“What Can I Give You?”

Grandma Leah Nelson, c. 1970

Last night my grown-up son came to visit Paul and me. We’ve been confined to home with bad colds and it was good of him to brave the risk of infection and cheer us up. As he was leaving, I followed him to the door and heard myself say, “What can I give you before you go?”

As the words came out of my mouth I laughed and immediately said, “Now I’ve become my grandmother.”

When I was in college, I would go visit my grandma sometimes on a Sunday evening. She was incredibly old to me. As we sat in her little house, she would ask me about school and show me a quilt she was working on. After our visit, as I began to say my goodbyes, she would say, “Now what can I give you before you go?”

Then she would go to the kitchen to put some homemade cookies in a sack (usually hard and stale), or she would say, “Run down to the basement and get yourself a jar of peaches.” She never wanted me to leave empty handed.

My mother would do this too, when she was widowed and old and infirm. I would go each evening to help her prepare for bed. After I gave her medicine, helped her into her nightgown, rubbed lotion on her feet, and tucked her in, she would say, “Now what can I give you before you go?”

Mothers and grandmothers want to give to their children. Of course, we do. When our children are little and we are strong, we give all the time: food and warmth, comfort and knowledge. Pretty much we can fix whatever problems they have. You’re hungry? Have an apple. You’re tired? Time for bed. You hurt yourself? Let me kiss it better.

When we are getting to be old, and our children are now the adults, we still want to give to them. Unfortunately, I don’t can peaches anymore and seldom keep cookies in the house (probably because I eat them as soon as they are baked). I couldn’t send Mark to the basement to get a bottle or even put some treats in a sack.

So what can I give to my adult children, when they really don’t need any tangible help--when they have launched into adult life and are succeeding at it, praise the Lord.

Sometimes what I want to give them is advice. I forget they are adults, and I still want to make better whatever concerns they may have. I notice when they are worried, when they have troubles. I want to make it better, the way I could solve their little problems when they were little people. It’s because I love them, of course, I want to do this.

But those are not the best gifts to give to adult children. Trying to fix the problems they need to fix themselves just sends a message that they are not capable of fixing them themselves. It says, “you are still a child.”

I remember my mother giving me advice. I don’t think I ever followed it. But I do remember feeling terrible that she thought so little of my abilities that she thought I needed advice.

Our grownup children are not children. They are adults and they need to solve their own problems.

A wise friend once told me, “When my children grow up, my husband and I tell them it’s up to them to make their own mistakes now. Goodness knows we’ve made our share of mistakes along the way. We need to let our children make mistakes too.”

Solving our own problems and making our own mistakes and finding our own successes is what it means to be grown up. We can’t take that from our grown up children.

Once I heard Steven Covey, author of Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, speak about loving adult children. He said, once your children are grown, you don’t tell them what to do. You just tell them what they are doing well.

Of course, I still end up giving advice--often even without knowing I am doing it. Bless my dear children for being patient with me when I do that.

But this is what I really want to give to my adult children, as they leave my house. I want to listen. I want to applaud. I want to share my own stories. 

I can pray. I can give them my trust and confidence along with my heart, which they have always had.

But I am kind of sorry I don’t have a jar of peaches to send with them too.