A Wildflower through Concrete

reflection along the way

Me: Is your day pretty full? It's been awhile since I heard your voice. I have an appt at 1 but thought I might try to call you later if you're not busy. 

Her: my plan was to watch TV all day but i bet I can move some TV watching around 

I just share this part because I think it’s hilarious. I love my daughter’s quirky sense of humor. We actually hadn’t spoken on the phone since before our in-person Christmas visit. Because she couldn’t afford to take off work and spend the holiday here with us, we traveled to her for a few days.

This particular text exchange happened yesterday, followed a bit later by, what was for me anyway, an absolutely lovely 2-hour conversation. When some of my clients tell me how often they speak with their adult children, I occasionally feel a slight pang. But then, I have a conversation with my girl like the one I had yesterday and I’m filled with gratitude for where we are. 

It’s a familiar place. Vague, but familiar: my own relationship with my mom when I was my daughter’s age. I was off living my life, while my mom went about hers. She had plenty on her plate with many more children still at home. She didn’t have time to monitor and judge what was going on for me. I’m grateful for that. In that lack of monitoring, there was a certain confidence communicated that I could handle it–and by “it”, I mean whatever Life threw my way. 

I also always knew that if things got too intense, I could come home. But I was not inclined to do so. Though, I guess I did come home for a couple weeks in my 32nd year as I made a huge transition in my life. Just passing through as I consciously and quite thoroughly left my old life behind and began a new era. 

So back to yesterday’s conversation. Actually, before going there, I’m realizing that it might be important to share that the previous night I had a dream about my daughter and cars again. Cars in dreams often represent how we’re moving through life, and I pay attention to the themes of my dreams. I found this one very comforting–my dreams seem to like to offer this to me on occasion. 

In this dream, my daughter had again come into a new car. (Irl, she’s on her third very-old-but-full-of-character, not-particularly-practical vehicle.) She’d managed to acquire this one all on her own with no support or even input from us. She invited her dad and me to come check out her new ride, and we were very surprised to discover that it was a newer, reliable sedan with a well-maintained interior. It was still quirky but very functional with bucket seats that swiveled so they could double as a bed or just a place “to chill.” (Yes, this was the thought I had in the dream.) 

If cars are meant to represent how we’re progressing through life, you can probably deduce for yourself why I found this to be such a comforting dream. I’d already decided I was going to try to call her yesterday, and this dream seemed to reinforce that it was time to connect with her. 

I dialed her about an hour after our text exchange, and throughout our conversation she eagerly shared details as I invited her to tell me about the various aspects of her life. I couldn’t help but remember times I’d gotten off epic-length calls with my own mother to have my husband ask, “So how’s your mom?” to which I’d pause, think about the call, then respond, “I don’t know. We just talked about me.” 

I recognize now that my mom was/is, whether consciously or not, very adept at curiosity when it comes to conversing with her children. I’ve only recently connected in my mind that curiosity is the opposite of judgment and expectation. Have you also noticed that humans seem to naturally resist both those things—judgment and expectation? Or maybe that’s just certain personality types? I know I do, and it’s clear to me that my girl doesn’t fall far from this <pointing to myself> tree. (I also strongly suspect a trans identity is one way to shield oneself from the burden of expectation.)

For my part in this conversation with my daughter, I was very aware of how I’ve consciously shifted the way I communicate with her. It took effortful practice when she still lived with us to withhold judgment, to get curious and be open to whatever she wanted to share with me. I’m well aware I didn’t always pull it off. But during this conversation it seemed quite natural–I think maybe because of my mother’s model. I was also able to simultaneously be in “observer” mode during our chat, noticing my curious self and how my daughter responded to it. 

At times though, I couldn’t help but imagine how others might judge my daughter’s life. How messy, even wrong that it might look to some parents. How it might seem she’s in a dead-end job as a cashier, how the subcultures she aligns with don’t communicate “success” and certainly don’t afford me any bragging rights, how those she chooses to surround herself with all seem to be in a similar state of just-getting-by. 

But this isn’t what I see when I look at my daughter’s life. Maybe because I don’t believe I have any responsibility for changing it–what her life looks like, I mean. She’s got it. There’s awareness of where she’d like to see change yet she’s also grateful for what she has. She weighs the trade-offs of big decisions. For instance, she recognizes that she doesn’t necessarily align philosophically with where she works (though she thought she did when she sought employment there) but that there’s stability and community there that fill her more immediate needs. 

This is actually considerably more thoughtful and mature than I was at her age. I look back on my own messy early adulthood and think my kid is doing great! So I took this opportunity to reflect back to her the healthy boundaries that I see she asserts, the mature communication she has with her roommates, the consciousness that she brings to her life.

I also, admittedly, congratulated myself at practicing focusing on her capacity to do these things–a conscious choice I made years ago when it hit me how my story of who she is matters greatly. (I’m currently writing a companion piece that dives more deeply into this choice and why it’s so important to the outcomes. I’m hoping I get that finished and published in the next few days. The working title for that one is "Self-Fulfilling Prophecies”.) 

And I couldn’t be more thrilled with the story she holds about herself. I got off the phone feeling deeply comforted. It had worked. Not to get her to desist, mind you, but as you’ve probably heard me mention, that hasn’t been my goal for some time. In fact, it feels so weird to even bring it up anymore. It’s just not a factor–in our conversations, in how I see she’s doing, in how I judge how I’m doing as a parent; it’s a non-thing. Or at least that’s how it feels to me. I’m not exactly sure where she is in all that but it doesn’t seem to be something she has to vigilantly assert about herself anymore. In fact, I’d love to share another funny text exchange from the holidays to illustrate. Some quick, but necessary, background first: 

My mom wanted to send my daughter a Christmas card with a little cash and reached out to me for her address. I gave it to her, then Mom expressed some concern about how to address the package since my daughter doesn’t even know her grandma is aware of the identity, but she also didn’t want to put my daughter in an awkward position with her roommates. I told my mom I didn’t think the girl would mind–that all official correspondence (job-related, utilities, etc.) comes to her in her birth name, but we agreed it might be best for me to discreetly investigate. That exchange: 

Me: Grandma asked for your address so she could send you a card. Is it okay for me to share that with her? 

Her: promise she won’t show up at my house with a gun  ?

She really does amuse me! <laughy, cry-ey emoji>

“So what worked?” you might be asking, and I would answer, “The story I decided to hold about who she is.” I need to return to the conversation to drive this point home. Actually, I’d encourage reading that upcoming companion piece, Self-Fulfilling Prophecies (when I finish it and get it published) to really reinforce the point. 

Toward the end of the second hour, the conversation turned to her younger 16 yo brother. He’s considering a “side gig” to supplement the income from his own cashier job because he’s trying to save up for a second car–one that’s more reliable than his current “project” car. This kid was always going to have difficulty saving, but he and his girlfriend really like to eat out and this quickly eats up his paycheck. 

My daughter said, “Who does that?! At 16, what kid who still lives at home decides they need a second job?”  

I said, “Well, he’s got a lifestyle to maintain.” 

She thought this was hilarious and started referring to him as a “bougie teenager.” Then she began explaining this idea that plants grown in nurseries need special soil and extra care, but wildflowers will grow through concrete. 

“How is it that he’s so bougie and I’m a wildflower growing through concrete?” 

It makes me cry to write that–I couldn’t possibly love it more! I decided to focus on her capacity as a human being in the world to figure things out and to treat her as if she could. Could it really be this simple? To this, I’ll say, “probably not”. Again, I’m not the only influence in her life, and we live in a culture that seems determined to convince our children they’re fragile, but what I could do was counter that story with the resilient one I held of her. 

I could make sure that her mom believed in her; I could treat her as if and then trust that she’d let that penetrate. And damn, I’ll take these results. I usually use free stock photos on this Substack, but this particular image is one I purchased last year because I couldn’t find the just-right picture I was seeking in the free photo banks to use for this piece from January 2023. I plan to have a small print of this framed and sent to my girl (who shares my appreciation of dandelions for their utility and resilience): 

“A wildflower through concrete.”