I know, over the years, you have felt it. You have been the brunt of my jokes. You have been the punchline in my dark comedy. I have leveraged the overwhelm of single-momming four wild kids into the funny, pitiful story of a girl who had other plans that got hijacked by motherhood. I know you have felt this. I want you to to know, it’s not you, it’s me.

I want you to know that every complaint, every poorly-laid quip about parenting and how it should be avoided at all cost - it wasn’t about YOU. It wasn’t because you were born that I suffer or have felt a victim ever since (because I don’t), even though, as I am learning, that is what your adolescent minds and hearts received from me. I am so deeply sorry for this and the rejection you have felt. The argument I have contended over the last 25 years is not with you four girls, who are among the best and brightest human beings I have ever known. The argument is with myself. My own inadequacies.

When I “joke” about the problem of parenting, make no mistake, YOU were never the problem, I was. I was unequal to the task that was given to me, or that’s how I have always felt. I was unprepared, ill-quipped and, in my own mind, not built for good parenting. You are the redemption of my failures. You four ARE my Amor Fati. You are the fate that I love. The Surprise of my Life.

But parenting equals liability. As I have struggled through life and the various pains and tribulations, warring through seasons, years, epochs of dark depression, the one thought that chases me relentlessly is that I have brought four other souls into this place of perpetual torment. I lose sight of joy and I feel immense guilt for subjecting the four of you to this world of pain. None of you asked to be here, and I carelessly and selfishly brought you here with nothing to offer you, no comfort, no control, no promise of good days. This sense of helplessness has overwhelmed me for years.

As I look forward to the impending birth of my first grandson, the sense washes over me again. Another generation. Another human spirit. Here, in this dark world, because of me. This has triggered panic in me. I “joke” about not wanting to be a grandma, but in reality, I can’t bear the thought of subjecting another generation to the pain and misery of life, being helpless to protect him or shelter him from the inevitable hurt he will endure. My distaste for parenting (and grandparenting) has everything to do with my lack of control over the world and nothing to do with you. This is what parenting looks like with untreated mental health issues. If you learn anything from me, learn to find the help you need.

It isn’t that parenting is so hard - on the contrary, you four girls were the best and easiest kids to raise. You were all wise beyond your years, smart, curious, everything you needed to be in order to survive life with a mother like me. It isn’t really that children are so yuck - even thought I pretend they are. It’s the liability they represent. The burden of responsibility on me as a parent, as a grandparent, to offer some shelter from the storm of life… when I can barely keep my own head above water.

I was a terrible parent in my inability to identify and get the help I needed to raise you without harm. In fact, my coping mechanisms caused more damage to your developing spirits. My sense of despair and inadequacy actually became the pain that I felt so helpless in protecting you from. I have learned, as I grow older and (questionably) wiser, that my resistance to taking responsibility for the danger you were subjected to became the danger itself.

This is what humans do. We cause suffering in our avoidance of it. Teaching you by example the ability to embrace life exactly as it is, in the very moment, and walk in it with humility, curiosity and gratitude - this would have done far more to protect you from the storms of life than my feeble attempts at shirking responsibility.

So I’m asking you to forgive me, not for my inadequacies and failures, but for my lack of willingness to own them. Instead I spent so many years bucking against my fault in your existence. I was defensive. I was like a cornered animal with no out, and you have the scars to prove it. I am sorry. I am sorry for making you the brunt of my coping mechanisms. I am grateful that you have all survived (and if you survived me as a parent, I am confident you can survive anything) and that you are the brilliant people you are in spite of me and my immaturity. I am so thankful that I have the privilege of knowing you and I hope, being friends with all of you as our lives move forward.

I cannot control or protect or hide any of you, or my new grandson, from the hurts of this world, but I can live in it with you all and weather the storms that come. I cannot undo the past, but I can commit to this. I should have been doing that with you all along.

P.S. Can we still settle on a title other than Grandma?