A Stranger at the Grocery Store Changed How I Parent My Son

I was a brand-new mom and still not used to having a baby. In fact, I was still getting used to taking him out anywhere.

For many months at the beginning of my motherhood journey, our biggest outing was the grocery store. I would keep him in his car seat, carefully place him inside the cart, and then drape a blanket over the top, leaving an opening so that I could still check on him.

Then a stranger said something to me that I still think about to this day.

A stranger approached my son and me at the grocery store

I had just entered the store with my baby tucked away in the cart when an older woman came over to me in the deli. Without saying anything to me at first, she peered over the blanket to get a good look at my son, who was still very small.

As if almost speaking to herself, she said, “Enjoy it. My son never even calls me now.” Then, she just walked away. I remember feeling very taken aback.

When I got home, I called my aunt to tell her about what had happened. She was the person I called for all my new parent questions, like “Is this normal?” or “What should I do?”

She seemed upset about what the woman had said. I got the impression that maybe it had hit a little too close to home for her, as it had for me, since she also had a young son.

As I processed the woman’s comment, what I thought the most was that I didn’t want to have a son who grew up and never called me. Here I was with a baby who consumed my every waking thought and almost all of my time, but the idea of him growing up and becoming more and more distant from me had been introduced to me.

A decade later, I still think about what she said

My son is 11 now, and over a decade later, I still think about this encounter every now and then. It really set the tone for the kind of relationship I wanted to have with my son.

I wasn’t going to put any less effort into parenting than I already was, but I wanted that effort to be mindful. I wanted to make sure I was fostering a relationship with him that felt like a place he would want to visit as an adult.

I became so acutely aware that one day he would go off on his own. And that made me really want to be present for all of it, as I saw that every stage of his life was going to be temporary.

I knew that he would only be little for so long. I knew those things would still be there for me when he grew up, but he would not.

She struck fear into me, but I’m grateful for it

While the woman’s words initially terrified me, I’ve grown thankful for the encounter. At the time, my aunt exclaimed that she shouldn’t have said that to me and that my son would, of course, call me. But the truth is, neither of us knew that for sure.

I was able to accept so early on in my son’s life that I could do my very best as a mom, and he still might grow up to barely talk to me. At my core, I knew there was nothing I could really do to completely prevent that.

To handle that fear, I constantly reassess whether I’m doing a good job. As long as I feel like I am, I know there will be less to regret one day when he’s grown.

I realize that my son leaving the nest is the natural order of things and that he should leave me. I want him to have his own life that’s separate from me. I just hope he wants to call me every once and a while to tell me all about it.