My Kids Aren’t Kids Anymore, and They’re Not Mine

We parted at the airport after four days together. Four days filled with love, wonder, the exquisite beauty of northern Italy and Switzerland, and the deep joy of being reunited as a family.

Then, suddenly, it was time to separate again. They carried their luggage onto the train. I stood outside and waved through the window. For a few moments, I could still see them. And then they were gone.

This kind of parting has become part of my life. Over the past years, as our geographical locations have separated us, our meetings have become rare and precious. I have grown familiar with the rhythm of reunion and goodbye.

My mind knows how to say goodbye. My heart knows how to wipe away the tears that follow.

Only this time, something was different. My heart still ached as we parted, but I did not feel the same devastation. There was sadness, but it did not swallow me. And then, with surprising clarity, I understood something.

My kids are not kids anymore.

They are 25 to 31 years old. They are not children.

And they are not mine. I am their mother, and I always will be, but they are not mine. They are adults, each leading their own life. Each building careers, relationships, friendships, homes, identities and futures. Each navigating their own hurdles. Each creating the best version of their life in the way and place they have chosen.

As this landed in me, I felt a smile spread across my face. Something inside me knew that a chapter of parenting had completed itself. My role had shifted, and for the first time, I felt truly peaceful about it.

I am no longer the central organizer of their daily lives. I am not the first person they turn to for every question, every decision, every need. That role has naturally moved, as it should, to their partners, their friends, and each other.

I am still their mother, of course, but I am also becoming something else in relation to them. A shift in role and identity is in the process of transforming. I am an occasional adviser, a witness, a constant loving presence, a partial participant in segments of their lives when invited. I am someone who knows each of them deeply but is no longer at the center of their lives.

There was an unfamiliar lightness in my body as I stood there, a calmness that I had not expected in that moment.

Later, as I reflected on what had happened, it became clear to me that it was not only they who were shifting, and that I too had been through a transition.

I had just returned from three weeks in Nepal, including two weeks co facilitating Sacred Transitions with my wonderful facilitation partner, Simon Goland. The clarity and stillness of Nepal had evidently lodged themselves in my body, as if a new way of seeing had developed, a new way of feeling and of being in the world.

In Nepal, we spent time exploring transitions as a natural part of being alive. We looked at identities that shift. Roles that loosen. Endings that ask to be honored. Beginnings that arrive quietly, even before we fully understand them. We worked with these themes in multiple channels and let ourselves be encapsulated in the process.

Then, back in ordinary life, standing at an airport in Europe, waving goodbye to my adult children, I found myself living the very thing I had been teaching and facilitating.

A version of motherhood had completed itself, the version that was needed when they were young. That role of Mom, the role that was so central to my identity for so many years. The Mom who was always there, protecting, organizing, preparing, fixing, worrying, doing, caring and being there for them.

That version had served its purpose beautifully and successfully. They are all independent, functional, happy adults. Isn’t that the gold medal of motherhood?

And now, another kind of motherhood is emerging. Like so many developmental stages in life, it comes as a surprise. A motherhood with more individual space, with closeness that coexists beside separateness.

Now, there is more room for me to meet my own life again, to relearn what it means to connect to my own voice, to meet my own needs, dream my own dreams and fulfill my own wishes, to let go of the constant caring for others. I couldn’t see this in advance, but I can feel it now.

Now, there is a new way of loving, from afar, across time zones, with new forms of closeness and respect for individual space. It’s like a love with more breath.

It still feels new and unfamiliar, but also spacious and calm.

As they grow in their own lives, I have room to grow and live more fully in mine.

For these insights, I thank Nepal, Simon and the incredible group of Sacred Transitioners, with whom we walked the path together in April.

When we called the retreat Sacred Transitions I could not fully attest to the accuracy of this name. But now I know that Transitions are so sacred in life and when explored in the sacred land of Nepal it is truly magical. I am curious to see what will emerge when we come back again in November, with the next group