Helicopter Moms: Babes for life

ST. PAUL, Minn., Feb. 9 (UPI) --I generally agree with poet Kahlil Gibran's poem, "On Children," about how they are the "sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself."

Life at large doesn't worry about them. That's my job. And I worry about them as if I delivered them yesterday.

My worrying isn't terribly selective. I worry when they travel, when they're out late, when they hit the mall (OK, that one may be more financially driven). I worry about them and lurk in the virtual background as if they were 5 or 7 or 9 years old.

Trouble is, my daughters are nearly 25, soon to be 22 and just turned 20.

But I'll always see them as my little girls, literally.

I still pause when I think my youngest spread her wings and got her first post-college, "real" job that requires paying taxes, setting up a 401(k) account and determining now much in pre-tax dollars should be withheld for health expenses. And, like most other taxpaying adults I know, she complains about taxes and wonders why she just can't keep all of her pay.

Silly, I know, but I still have to remind myself that she's a full-fledged member of the adult workforce, even if she doesn't clean her room until she really can't see any portion of the floor and still asks me to make tomato soup when she has a stomach ache.

My mantra: My girls are grown. My girls are grown. My girls are grown.

I have to still shake my head to loosen the cobwebs when I think about Daughter No. 2 jostling with professional photo journalists to shoot one of those 20-gazillion band concerts as a hired freelancer and getting paid well to boot. Eek! Is she OK? Keeping hydrated? Being careful about her money?

It seems like only yesterday I was buying her one-shot cameras for birthday parties and worried about whether she'd have enough exposures to last the night.

I've had a few years of getting used to Daughter No. 1 being away from the nest because she went to school way, way out of state. But I still remember escorting her to the bus stop on the first day of kindergarten, taking pictures (she was in an afternoon session and was the first child picked up) and getting all teary-eyed when she left my wing.

That whole teary-eyed thing repeated itself when we dropped her off at college and I realized that she had grown up and possibly outgrown me.

I also remember driving like a crazy woman to make sure daughters No. 1 and 2 got on the right bus the first day they walked to the school bus stop by themselves. (They did.)

My hovering ways transferred to my other half when Daughter No. 1 wanted to go to Norway after high school -- he was less than thrilled about her traveling by herself (actually with one other person), having to make connections, along with that whole being across the pond not across the street thing. But guess what? She did OK, had a blast and got back to St. Paul, Minn., in one piece.

My daughters, with their oh-so make-a-statement hair and their grownup ways, still have pudgy cheeks, runny noses and wrists defined more by lines than by bones. They laughed at my stupid jokes and cringed if I sang -- although some things never change -- and looked at me as some sort of defender against the world.

And I guess I was in some respects.

And I guess I still am in some respects.

I still throw a couple of prayers to various saints -- including St. Christopher, who lost his halo years ago -- whenever I hear about an antic that I think warrants a little extra-special worry or two.

My heart picks up a beat or two when my oldest talks about flitting hither, thither and yon for work or pleasure. I still worry when Daughter No. 2 alerts me that she's going out after her night class. And I get antsy when my youngest says she's going camping for the weekend.

Again, my mantra: My girls are grown. My girls are grown. My girls are grown.

Or as Gibran said: "You may house their bodies but not their souls; For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams."

Kind of harsh, but pretty darned accurate.

(Editor's note: Sometimes it's hard to tell whether you're tackling parenthood in the 21st century -- or being tackled by it. This is the latest in a series of reflections by UPI writers.)