By Charlene M. Brown
Did you have to move back in with Mom and Dad when you finished college? Was it because you didn’t quite secure that job, or you wanted to go back to school and needed to save your money? Or maybe it was because you just felt like you needed to get your bearings again. Whatever our reasoning, some of us somehow seem to end up back at our parents’ houses after we graduate from college. I was definitely a part of this group myself!
When I was a senior at a very academically demanding high school, I was fed up with the constant barrage of expectations being slung my way and didn’t really want to go to college at all. However, having nothing else to do, one August, I packed up most of my life and went to school.
Summarizing the next few years, I wandered through college, jobs, friends, associates, and Life in general. I finished the degree I started, not because I loved it, but because it was the practical thing to do (just as my decision to take up the major in the first place was the practical thing to do). After Graduation I traveled for a few months to see if I could find myself in other countries. (I didn’t!) I didn’t put any job in place for when I returned, figuring my credentials would carry me through after I got back. And this probably would have worked too, if I had known what I wanted to do or even what industry I wanted to enter. But, alas, that was not my fate!
Long story short, I ended up returning back to the country with no money, no job, no place to stay, and no real prospects for any of those things! While in school, everything was like Playland, despite/in spite of the fact that I had jobs, numerous different experiences, and a full course load every semester! At this point, I had not lived in my parents’ house for 4 ½ years, but figured a few months, 6 at the most!, wouldn’t kill me while I got back on my feet. Almost two years later, I finally moved back out and to my surprise, discovered that I had learned a lot in the process. One of the things that was most sharply apparent to me was that a female-male-female dynamic in my mother’s house was one too many women!
I found, that instead of being my parent’s adult child, I was just their child, except when I was wife-substitute when my mom wasn’t home. When my dad needed something that generally fell in my mom’s domain, he would ask me to do it (whatever it was) instead. Usually, however, I refused, not wanting to take on that role. This caused a few disagreements.
Ironically, if it had just been my dad and I, we would’ve gotten along just fine because I would have understood that I was the Lady of the House and fit into that role. Whatever that meant to me, I would have at least understood my role. As it was, I was only a substitute for my mother when she wasn’t home and my father needed something that he couldn’t find or do himself. When she was home, I was relegated back to “child” because the Queen had returned to rule her Queendom.
Now, I’m not saying that the Queen shouldn’t rule her own Queendom, she absolutely should. I am saying that two Queens can’t rule the same place at the same time, and if I’m a Queen and my mother is a Queen, the elder most Queen is going to win! In fact, it’s not even a contest! And I wouldn’t actually want it to be—it is after all, her house!
When I did finally move out almost two years later, I found that I had, indeed, learned a lot about myself! And in fact, I learned much of it by watching my mother, the Queen! Mostly, I learned that I prefer to do things on my own schedule and in my own space. However, let me note here, that while, I’m sure I would have made it work otherwise, I am thankful, grateful that my parents’ let me stay and that I had someplace to go, however cramped I may have felt while I was there. My mother should be the Queen of her own House. Just as I should be the Queen of mine. All of this is as it should be.
However, as I’m sure any of you who have ever had to move back into your mother’s house already know, you will never be the Queen of your Mother’s House!! And I was not. But I AM the Queen of MY House! This is also as it should be!
Do You Love Your Queendom Life Now!? I Do!!
Related posts:
- The Big Switcheroo!
- Mothers Really Do Have Favorites!
- Little Things That Will Delight Your Mother!
- Peace Queen!
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© 2009 You Can Love Your Life Now!
June 10th, 2009 at 3:12 pm
Very cute! I like the positive nature of the site. Negativity stinks!
June 16th, 2009 at 1:31 pm
I have been looking looking around for this kind of information. Will you post some more in future? I’ll be grateful if you will.
June 16th, 2009 at 10:43 pm
Thanks Gary and Muslimah! I appreciate the encouragement. Yes, Gary, i will continue to post, so keep checking back for new updates!
~Charli
December 15th, 2009 at 10:52 pm
Excelllent insight! I appreciate the honesty in the article. It gave the negative side of living in other people’s spaces (taking on undesired responsibilities, difficulties of having your own voice) than it ended with the lesson learned (doing things during your own time, only one queen can role) full circle. Thanks for the testimony. Great voice in the article, maybe that’s why I listen to you on a daily basis. Hmm.
December 15th, 2009 at 11:00 pm
Thanks Big Head!
(I didn’t pay him to say any of that, I promise!)