Here’s what nobody tells you about parenting adult children: you spend decades learning to let go, pride yourself on how well you’ve done it, and then just as you feel settled into a new phase, life throws you back into the trenches of hands-on mothering. And sometimes, it turns out to be the greatest gift you never knew you needed.
Aged 65, I’d become pretty good at being the mother of a 30-year-old. I’d mastered the art of not calling too often, of swallowing my advice unless asked, of pretending I wasn’t stalking her on social media. I was busy anyway – running a company, serving on boards and globe-trotting to music festivals like some ageing groupie. Life was full. Then came Thailand.
At 65, I got to return to active parenting when caring for my adult daughter. Credit: iStock
My brilliant, independent lawyer daughter needed gender reassignment surgery, a procedure that no Australian surgeon was equipped to handle due to the complexity of her case. Because that’s what happens when you raise an overachiever: they develop equally overachieving medical conditions. She found a surgeon in Thailand, made the arrangements, and informed me with the casual air of someone announcing they’re popping out for coffee.
“Mum, you really don’t need to come,” she said, in that tone adult children use when they’re trying to be kind while secretly wondering if you’ve lost your marbles. “I’m 30, remember? I’ve got this.”
But mothers never really stop being mothers – we just get better at disguising our hovering as casual interest. So, without a formal invitation, I flew to Thailand alongside her, armed with nothing but blind faith and a mother’s obstinate love.
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The surgery went well, though watching your child being wheeled into theatre never gets easier, no matter how old they are. In those first few days of recovery, as she lay there in her hospital bed, I remembered what it was like when she was small – the fierce protectiveness, the constant vigilance, the way time seems to stop when your child needs you.
Then came the food crisis. The hospital, despite their assurances that they would be able to cater to her coeliac disease, turned out to be about as gluten-aware as a bread factory. Suddenly, there I was, in a tiny Thai apartment with a kitchen the size of a postage stamp, channelling my inner Julia Child.
Every day I’d venture to the local market, armed with Google Translate and determination to find ingredients that wouldn’t make her violently ill. I’d point at items to bewildered vendors until I finally had enough ingredients to return home and somehow cobble together a meal.
