I was about to settle down, have a drink and start gorging on pistachio nuts. It then dawned on me I couldn’t because in an hour’s time I had to collect my eldest from work.
It struck me the house was quiet for once, a rare event that used to be the norm. I had that fleeting moment where I thought, just for a moment, “Is this the promised calm after those years of intensive parenting?”.
If you a parent of older children (and by that I mean teeangers) the calm never truly lasts. There’s always someone needing a lift, be it your own child or someone else’s. There’s always a forgotten form to sign, or a last-minute crisis that pulls you away from the sofa and into the thick of it again (the last minute crisis more often than not being a missed train or bus).
Colleting the eldest from work is somewhat symbolic. When the kids were small, the chaos was physical: Toys scattered everywhere, tantrums over meal choices at dinner time, bedtime turning into a complex negotiation.
That’s all changed. In this era of fatherhood, I find the chaos is caused by a constantly shifting calendar of drop-offs, pickups, school events, and part-time jobs. The toys have been replaced by phones and laptops (apparently to do homework though I’m not entirely convinced by this) but the time demands haven’t lessened. If anything, the demands of time have become much more complex.
What Mrs Adams and I are dealing with is two young adults. They naturally have their own friends and interests. When they were younger, we, the parents, effectively dictated who they kids saw and when. Now they’re older and they’ve both gained independence, they have much more control over their own diaries. Only thing is, mum and dad are still required to manage and oversee the logistics.
There’s a strange irony to it all. When Helen and Izzy were younger, life revolved around bedtime routines, nap times and getting them to eat vegetables. Now it’s about tracking their movements via text messages that frequently go unanswered. Sure, they’re growing up and capable young people.
Even so, still that parental hum in the background: Are they safe? Did they eat? Are they happy? And just when you start to relax, the phone pings with “Can you pick me up?” or “I forgot my bag.”
The house used to echo with noise, the clatter of Lego bricks, the squeals of games, the background hum of cartoons. Now it’s quieter, but the quiet doesn’t mean calm. It’s the quiet of doors closing, of headphones in, of conversations that start and stop in half-sentences. Teenagers have a way of being present and distant all at once, living under your roof, but orbiting a universe that’s entirely their own.
Despite the pressures and warp-factor speed of modern family life, there are moments that stop you in your tracks. A rare dinner where everyone’s at the table at the same time. A car journey where one of the kids actually talks about school. A late-night chat with the eldest as she decompresses after work. Those are the moments I cling to. They are reminders that, even though life feels more hectic than ever, this is what it means to still be part of their world.
