To Not Be Needed

My daughter and I sit in the waiting area to see the doctor who met her when she was just three days old. She solves a tri-variabled math problem and I know enough to say Isolate t when she asks for help. A book of poetry lays in my lap. A cartoon about an old man, a boy, and a dog plays on the TV mounted across the room on the wall. We sit together, on our own, in comfortable silence. 

A nurse opens the blue door in the far corner and calls my daughter’s name. For a hair of a second (after the nurse’s head tilts when I stand up too) it crosses my mind: Maybe I’m not supposed to go in with her? 

But I do. I take the homework Nadia hands me, put it in my purse and we walk (I go first) into a hallway. I stand against a wall of glass windows and she takes her shoes off and steps on a scale, before turning to the opposite wall to be measured. The nurse announces only her height.  

“You’re taller than Grandma,” I say.

“I’ve been taller than Grandma,” she corrects. I knew that but said it anyway, in the way I sometimes find myself doing with her recently: stating the obvious, just to make conversation.

“You’re as tall as Aunt Tasha,” I offer, as if I’m handing her a piece of fresh-baked banana bread.  I know you like this, do you want it? A while back she decided she wanted to be two inches taller than me. Five-eight. It’s a number nearly as arbitrary as her current future career choice (marine biologist) and while I don’t care how tall she is or what she does, I still make sure to have plenty of milk and protein around and help her isolate t and keep track of who she’s as tall as in our family anyway. An act of motherly solidarity.  

When we first sat down in the waiting room, the nurse had handed Nadia a blue folder with instructions printed on the front. “What do I do with this?” she asked me when the nurse walked away. It was a survey on high-risk behaviors teenagers don’t usually tell their parents about. 

My daughter was supposed to give me the laminated explanation and fill out the form by herself. I was both disturbed (She’s only thirteen!) and pleased (It takes a village!) —and just the smallest bit sad. It would be the first medical form she would fill out on her own. But only sort of: she narrated half the questions and answered the other half out loud. In the middle of it all, she asked, “Should I pick ‘zero’ or ‘I don’t smoke’ as my answer?” 

Now in the exam room, Nadia hands the survey to the nurse who takes one look then turns it over. She forgot to fill out the back.

“Do I have trouble falling asleep, staying asleep, or”—she’s giggling now—“sleeping too much? Do I ever feel irritable, sad, or disinterested in life?” 

These are serious questions, about serious things. “Nadia, this is making sure you’re not depressed.” 

“Oh,” she tries to collect herself. But I’m a teenager and I do sleep too much and I hate my math class, so, yeah, I’m disinterested in life during seventh period every day. 

“That’s not what they’re asking.” And in my lap lay my hands, one holding gratefulness for her levity, the other heavy with the reality of why these surveys exist.  

When she’s done, the pediatrician walks in and it’s like a reunion. The doctor asks a lot of questions then listens to my daughter’s heart, lungs, stomach; looks at her eyes, ears, nose, throat—the same routine since she was a baby. She turns to Nadia and says, “Do you want your mom to leave?” 

My little girl looks up and says, “Yes.” 

I smile, put my hands on my knees, this is normal, this is good, and stand up. 

“Is that okay?” Nadia asks as I walk out.  

“Yes,” I nod in assurance. “I can leave the room.”

The doctor closes the door to finish her exam. I walk into the hallway and turn so my back leans against the cream wall holding ten numbered doors. I hear them talking. I try not to listen. A mobile floats over a baby scale. Fluorescent lights shine down from fifteen-foot ceilings. The air holds cries from infant to adult. 

We all know having children is this lifelong process of loving and growing and nurturing; of giving, guiding, protecting, providing. 

They need us so much. To physically survive, to emotionally connect, to socially learn. They need us for the basics and they need us for everything else. And we lavish it on them, as best we can, for this is what we’re made to do. 

But what I haven’t always remembered, what flies away like a hummingbird at the slightest movement, is that having children is also a lifelong process of changing and separating, of their increased agency and independence. Of growing up. Of letting go. Of not being needed so much.

Of me, stepping back. Yes, I can leave the room.

Not long ago, I ran into an acquaintance with children launching into college. We fell easily into Look-How-Grown-Up-They-Are phone swipes, praising the most recent pictures, astonished by the inevitable passing of time. 

“And how are you?” I asked before I could stop myself. Why can’t I just keep things on the surface? Keep it easy?

She looked from her phone up to me and wrinkled a smile onto her face. After a pause, she stuck her chin out, tilted her head, and pursed her lips. Then said, “No one needs me anymore.” 

This, I do not admit to her then, sounds like heaven. No lunches to pack, poster board to buy, algebra to remember. No snacks to stock in bulk, ready for the call, like an arsenal of ammunition for a small but starving militia. No barrage of PTA emails, Take-Home-Tuesday forms to sign, no chaotic uniform nights. No “I need to wear red on Friday” and “Where are my library books?” No bath water to test, honey to squeeze, calendar quadruple booked from 4-8 pm on Tuesday nights.

“Oh, they need you,” I push. 

“Not really, not in the same way.” 

To me, to not be needed sounds lovely.

To not be needed sounds like freedom. 

To not be needed is my dream.

We say goodbye and I take this idea, of not being needed, and let it sink in like a rock to the bottom of a lake. After a few days, its taste changes, from honey-sweet to cigarette ash.  

I’ve been needed, for so much, every day of my kids’ lives. It’s what I’m used to it. What I feel called to. It’s a part of who I am. My whole life has been molded around them. But it’s changing. 

To not be needed? 

Might be harder than I think.   

The pediatrician opens up the door and welcomes me back in. Nadia and I smile at each other. I glance at the doctor, acknowledging I’m in uncharted territory. She gives us a few last instructions. Nadia: keep drinking milk, rest your knee, keep a good routine even though you want to stay up late on the weekends. Mom: stay close, keep asking her lots of questions, stick to your rules, be in her business. 

I nod, understand.

Because what she says underneath? What I hear, from a mom to a mom, is this: 

It all looks and feels very different from when she was a baby. 

But your child still needs you.

And no matter how things change, she always will.