Princesses and Professions

Many mamas might understand this, but many may not. My daughter is coming for a visit, and I’m so excited I’m like a girl waiting for her first date. I guess this needs some explanation…

My daughter and I spent her life doing everything together. I used to try to get her to go outside and play with someone closer to her age, but she insisted on staying with me. I never knew what she found so interesting about me, but we sure were attached at the hip.

Fast forward to her entry into adulthood.

First there was her boyfriend that she met at McDonald’s. Then there was college – with her boyfriend. The trip that started at McDonald’s progressed to marriage. As soon as she finished college, she conceived her first little angel – a very high-strung child. Just when her first was looking like her weaning was a permanent condition, along came her second daughter, a very intellectually demanding delight.
Her children became the end-all and be-all of her existence, so we never had a moment alone. (Well, almost never –the alone moments were always subject to interruption with one childhood or husband emergency or another.)

Then, Rachel heard the call of her other vocation. She became a teacher, as her University of Georgia degree decreed she should be. But, being just a teacher wasn’t enough for my little matriarch; she had to sign on with a Title One school, with a predominantly non-English-speaking population. Imagine the extra hours it takes to grade third-grade papers from children who have no English-speaking parents at home to help with editing their homework!

Rachel’s daughters are now almost fifteen and almost twelve. They have trained their daddy to be a sensitive and caring dad of the twenty-first century – or else. (Remember the saying, “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned?”) Now Rachel is free to come see me – without husband or children in tow. I guess the girls gave her a hall pass to come see their granny.

I’ve warned Rachel that Richard is incapable of cooking without a menu plan, a recipe, and a targeted trip to Ingle’s and other good grocery stores. She says, “It makes me no never mind” – this from a third grade teacher! I told Richard that we’ll be happy foraging for our food; I hope this keeps her happy, as she also said she doesn’t want to “run the roads.”

It won’t surprise me if Rachel and I end up in the kitchen. I like to think that her reverence for experimentation began with our kitchen capers. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to learn that so many of our pre-Women’s Lib domestic skills sowed the seeds of our princesses’ professions?

Richard has agreed to make himself scarce, as there’s no telling into which part of his house we may wander (wonder-braless, at that.) I’ve informed him that we may want to watch “chick flicks” or other emotion-provoking episodes, like the series on our nation’s national parks. He may just move into the RV and suffer in silence.