I reject your reality…

I love that quote from Adam Savage.

The reality I’m rejecting today is that I’m old enough to have a 21-year-old daughter.

Yesterday we celebrated Munchkin’s 21st birthday.  Facebook’s On This Day reminded me that 5 years ago today, she got her driver’s license.  She then drove her Dad and I back to my house (he had insisted on being there for her driving test for some reason), kicked us out of the car, and took off for her first solo drive.

She’s always been an independent person.  I’ve alternately been grateful and annoyed by that trait in her.  “My do it!” was probably her first complete sentence.  (Actually, I’m pretty sure it was “Izzy is a stupid cat” but the other makes a better story.)

And of course, this is still how I see her:

But now she’s an honest-to-goodness adult.  She recently got her EMT certification, and last week finished her orientation for her first ambulance job.  Oh, and she’s moved out of the house again (though it’ll be nice when all of her stuff manages to follow her).  So I guess she’s been “launched”, whatever that’s supposed to mean.  I do hope that I gave her a solid enough foundation to make her way in the world without too many stumbles.

That’s the thing about parenting that I sometimes think a lot of people miss.  We’re not raising children, we’re raising people to be functional adults.  Munchkin didn’t have an easy go of things, with a single Mom for most of her life, and some really disasterous step-family stuff.  So the self-sufficient streak was probably a really good thing through the years it was just me and her against the world.

I think I probably did a good job with her.

But I still insist I’m not old enough to have a 21-year-old kid.  Just sayin’.