That Over-the-Top Rage When Someone Hurts Your Grown Kid? I Get It Now
I was standing in the cereal aisle at Kroger last Tuesday, reaching for the honey nut Cheerios Luka likes when he comes home to visit, when my phone rang. It was my 23-year-old son, and the second I heard his voice, all the grocery list stuff leaked right out of my brain. He’d just found out his best friend since 10th grade—his roommate, who he’d signed a 12-month lease with out in Chicago—bailed two months early, moved in with his new girlfriend without even giving Luka a two week heads up, and left him holding the entire $1800 monthly rent until they can find a replacement.
By the time he finished talking, I was yelling. Full volume, right there between the Cheerios and the corn flakes. An older woman with a frayed canvas tote pushed her cart a good three feet away from me, like I was gonna start swinging. I didn’t even care. I was so mad my hands were shaking.
When I got back to the car, my husband texted me asking what took me so long, and I told him what happened. He texted back, “Babe, he’s 23. He’s a grown man. He can handle this.” And I snapped at him when I got home, too, even though he was right. Luka can handle it. He did handle it, actually—found a new roommate from his office within three days, split the rent, everything’s fine now. But that doesn’t explain why I still wanted to drive 6 hours out there, knock on that ex-best friend’s door, and give him a piece of my mind so loud his new girlfriend would hear it through the walls.
People see that kind of reaction from parents of adult kids and roll their eyes, right? I’ve seen the comments on Facebook, when a mom posts about her 32-year-old daughter getting cheated on, and people are like “Why can’t she just let her daughter handle her own marriage? She’s not a kid anymore.” I used to think that too, actually. When I was 21, I dated a total loser who dumped me over a voicemail right before spring break, and my mom called him up and yelled at him for 15 minutes. I was so embarrassed I didn’t talk to her for two days. I kept saying “I’m an adult, I don’t need you fighting my battles for me.” I thought she was overstepping, that she couldn’t let go. Now I get it. I get it so bad I want to call my 21-year-old self and shake her.
It’s not that we don’t know our kids are adults. It’s not that we think they can’t take care of themselves. It’s just… we’ve been holding that protective space for them since before they were even born. That muscle doesn’t just turn off when they turn 18. It doesn’t atrophy when they move out, get a job, pay their own electric bill. I still remember when Luka was 7, that same best friend pushed him off the jungle gym at the elementary school park and split his chin open. I ran across that park so fast I tripped over a picnic table bench, scraped my knee raw, and I was so mad at that little 7-year-old boy I could barely speak. I had to hold myself back from yelling at him, because he was just a kid too. But that feeling? That gut punch of “how dare you hurt my kid”? It didn’t go away when they both grew up.
Last week I went up to Luka’s old room, the one we still keep with all his old soccer trophies on the shelf, the chipped blue comforter he’s had since he was 14, the sticker-covered skateboard he never rides anymore leaning against the closet. I ran my hand over that dented 8-year-old soccer trophy he got for “most improved” and I started thinking about all the hurts he’s had that I couldn’t fix. The time he got cut from the varsity soccer team as a junior, when he didn’t cry in front of his friends but cried into my shoulder for an hour when we got home. The time his first college girlfriend broke up with him over text before Thanksgiving. Every time someone let him down, every time someone hurt him, I was there, but I couldn’t take the hurt away. It just piles up, you know? When someone hurts him now, it’s not just the current hurt that makes you lose it. It’s all the old hurts, all the times you had to stand back and let him be sad, and that old instinct to fix it just blows up.
I don’t think it’s about us seeing our kids as extensions of ourselves, like those generic online articles say. For me, it’s the opposite. I know he’s his own person, I’m proud he’s his own person. But I was the one who got to him first. I was the one who kissed his scraped knees, who stayed up with him when he had a 103 fever, who taught him to ride a bike, who held his hand crossing the street until he pulled it away because he was too cool for that in fifth grade. That bond doesn’t just shrink when he gets older. If anything, it just gets deeper, because you know how hard the world is, you know how many people are gonna let him down, and you just want to be the first one to step between him and the hurt, even if he doesn’t need you to anymore.
My husband still teases me about the cereal aisle incident. Last weekend when Luka came home for dinner, I told him about the old lady with the tote moving away from me, and we all laughed. He said, “Mom, you know I can handle my own problems, right?” And I said yeah, I know that. I didn’t offer to go yell at his old roommate, I just Venmo’d him a little extra money for takeout that week, because I knew he was stressed, and that’s what he needed from me.
But I don’t apologize for the rage. If you hurt my kid, even my 23-year-old kid who changes his own oil and files his own taxes and remembers to take the trash out when he’s home, I’m gonna lose my mind a little. That’s just how it goes. I don’t need a perfect reason, and I don’t need anyone to tell me I’m overreacting. I probably am overreacting. But that’s my job, isn’t it? Even when he’s all grown up.
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