Default Effect

Going with the flow seems to be the best advice to live by when new chapters open in your life. A chapter that opened in 1982 with the birth of my only child is now and will always  be my default setting. Motherhood becomes your predesigned setting, your value system. You can reminisce with your friends about life before motherhood, but you all know you are forever changed. Once a mom, your factory preset will remain through our life, and although your children spread their wings, leave home and have been independent for many years.  

My generation now discusses what is universal for us in our mom models, our empty nests and our new roles as in-laws.  In a blink of an eye, life is not negotiating with your child about doing their chores, curfew, and day-to-day situations, but a new kind of negotiation. When your child gets married the program receives a request from an interactive user to look at the new information that has been passed to it.   You discover a new mode of communication surrounding their marriage, new ideas and how to be accessible for your son and daughter-in-law. You are hyper aware that his choice of spouse is crucial to his well being, and how do you blend into your new role. It is important to remember in the added programming that your married child and their spouse enrich your family.

Your default setting is putting your child first and you have to try not to worry about whether your daughter-in-law puts your son first, and he her.  You hope that your children try to walk a mile in your shoes, learn each other’s boundaries, that you are all an importance part of each other’s family and require inclusion of life moments.  Hopefully your children learn the program uses, the mother default value that was defined for that item when the program was written.

Year later a ping arriving on the scene is a problem.  In programming there is a set of rules.  A mother-in-law now has for example the sharing of holiday rules.  So that becomes a timestamp and you respond appropriately.  But getting a ping that the rules have changed makes it hard to gauge a reply when something seems not to be working normally.  Now there is a needed response time, taking a deep breath and not getting your feelings hurt. You want to send an error message for a strange pattern, but hold on – the daughter-in-law gets to change the rules.  She is now the more important female in your sons life. The relationship with my son the forever-preexisting value, his happiness, his wife's happiness...and the error message returns to you – go with the flow, your new constant default setting.