Mommy Jane Warshaw and her cats were quarantined to her bedroom when her daughter moved back home after college.
Mommy, I’m Home
By Jane Warshaw
My daughter recently graduated from college and got her first real job. I thought I’d be one of those parents who worried about adjusting to an empty nest.
I wish. My daughter is still living at home. Apparently there are a lot of frustrated and conflicted parents like me who are dealing with the return of grown children. FOX even has a new “reality” program about us on the Family channel called Kicked Out. According to the latest U.S. census, 57 percent of my daughter’s graduating class – the class of 2004 – came knocking on their parents’ door after graduation. MonsterTrak, an online job site, put the number of young adults still on the parental dole at an even more staggering 67 percent.
Not only is my daughter living with me, so is her dog – an 80-pound Shepherd Akita rescue. She has a boyfriend too, and he’s hanging out here most of the time. Running into the realities of New York real estate, she couldn’t find an affordable apartment to rent in a neighborhood where it was safe for her to go outside, even with her dog. And she has debts to pay as a result of the unsolicited credit cards several banks sent her even when she had no income.
I love my daughter like crazy, and I thought I’d enjoy having her home again. But too often it’s like having an unpleasant boarder who resents the presence of the innkeeper.
I have a great two-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment with a very large terrace, an apartment I was lucky enough to have bought 26 years ago. But these days my two cats, their litter box and I are largely confined to my bedroom. That’s because my daughter’s dog thinks it’s great fun to chase my cats and bark at them.
The dog, meanwhile, enjoys the entire apartment and terrace. Did I mention that her dog sheds? It’s more like the creature just sits there flinging fur out of her body. I can’t vacuum enough to keep up with all the fur. Well, maybe I can, but who’d want to? I actually like the dog, but I don’t like having fur all over the place. I’m considering wrapping her body in Saran Wrap reinforced with duct tape.
When my daughter’s boyfriend is here, they spend most of their time holed up in her bedroom with the door closed, so they are a presence without being company. She and I do some things together, like going shopping and getting manicures, but our little outings seem to be getting fewer and farther between.
It could be worse. My friend Leslie lives in a studio apartment with her son who graduated from college five years ago. Another middle-aged mom I know solved the problem by precluding it. She moved to a one-bedroom apartment in California while her son was still attending college in Massachusetts.
My daughter is a good person. She’s thoughtful, smart, attractive, sensitive, and generous with her friends. But not always with me. As a single parent I tried to make up for the absence of her father by sending her to private schools and expensive camps, and spending all my free time with her. If anyone was mean to her, I was on them like a mother lion.
To all my pals who decided not to have children and who may be questioning that decision, there’s a lot to be said for a nice cat or a dog. They’re never grumpy and they don’t borrow your clothes.
Why have I tolerated this situation? I’m not a wimpy person. But I grew up without a mother, so I’m not always sure how mothers are supposed to act. Maybe I go too far. I know my relationship with my daughter is very intense. I want her to be happy. I may be trying to be the mother I never had. I know I’m not quite ready to follow the hardball advice of Kicked Out and just show her the door. As difficult as I find having her (and her boyfriend and her dog) living here, she wants to have her own place even more. She wants to be independent, take the LSATs and go to law school.
When she finally does move out, I know I’ll miss her. But I’m starting to think there’s a lot to be said for an empty nest. There will be a large hole in my life, but I’m already making plans to fill it by moving my desk, files, computer, multifunction fax-copier-scanner-printer out of my bedroom and into hers – my new home office. If ever she wants to move back home again, I hope she likes the living room sofa and my new rules: No dogs or boyfriends allowed, unless they’re mine.
