Five Minute Friday - Surprise

Linking up with Five Minute Friday today, writing for five minutes, unedited on a one-word prompt...

This week's prompt is:

Surprise...

I shouldn’t be surprised that I had a child who is just like me…after all, my mother (and probably my father, though I can’t bring to mind a memory of hearing him say that to me, while my mother’s voice rings loud and clear in my head) wished it on me many years ago.

We are both strong-willed (stubborn, if you prefer the more negative sounding adjective), driven and have perfectionist tendencies (okay, maybe more like streaks than tendencies if I have to be honest, at least about myself). What is most surprising to me, however, and hardest to deal with as far as my attempts to figure out how to connect with her and make our relationship less combative, is that we are strong-willed, driven and perfectionist with regard to very different areas of our lives.

I have to remind myself that the things that are important to me at this time in my life, as the full-time work-outside-the-home mother of three are not even on the radar of my accomplished, talented and brilliant high school junior trying to figure out what her future holds.

This is the surprise of parenting – even though I’ve been where she is, it’s so far in my rear-view mirror that watching her go through it is like experiencing it all over again, but with jaded eyes and to-do lists running amok in my mind. Here’s hoping we can surprise each other with a little more grace, compassion and empathy offered back and forth during this transition that is happening at warp speed to our whole family.