When Starla Grew Up

photo taken from here

My girls are extremely different people. None of them has finished high school in a traditional way.

Starla, the eldest, was 15 when we divorced. She dealt with it emotionally by shutting down. She would spend days reading, in what we called "her nest." It was a corner she would make with pillows and a blanket. She would grab some food and get lost in her world.

Originally, our child custody agreement was that the kids would spend one week with my ex, then one week with me. When Starla was with me, she would miss at least one day per week of school. She needed the time at home to have full attention on her, to be able to heal. I talked to her school counselor, told her what was going on and it was agreed that as long as she kept up with her school work, it would be fine to continue. It was great--all I had to do was to call the counselor, tell her that Starla needed a home day and she would clear it. Sometimes she missed three days a week. But she kept her grades mostly A's with a B here and there so it worked out.

How did she finally get out of her depression? I took her to a talk given by a founding member of Greenpeace, one of the radical whale protectors. She woke up, got involved, found a reason to engage in life again. But that's not what this post is about.

When she was 17, I came back from being out of town for a few days and my house was full of hippies. Hm....says I...she likes one of these guys. I was right. She liked one of them so much, that after a few months of them being in town, she decided she wanted to become a part of their gypsy family. She was going to travel the country, feeding the poor, living a life of art, music and Rainbow Family consciousness.

Time to BREATHE deeply. Lots.

What about finishing high school? Have you thought about money? Where will you get it? How will you support yourself? Oh..you'll play music in parks? Um....it's October. And last night when you played music downtown how many people were there? 14. And how much money did you make? $27 And how long did that take? 4 hours. Hm...and do you think that a very efficient and effective way to make money?

And, Sweetie...they call themselves "The Kitchen" and say they are going to feed the poor, yes? Um...have you noticed that they either eat here or at the Jesus Center? Yes, Mom. I've thought about all of that and I still want to go.

I was terrified. I was impressed and excited that she felt confident enough in herself to do this.

What to do? She is obviously deeply in love with this man and he with her. She wants this. She has talked of leaving and travel. She wants adventure just like you wanted it at her age. But you, Pamm, were too caught up in "doing the right thing" at her age and did not have the courage to do it on your own. How to support her, how to give her the message that you trust in her and her choices and still help her to be safe???

She was totally committed to this. I feel that if I had not given her permission, there is a good chance she would have gone anyway. I was terrified for her, physically and where this might lead her with not finishing high school.

I gave her my blessings with two conditions. I would not financially support her. That if she thought she could do this, I would not stop her. But I was not comfortable with her decision about leaving school so would not support that. If she felt she could be mature enough to do this, she would have to make it on her own. The only thing I would support and require was that I would get her a phone card. And she had to promise me that she would call me every night and tell me where she was, when they were going to leave and where they were going next. I needed to know she was safe and where she was in case something happened. I needed to have some way to hopefully find her.

She left. I cried lots. I knew in my heart it was the best route for her development, but it scared me. Especially since I would have NO support in handling it this way from traditional childrearing philosophies. Many of my friends were shocked. Who the hell would give their kid blessings for taking a path that took her away from finishing high school? What kind of mother would let her kid take off with a bunch of smelly people who didn't have jobs on a road trip with no money? Would she end up dead? And if so, wouldn't I be to blame?

It was a very scary time. But I kept praying, kept trusting her Spirit to guide her. Kept asking mine to help me support her highest good.

So how did it end up?

They all got scabies. Her hands got badly infected and she had to figure out how to handle that. She and Kevin ended up getting frustrated with the group and left it within a few weeks. They decided to hitchhike to Iowa to be with his family. At one truck stop in Wyoming, they were informed that hitchhiking in that state is illegal. They were stuck there for three days. She had accidentally left her winter coat in the truck that had dropped them off. It was November. She got sick. When they got to Iowa, Kevin's mother let them stay there, but Starla was so sick, I guess she was pretty out of it. Eventually she got better, but hated Iowa because it was a foreign land to her. There was no food she would eat. The fridge was full of sodas, the bread was white, I think she was in her vegetarian stage. She had no friends, no loving warmth of family.

Then "reality" really hit her. She went to apply for a job. When she filled out the application, she understood what she had done. For the rest of her life, when she filled out an application for employment and got to the part about school that she would not be able to say she had graduated from high school.

I invited her back. I told her that she and Kevin could live with us until they got settled here with their own place to live. They arrived before Christmas (this made me very happy). She contacted the Home School program in January and finished her coursework within six weeks.

Amazing what self motivation can do for a person.

What I learned?

-That children have their own Path and we are not a part of it. It's our job to support them.

-I wonder if part of the reason that people stay at their parents' houses longer now is because we don't let them grow up, don't give them room to be individuals. I think we parents may foster dependence through our fears.

-That my highest intention of parenting was to foster healthy and whole emotional growth. And that sometimes this means that encouraging growth and nuturing my child to trust herself takes me places that touch my edges. But if I keep my primary intent and listen to My Inner Voice, instead of following the status quo and my fears, that so much more is learned and experienced than I can possibly imagine. She learned so much from that adventure that stays with her and made her part of who she is today. To have tried to stop this would have been a crime.

-That kids are smart. That even if they choose things we think are unwise in the moment, that they are being guided by their spirits to learn what they came here to learn. And if we get out of the way they will learn it on their own with no need for us to try and knock it into their heads.
And that there is no way I can ever know what they have come here to learn, be and live.

I'm so happy that things turned out the way they did. They might not have. She learned the lessons she needed on her own, overcame obstacles and grew. Did I do the right thing? Was there really any right choice? I think the greatest illusion we hold of parenting is that, in the end, we really have any control at all....