In NYC for a couple of meetings including the APA meeting on Sunday. Breakfast with two wonderful psychiatry residents who plan a career in child and adolescent psychiatry. Then, participation at the psychSIGN residency program fair, representing Washington University Psychiatry.
Dinner with three highly accomplished women who all were my trainees at some point, one in child psychiatry fellowship at WU, one as a post-doctoral research fellow also at WU and one as a WU general psychiatry resident in my clinic for a few months, some 8 or 9 years ago.
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| Drs. Walton, Edens, Glowinski and Nicol, NYC May 2014 |
Having been the mother of teenagers long enough, I resisted an overly emotional display of admiration at the accomplishments of these still very young women. When you've known people for many years and you see them only intermittently, any growth is glaring and in this case, the glare was very brilliant. But I mostly held my tongue (minus a couple displays of expressed emotion but really, I was holding it.)
Two of them are mothers of young children, like I was when I first met them. I remember exactly how they would curiously look at me when a phone call from the elementary school nurse unavoidably interrupted either clinic or supervision or a research meeting: "Anne, so and so fell from the playground. He is ok but I thought you should know." They would register my anxiety, my clenched hand on the phone and then my relief as I got back in the saddle, containing my worst maternal anxieties as much as I could.
So, last night we talk about parenting teenagers, on the horizon for them. I try to deconstruct that it's a very different set of skills and requires some growth. I explain that the transition is sometimes abrupt and it definitely involves the brain: a more negative outlook for instance or more sarcasm. One of them thoughtfully wonders about whether one mourns the child brain that has been outgrown.
I tell the story of the existential switch as an example: our youngest, a few weeks ago, looking out of the window of the car and passing a flowershop: "I've figured out the meaning of life". His father asks what it is? "There is no meaning".
That's right... teenagehood can be an invasion by Albert and Jean Paul. There are worse things.
Till Later,
Anne
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