9/5/2017 I’m ready to write a Dear John letter to both my children. I’m just so frustrated and over these incessant complaints. They’re 23 and 25 and acting like spoiled children. After all THEY put ME through! They want to be happy, they have dreams, they shouldn’t have to work like this, they shouldn’t have to do what they’re doing just to pay the bills . . . Man, shut the eff up. I’m 54, and have worked since I was 14. I want to be happy, I have dreams, I shouldn’t have to work like this just to loan them money when they’re short!

I’ve know been a solid role model of being a warrior mother, working at my career (sometimes working two or three jobs at one time) to the point of actually making a living. I was in my 20s once—paid my dues; truly worked long, hard hours; and sometimes cried all the way to the door of my workplace. But I pushed through and stayed with companies for years at a time. I would’ve loved to have quit, but that’s not an option. What’s given my kids the idea that quitting because they don’t feel like doing it is an option?? Naturally, it’s my fault. I must’ve given them the wrong message about having a strong work ethic?

So my letter will go like this (if I dare to send it):

Dear children,

First of all, I love you two past the moon and stars and that will never change as long as I’m alive. I will worry about you incessantly, nag until you want to strangle me, and repeat myself until you hear me. Even still, I’m just your mother, just a human being. I simply want the best for you in every way. I’ve made clear what I see in you both and what my ideas are about what paths to take. My opinions are reasonable for who I know you to be—I didn’t say go to medical school or get married young and have eight children. I’ve modeled how to be an upstanding, loving, hard-working, decent, and honest person. I waited until you were grown to marry my b’shert so I could give you all my time and attention (and bail you out of heinous shit). Now I’m married, hoping to have a life with my husband while showing you how to maintain true love, trust, honor, self-respect, and a soul mate.

In recent years you’ve both placed unfair burdens on me and I want you to stop. My darlings, don’t get me wrong. I will never abandon you. I’m always here to support your emotions, ideas, attempts to make life decisions—all of it. But at this point, you have to do your part so our conversations can be more productive and not simply a bitch session that goes south immediately if I say the slightest wrong thing. I’m tired of getting yelled at for not telling you what you want to hear. If I have to hear one more time that you want to quit your job, break up with your boyfriend, move to [insert name of place, any place, here], and run away, I’m going to lose my shit.

1. You need to go to grief counseling immediately to deal with your grandmother’s tragic passing. You’ve not spoken to anyone but me about this, and it’s time to seek help. I’m also still working through this and, while I can relate and comfort you as your mother, I don’t have the tools to pull you out of it. I went to grief counseling for a year and it was an enormous blessing. It will be for you too.
2. You need to go to regular counseling, as you are clearly lost. No matter what kind of role model I am, you apparently want to be the opposite of me. However, you don’t even know what you’re talking about. A good counselor will help you figure that out and get you on a life plan. You’ve both reached out to me to help you find a therapist, and I all but called and impersonated you to get make the appointment for you. It’s up to you to make that call.
3. Stop talking about quitting your job. You need to pay your bills, ladies. Who the hell do you think you are—Ivanka Trump? I’ve provided you with schooling, helped with cars, rent, gas money, and work clothes, not to mention the tens of thousands of dollars I’ve given you in past years. If you quit, do you think I’m going to pay your bills? You have another think coming.
4. You’re going to move away? Travel for a year? Find yourself? Don’t you realize that you take yourself with you wherever you go? When you’re at point A you want to be at point B, but then you get to point B and you wish you were back at point A. And you know what you brought with you? Yourself, your attitude, and your baggage. (See number 2.)
5. Save your damn money. You make enough to pay your bills and save the rest. Stop spending it on useless thrift store shopping, $5 coffees, cigarettes, beer at the bar, gross tattoos and piercings that you’ll regret later, and gym memberships that you don’t use. Use your brains, ladies, you’ve been told and taught this all your life. Don’t use your grandmother’s life as an example; she was married to a doctor. You’re not.
6. Dump your boyfriends if you want, but don’t be a bitch about it. And don’t do it because you’re “bored,” “not having fun like in the beginning,” or “wanting to be spontaneous and not so responsible.” Let me tell you, folks, most of real life is mundane, possibly boring. That’s why workplaces give you vacations. Couples coordinate their time off and look forward to it for months. They put in the time, save the money, make a plan. Every day is NOT designed to be a vacation. Even the royal family works most of the time. Don’t cheat, lie, flirt with other men, or bitch at and blame your man for your own unrest. (See number 2.) The guy is who he is; you knew it when you got together with him. If he’s not your person and you’re unhappy, make a plan and move on. Don’t torture him.
7. Stop being boring. Do things. Find a group to belong to that expands your mind. Join a book club or music group, read poetry at a spoken word event, buy tickets to an avant garde play. Plan an escape room activity with some friends. Play Mexican Train. Your cities have tons of things to do!!!! Work out your body with good, vigorous exercise like hot yoga or kickboxing. CHECK GROUPON for all kinds of deals. Quit medicating yourself with marijuana or beer. You think you’re having fun, but they’re essentially drugs that affect your thinking and make you boring.
8. Stop living in a bubble. Follow the news of your country and your world. Read Skimm or NPR. Look up the things that interest you, whether it’s technology or sports or health. Learn and know things. You both have high IQs, incredible perception, wonderful senses of humor, can read high-level material, and have been places and done things. Use your goddamn brains for good, not plotting and planning useless stuff.
9. Finally, and most important to me, reconnect with each other. Make up. Forgive. You seem to be able to forgive other people and justify your own shitty behaviors and attitudes. Extend that to one another. No one is perfect, and you’ve both been awful in your way to each other, whether you believe it or not, but you have a deep bond that no one else shares. Now my heart is broken in two by your rift, and I don’t really understand why it stands this way—why one reaches out and the other lets the hand drop. We have such a tiny family and need each other desperately. You were once two peas in a pod, as close as twins, but now it’s as if you don’t know each other. It’s excruciating to see my children behaving this way, and not have the power to do anything about it. Stop, please, before it’s too late. One day I’ll be gone and you’ll have lost all this time together with me and with each other. I’ve forgiven you for the unwanted grief you brought into my life because I want you IN my life. Do what I’ve done.  

I love you, but leave me alone already,

Your devoted mother