Thomas Hicks Borden, from about 1822. This was back in the day when all children wore dresses for the first few years of their lives.

Never forget that you, too, were once a clueless person.

As I help my kids navigate the tricky landscape of “I’m an adult now, ahhh!”-ville, it’s so interesting to see their challenges through both my current life experience lens, and to remember what I was like at their age, in their shoes. Navigating a job, navigating being away from home at college… I struggled with it all myself. My mom was at the other end of a phone line, but there wasn’t the constantly available help that texting allows for today.

I am exceptionally grateful to be able to be of service to my children, to have suggestions to give and perspective to offer that I didn’t have at their age but have accumulated in the decades since. Things that are easy for me were once hard. And some things that were once very hard are only moderately less hard for me now. I remember viscerally what it was like to be in new social situations and have no idea how to act. This still happens to me some of the time when I am somewhere without one of My People(TM) by my side.

But there are still plenty of scenarios where I now know what to do, and can give good, solid advice to my kids. Some of the time, they even take it! But, regardless, they appreciate my efforts and continue to come to me for support. I am so grateful to be in their lives and have them in mine.

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