I wrung out the dish cloth and laid it on the counter and left the kitchen to look out the living room window to check on my children. I still felt I needed to periodically check on them even though they weren’t little anymore. 14-year-old Niki and 10-year-old Tammie were old enough to take care of themselves while I did housework.

The first few times my daughters played in our backyard when they were younger, I never got anything done in the house because I was constantly peeking out of the windows to make sure they were safe. My friends didn’t seem to feel the need to constantly chaperone their children as I did. Was I an overly anxious mother? My way of thinking was that if one of them got hurt, it wouldn’t be because they were unsupervised.  

The phone rang. It was my mother. She had gone shopping and wanted to tell me about what she’d bought. I sneezed. She commented, “I hope you aren’t coming down with a cold.”

From the window, I spotted my two girls playing badminton on the back lawn. Feeling silly, I paused before asking, “Mom?” 

On the other end of the telephone line, my 86-year-old mother responded, “Yes?”

I repeated, “Mom, when does a mother stop worrying so much about her children?”

My mother answered with a slow, impish drawl, “Umm…. I don’t know!”

I chuckled, realizing how one sneeze had her concerned that I was coming down with a cold, how she would put together a late supper for my bachelor brothers whenever they got home from a meeting in town, and how she scolded my brother for not letting her know where he was hunting or picking berries that day, saying, “I need to know in case you fall and get hurt and don’t come home.”

What was Mom like with me when I was ten years old? I don’t remember, because I was too self-absorbed at that age. Looking back in my memory, it seems like I was like a little feral creature during the summers, existing without supervision, playing in the barn, climbing trees, going for bike rides, visiting neighbor kids, and walking to the different woods near the farm with my neighborhood cousins.

I suspect Mom always knew where I was, and what I was doing. She also knew I was afraid to bike around the block alone for fear I’d get mauled by a dog or kidnapped. Walking to the woods alone was also out of the question since I worried that a wolf or something might jump out from the shadows to eat me. Only now as an adult, I think it is interesting that I didn’t worry about these things if I had someone with me. Maybe I just assumed that whoever was with me would get mauled, kidnapped, or eaten instead of me?

It appears that I am now a chaperone who needs to be chaperoned because I am an older mother. Earlier this year in the spring, I told my daughter Tammie, “I wanted a couple pussy willow branches, so on my way home from town this morning, I pulled to the side of the road a quarter mile south of our driveway. The ditch there is shallow, so I thought I’d just climb in and get the branches I wanted from the bush and then hop back into the car to go home.”

My daughter gave me an incredulous look that I knew meant, “That wasn’t a good idea.”

I nodded and admitted, “It wasn’t a very good idea. I had a hard time getting out of the ditch. The step up was too steep for me and the ground was slippery mud.”

Tammie was home visiting at the end of August. I asked her, “Did you see that clump of elderberry bushes along the road? The berries are ripe. I should pick some.”

Tammie replied anxiously, “If you’re going to pick them, do it today while I’m with you! That way I can make sure you don’t fall and hurt yourself or get trapped in the ditch!”

Parking the car next to the roadside clump of elderberries, my daughter instructed, “Let me know if you need help. I’m going to stay in the car while you pick.”

A patch of 5-foot-tall golden rod surrounded the elderberry bushes. I slowly waded into the foliage. Trying not to fall into the ditch drop-off, I carefully picked as many clusters of berries as I could reach.

When I was back in the car, Tammie exclaimed, “The golden rod weeds are so tall, I had a hard time seeing you! I knew you were okay because every so often you stood up and I was able to see your brown hair.”

Happy with my wild harvest, I leaned back in my seat and admitted, “I did need a chaperone. Thank you. That would have been a bad place to fall!”