Parents: you're only as good as your kids?

Last night I went out (originally) alone because my mother was out with her boyfriend's family. It's not hugely my scene so when she suggested I make my own plans, I agreed. I didn't have any, but always happy to make something up.

But now I wonder about the real reason I shouldn't have been there.

The morning after, she made several comments like "I think his dad might know you're in Perth but I don't think the sister does." I didn't think it was such a big secret and said this much to her. "Oh it's not" was the reply "but it just makes it easier."

Makes it easier for what??? I started asking questions and I started really pushing my mother for answers. "They ask if you have a boyfriend... " she trailed off.

Suddenly it clicked. Some of my mum's questions when I first arrived did not sound like her words. What did I do with my money. The status of my love life. Specific questions about my jobs. They were the questions of others I knew. She had also made comments about his family, or other people who had asked if I was married again but I had just brushed them off. But now...

"Tell them I have many wonderful boyfriends." I tried to say light heartedly. And then with more edge "Tell them I am doing great, I travel the world, and I make more money than any of them." I added with complete seriousness "And you shouldn't let other people's values determine whether or not you are proud of your daughter." The silence that followed killed me.

So there you have it folks. I am 30. I am able to have mature and meaningful relationships. I am travelled and able to walk into many foreign situations alone and get back safely. I am bright, and openminded, smart enough to own my business and, when I choose to work, I get paid more by the day than a lot of people do in a week. But I am single, divorced, and childless. And around my mother, her children's friends are getting married, having children, buying block of land. And around the kitchen tables the mothers get to boast of the various symbols of status their children are acquiring. My status symbols are in another currency; they are immeasurable. Sadly, that doesn't seem to be enough for my mother to offer in the kitchen table banter.

I'm proud of me. Even if I am crying as I write this.

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts.
For they have their own thoughts.
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.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.

Kahlil Gibran