#eyerollingmom | Eyerollingmom

DISCLAIMER: This entire piece is reprinted/copied & pasted from the Boston Globe, where it appeared online on May 28, 2024 and in print on June 2, 2024

(see for yourself!)

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2024/05/28/magazine/when-did-my-kids-get-so-bougie/

I roll my eyes a lot with my grown children. I wish I didn’t. Lord knows I was also wildly winging life in my 20s and 30s, but something’s certainly off with them.

Really, the kids are all right. But if I’m being honest, the kids are all, well, wanting. Despite my best parenting efforts, mine have grown up to enjoy, let’s say, the finer things in life. Are they materialistic? Or spoiled? Or (gasp! worse!) bougie? There. I said it. They are definitely bougie. One has a coffee subscription. Another has water deliveries. They all have extensive (translatation: expensive) assortments of skin care and sheet sets. And don’t get me started on their sneaker collections. Plus, throw in their fiery defense of self-care and push presents and work-life balance and maternity shoots and me time and ohmygaaaaawd stahhhhhp!

Who are you people? I often wonder, swiping my lips with generic ChapStick. We’ve always been a middle-class family — not frugal, but far from the Carringtons (kids, those were the folks . . . oh never mind). All four of them were raised with a keen respect for brand names (OREOS? Sweet, Mom had a coupon!) and they were taught to recognize the value of quality (Yes, you may pick one thing from the dollar store but no crying when it breaks on the way home, k?).

Yes, they may have witnessed a few ah-mazing pairs of my new shoes stride past them in their lifetimes — but that’s the thing: luxury is supposed to be special, and occasional. Their combined desire for exotic vacations and fancy hair products has me stymied, if not maybe a teeny bit jealous (some of those expensive styling aids are legit). My generation was a simpler young adult. We were hardly as hydrated as them but we grew up fine without Sephora or Stanley. We also didn’t need friendship coaches. That’s right — young people now retain professionals to help them meet people their own age because (checks notes) no one talks to each other in bars now because that’s creepy. Wait, what?

We didn’t have the evil internet, or hipster influencers or trendy TikTokers showing us glamorous temptations of more lavish lifestyles. We went to work and switched out of our commuting sneakers and thought we were pretty ballin’. Of course, we had our share of super cool, influential ads that steered us to certain purchases (looking at you, Marlboro Man), but there wasn’t a constant scroll to keep up with everyone else’s. My mix of millennials and Gen Zers — digital natives — have been scrolling since childhood. Good grief — is their newfound love of luxury my fault? Does the finger of doom point to me, the giver of smartphones? Are my Frankenkids my own frivolous creations? Before pouring myself a frothy draft of Mom Guilt I checked in with Dr. Tomi-Ann Roberts, noted author and professor of psychology at Colorado College, who researches social media fasting. I wanted to know: Are my kids materialistic or just a product of the times? The times, it seems, are not helping. Roberts points out the ubiquitous “self-view” component of Zoom and FaceTiming: my babes’ behavior may be due in part to their chronic self-surveillance and constant awareness of others’ views of themselves. “Sure, we took pictures of the stuff we saw on vacation and of our friends, but not of ourselves experiencing whatever we were experiencing,” Roberts explains to me by email.

Wow. It’s hard enough for me not to stare at that tiny mirror of my face, a constant reminder of how others see me. If I struggle to look away, what chance do my kids have? “They are never just alone with their thoughts,” Roberts goes on. “They are hyper-aware of the look of whatever they’re doing.” Oh, the bliss of being young and acutely unaware. I was feeling nostalgic for my simpler, more oblivious time. Sure, my people are not perfect. We couldn’t keep the Disney Store alive in malls (heck, we’ve barely kept the malls alive) and we’ve been desperately relying on our kids to guide us through every minute of technology (fair trade: We keep you alive, you keep us relevant). See the irony? We need them. With their weird eyebrows and their man buns and their filming of EVERYTHING and their phone call refusal and their downright defiance of punctuation . . . they don’t carry it all in the win column. But I imagine they’re allowed to slip, too (cue images of our ‘90s matching track suits).

Honestly, they’re pretty amazing. They lean into the things they love — the recycling and thrifting and saving the critters — and they seem to know what they’re doing, even as living, breathing creatures of irony: screaming for sustainability while scouring Poshmark for Prada. And really, it’s not all grim. It turns out Boston is the place to be for millennials and Gen Zers. At least one recent survey ranked Massachusetts in the top three states for millennials, and a recent This Old House study ranked Boston in the top three cities with the biggest migration of Gen Zers in 2022. They’re moving into tech-hub cities with economic opportunities and big art scenes and we’ll be able to watch them flourish. With any luck, I’ll soon be happily raising nearby grandkids who’ll call me Glamma and teach me whatever comes after TikTok.

Guess I just have to learn to embrace their glamor. Lucky for them (sigh, and for us), they’ve got the perfect combination of confidence and chutzpah and — most important — they are driven and drunk with power. And why not? Their side gigs alone pay their brunch tabs. Perhaps my generation was just drunk? The ‘80s, Your Honor, the ‘80s. Amusing to mock, my kids are fun to watch. So — their silly splurges aside — I shall keep the faith. Even if collectively, they don’t know how to write a letter.

Tina Drakakis is a writer in Plymouth. Send comments to magazine@globe.com.

Tina Drakakis blogs at Eyerollingmom and has been featured in Boston Globe & Huff Post. She appeared in the Boston production of “Listen to Your Mother: Giving Motherhood a Microphone” presenting her popular essay The Thinking Girl’s Thong and her work has been featured in NPR’s “This I Believe” radio series. That said, she still places “Most Popular 1984” on top of her list of achievements (next would be as the $100,000 winner on that home improvement reality TV show of 2003 but her kids won’t let her talk about that anymore). A witty mother of four, she takes on cyberspace as Eyerollingmom/Tina Drakakis on Facebook, Instagram & Threads. Her collection of essays, A Momoir, can be found here (agent interest ALWAYS WELCOME!)

Copied/pasted from HuffPost, published June 29, 2022: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/empty-nest-syndrome-kids_n_62bad8a9e4b080fb670a224b

My third child is packing up to fly the coop, far, far away, into a new time zone. He’s following in the footsteps of his older siblings and — with his remaining brother left behind in his final year of college — leaving me precariously close to being an empty nester.

I probably should be sadder but I just can’t muster the melancholy. In fact (looks over shoulder, whispers), I may be getting a little giddy.

Listen, I love my children with the heat of a thousand suns but once they get to the age where they can drink, smoke, call an Uber and get audited by the IRS, they really need to go.

I realize this is not a popular sentiment. I scroll ~~Bragbook~~ Facebook. I’m in the minority. I know I’m supposed to fawn over my flawless children and applaud their every waking moment and be their BFF 4eva. But I can’t. I’m just not that kind of mom.

I was raised in the unsupervised ’80s and I am well-schooled in the importance of independence. I know that spreading their wings is paramount to their growth and I fully support their journey, no matter the bumps, bruises or late fees that come with that.

Plus, I’ve done my part. I’ve done my time. I have nurtured and guided them to the best of my ability into educated and (ostensibly) responsible adults and on most days you can find me beaming with pride (and duly boasting all over Facebook). But on the days when the fury of a dozen stacked dishes in bedrooms blurs my vision, the cold hard truth prevails. Nothing good is going to come from them staying under my roof no matter what hardships await them outside my door.

I don’t need to hear how tough it is for them compared to back in my day. I get it. Times have changed and these kids are indeed a strange new breed. They’re taking a longer (maybe more meandering?) road to get to where we were at their age.

Their generation isn’t rushing off to get married right after college (or gasp! earlier) like we did and they most certainly are not planning any gender reveals before they’ve ridden the bull in Nashville for their 30th birthday. Sheesh.

When I want to see their eyes glaze over, I tell my kids all about my first mortgage at age 26. Then I follow it up with a little ditty about squeezing out my fourth baby just in time before having to withstand all those scary DNA tests — mandated at the crusty old age of 35. They love hearing about the olden days. World history is fun!

I am fully aware how expensive life is for a 20-something. I know all about the student loans and the astronomical rents and the $20 drinks at the club.

But allowing my adult kids to stay comfortably in my home without a plan of progression doesn’t help them at all. There is such a thing as being a little too comfortable. And if you have enough disposable income for sports betting and ski trips and brunch every single Sunday, sorry, Mama’s gotta do her part to help you redirect some of that mimosa money.

I don’t want them to have such a pleasant and cushiony lifestyle that it stunts their life skills. I insist my working kids contribute to this household (because they should) but their paltry contribution to my grocery bill isn’t enough of a life lesson. They need more. They also need another ― a different — voice asking:

You gonna just leave that there?

Did you remember to pick up toilet paper?

Have you sent in your rent payment yet?

Don’t get me wrong, my kids are absolutely delightful. But in my home they are messy, they are lazy and they have absolutely no idea how much their parents do for them around the clock.

Fully stocked linen closets. Brewed pots of coffee. Leftovers. Poof. Like magic!

I am super excited for all the new experiences that’ll help them uncover these marvels. What a moment, realizing adulting is tedious and mundane and, ugh, redundant. (What? Out of detergent again? Already?)

Until they become fully independent, they really don’t have any skin in the game of life.

My daughter was a scary slob when she lived here. Her bedroom mirrored a crime scene and her bathroom rivaled a NYC subway in the ’70s. Not long after graduation, she settled across the country with a big-girl job and a grown-up place and a couple of equally employed roommates.

After a few months in her happy adult environment, the call came. She was frustrated at the mess her roommates were leaving. Dishes out for days. Toothpaste rimming sinks. I beamed across the cell towers. See that. Skin in the game. She was proud of her fancy apartment and her expensive furniture and — BAM! — suddenly mess mattered and It. Was. Awesome.

Now that Kid No. 3 is leaving, I’m getting a little woozy thinking about all the wild and wonderful life skills he will soon start to experience.

Like food shopping.

I cannot wait until you have to buy these I whisper to myself in a Disney villain voice, watching his every morning routine of whisking three eggs into sautéed veggies.

And then I think I cannot wait until you have to clean this — literally everyday — as a portion of that same omelet swishes out of the pan and onto the stove, forever unnoticed and forgotten in its little graveyard in the burner.

It’s time. My little chick needs to fly.

I’m tired of the wet towels on the floor, I’m tired of having silent sex in my own house, I’m tired of walking past rooms reeking of weed, I’m tired of beer cans in the shower stall and I am completely tired of all the unopened mail sitting on the counter for weeks at a time. If I have to search for my scissors one more time…

I’m tired of nagging my roommates.

I know the haters are circling. I can smell them, the tsk-tskers, shaking their heads nope and wagging their angry fingers, ready to let me have it, the declarers of You will miss this. You will miss them!

And they are exactly right. I will. And I do — I wholeheartedly miss my elder adulting duo, who live both near and far, yet outside my walls. But our time together is genuinely joyous now. I am elated with every visit and every minute I spend time with them brings a new burst of pride I thought I’d already owned and conquered. They are living independently and ― a bonus ― also giving their ol’ mom super cool places to visit.

Kid No. 3 is making me so proud these days that I don’t even mutter under my breath while collecting all those coffee mugs out of his room.

I cannot wait to send him an air fryer. I cannot wait to visit him. I cannot wait until he Facetimes to ask how to get the dried egg off his stove.

I cannot wait to miss him.

And I cannot wait to get a little misty when he walks in the door for the first time when he comes home to visit.

You know there’ll be plenty of leftovers waiting.

Tina Drakakis blogs at Eyerollingmom and has been featured in Huff Post. She appeared in the Boston production of “Listen to Your Mother: Giving Motherhood a Microphone” presenting her popular essay The Thinking Girl’s Thong and her work has been featured in NPR’s “This I Believe” radio series. That said, she still places “Most Popular 1984” on top of her list of achievements (next would be as the $100,000 winner on that home improvement reality TV show of 2003 but her kids won’t let her talk about that anymore). A witty mother of four, she takes on cyberspace as @Eyerollingmom on Twitter and Eyerollingmom on Facebook & @Eyerollingmom on Instagram. Her collection of essays, A Momoir, can be found here (agent interest ALWAYS WELCOME!)