that recklessly carefree girl with the cigarette holder in her hand.
Diana Park is a writer who finds solitude in a good book, the ocean, and eating fast food with her kids.
