The Never-Ending Perils of Motherhood

My baby daughter likes scooters. That would be okay if this were on the playground in 1967 when she was three. But now she is 58 and scooting around in the whizzing traffic of downtown Washington, DC. This is not easy on a mom.

When they were still quite young my children and I adopted a fine system called “Tell me about it afterward. So by the time I learned someone had spent the night alone in the Gare de Lyon because she didn’t have money for a Paris hotel room — well, at least I knew she had survived. This may not be a parenting style appropriate for everyone, but it worked for me. It’s probably still helpful that my children and I live on separate coasts, so our parental notification system continues to be effective.

Now that they’re older, my children’s risk tolerance has receded somewhat anyway. My son flies airplanes, but he’s a careful, confirmed Type A and you will want him to fly your airplane. The fact that he’s nearing retirement and insists on playing pick-up soccer with his buddies — well, that’s for his wife to worry about. (She does. She’s a mom.) 

My older daughter, retired and living the good life, is into calmer, low-risk adventures like snow-shoeing and fly fishing. Plus, what she retired from was running her own spin studio so her fitness and safety are not that much of a thing for anybody to worry about.

The baby girl, Pam, though — she may be 58, but she’s still my baby girl — is in a category apart. I have been known to say I raised two yuppies and a free spirit. I made it through a decade or so of Pam’s rock climbing period by diligently not thinking about it. But one memorable time, on a weekend holiday, I found myself at the foot of a sheer mountainside she had recently scaled. (Long’s Peak, 14,259′) Across my brain suddenly flashed an image of my daughter — who is about 5’ tall and 100 pounds wringing wet — a mere speck in the middle of a wall of sheer granite. Sheer terror. But I did at least know she had quit rock climbing after that.

Currently, Pam, a nurse, is living and working in DC. For a while, she had two floors of covid patients. But she survived, along with most of her patients, and on a recent visit, we had the loveliest of times enjoying gentle pursuits like strolling around historic rose gardens and visiting museums. Walking home from the National Gallery, one day when she was working and I was roaming around on my own, I managed to get caught in a sudden rainstorm. (Living in bone dry California one forgets about rainstorms.) I waited it out in a building overhang — having cleverly left my raincoat in the hotel room — until Pam, just getting off work, rescued me with her ever-present umbrella. By the time we got back to where I was staying the rain had somewhat abated and darkness was quickly falling.

Not to worry, she assured me. “I’ll hop a bus right here.” The bus stop was across the street and directly below my third-floor window. “And if a bus doesn’t come along soon I’ll just grab a scooter.” Nurses in DC get a lot of appreciation and free scooters.

The photo above was taken at dusk in the rain from my window. If you squint you can spot a small person in nursing scrubs (no helmet) scanning a scooter lock, or whatever one does in preparation for scootering. It was taken a moment or two before she hopped on, wove her way across three lanes of moving traffic, and turned left toward home. Throwing her mother briefly into cardiac arrest.

Some things, I explained the next day, seeing her still alive and in the bloom of health, are much better left un-witnessed by moms.