I have to confess that I’ve wasted a great deal of time, as a mother, worrying. When my kids were little (which, I have to admit, was before the internet), I constantly had my head buried in a copy of Doctor Mom. Every cry, sneeze, stomach ache or earache made me flip through the dog-eared pages in fear of evidence of a dreaded disease. (It’s a blessing that WebMD didn’t exist back then.)

When my kids reached school-age, I concerned about them hitting developmental milestones. I obsessed over words mispronounced or misspelled, math problems misunderstood or their inability to write a cohesive sentence. (Their parents are both journalism majors! Shouldn’t writing be part of their genetic code?!)

As middle-school approached, I worried about social issues. Who were they hanging around with? Why aren’t they going out more? Why do they want to go out so much? Why are they obsessed with how they look? Why aren’t they obsessed with how they look?

Then came high school. Because I was not the head cheerleader, prom queen or valedictorian, I had my share of high school issues. And, because I’m not a Stepford mom, I worry about my kids encountering those same issues. My philosophy is I’m here and I’ll help them make better choices, right? Wrong. The issues are totally different and so I worry even more. In fact, I worry because I don’t even know what to worry about.

College is a whole other ball of worry wax! Will my kids get into a good college? Will they like college? Will they excel in college or fade into the woodwork and barely graduate? What if they get a freaky roommate who stays up all night or brings “overnight guests?”

Can you see why this is exhausting?

So here’s what I do. Sometimes, because there seems to be no end to the worry, I focus on one thing: my kids, at home, safe and sound. Now that they drive, this is a bigger deal than you think.

And so, this Thanksgiving week, I’m thankful to have my kids at home with me.

What, me worry?

There are moments in motherhood that they don’t tell you about when you’re all glowy and postpartemy. If they did, you might just hand the baby back and say: “You know what, thanks, but I guess I’ll pass.”

Those moments are the ones when you do a gut check and say to yourself: “I don’t think I can do this. I have no clue what to do next.”

Motherhood has no instruction manual. In fact, I’d liken the moment that they hand that beautiful, stunning child to you, to the moment you pass your driver’s test. (Something for which there is an instruction manual. Hmm…that’s ironic, isn’t it?) In the blink of an eye, you go from something you wished for, hoped for, worked for, to a moment where you look at people and say: “Wait, what? Seriously? I’m not sure I’m ready for this.”

Of course you’re all madly in love and wanting to show off the world’s most beautiful child. But deep inside, there’s that nagging hint of doubt that makes you wonder just a teeny bit whether that potential to screw this thing up will ever present itself.

And as the child grows, and little things happen, you wonder again: “Do I have the right stuff?” Or, you think the way I do: “WWCBD (What would Carol Brady do?)”

Growing up, glued to the TV set, I thought the Brady Bunch’s Carol Brady was my maternal idol. When she wasn’t rockin’ her shag hairdo or cutting flowers while gazing at her artificial lawn, she was dispensing incredible nuggets of wisdom to her beautiful, blended family. While Alice did all the real work, Carol stirred something in a pot (making us think she actually cooked) and then had time to sit with the kids while they ate their wholesome after-school snack.

As a naïve and impressionable child, I just assumed that I would parent the way that Carol Brady parented – with style and grace and a kick-ass housekeeper.

Big surprise, Carol and Alice were pure fiction. The only way to really be a parent is to roll up your sleeves and get dirty. Sometimes horribly dirty. To be there when the kids come home and fall apart. To NOT have all the answers and to question virtually everything that you and your kids do. To discipline and be hated for it…but to still be there the next morning. To lose sleep because you let your mind wander to the worst-case scenario.

Truth be told, I tend to be kind of a negative person. If I’ve made a decision, I’m often guessing it’s the wrong one. I just assume that every other mom has cooked and cleaned and parented better than I have. But once in a while, my kids will do something that gives me a glimmer of hope. They make me feel, in that moment, that even if I don’t have the right stuff, at least they do. And to me, that’s good enough.

You have to hand it to infants. They’ve figured it out. It’s all about them and, most importantly, they actually get to act their age. What about six year-olds, you’re asking? Or seven or eight year-olds? Nope, not them. They already have to worry about what will happen when they’re twelve. And fifteen year-olds? Well, they have to worry about what to do for the rest of their lives.

What the heck am I talking about? It’s my latest gripe. I call it: “When do kids get to be kids?”

Through the years, I’ve encountered it here and there. Mild concerns about how old my kids were when they walked. Were their vocabularies broad enough? Will their skills and talents be enough to carry them to the next level?

But recently, it really hit me hard. I have a second child going through the rigors of high school. Folks, let me tell you, the days of enjoying high school are SO yesterday. The typical high school student isn’t hanging out at the soda shop after school, socializing with his or her friends. They’re scheduled from dawn till dark, filling out that high school resume.

Today high school academics are all about AP Classes, as in Advanced Placement. Ask any above-average high school student and they’ll tell you. Either they, or their parents, are worried about taking and doing well in Advanced Placement Classes which potentially earn them college credits. In other words, high school kids are starting college in high school. Is it so wrong to just be an average student?

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not against bright and talented kids. I think every child has the right to take as many high level classes they can in order to remain challenged. But nowadays, we’re expecting that from EVERY kid. I’ve sat through parent meetings where parents have actually asked why their kids can’t take THREE AP classes in the same semester. Seriously.

To me, this begs the question: When do our kids just get to be where they are and act their age? When do they get to enjoy life?

And it’s not just high school. It starts in grade school where parents obsess about sending their kids to the right school and then “helicopter parent” their kids’ academics until the teachers aren’t sure whether they’re teaching the children or their parents.

It starts in athletics with select sports and getting on the right club team in order to be considered for scholarships or even just to try out for their own school’s team. It starts in the performing arts where kids have to have THE right teacher and be in THE right program so they can eventually perform at the highest level.

In this day and age of living vicariously through our children, we’ve somehow stolen their right to let them be themselves and discover their passions the old-fashioned way – through trial and error. Through failures and the rare success. Instead, we’re going out of our way to insure success.

Which brings me back to babies. Although we try, babies are relatively immune to our attempts to make them do anything faster than they’re able. Sure, you can sign them up for classes, you can practice with them hourly, but if they’re not ready to sit up or crawl or sleep through the night or be potty trained, they’re not going to do it. And that’s OK. And that’s the way it should be…for all kids.

The other day, some moms and I were talking about going away without our kids and, sometimes, without our husbands. We were talking about the degree to which we prepared our families for our departure.

Back when I was working full-time, I took great pride in my ability to juggle it all. (Turns out it was all a myth in my own mind. Something is always sacrificed for right or for wrong.)

Occasionally, I had to travel, which left my husband in charge. Being the control freak that I am, I worried that he’d have to struggle with something that I usually handled or that something might go wrong.

Before I left, I diligently did every last piece of laundry and left outfits labeled for each of the days that I would be gone. (Imagine the horrors if they dressed badly!) I typed up meticulous itineraries explaining where everyone should be and when they should be there. I left emergency contact lists. I filled the fridge and the cupboard with an abundance of meal options.

Looking back, I wouldn’t say it was all for naught, but I have to wonder if I should have let go just a teeny bit. So what if they wore mismatched clothes? If a permission slip didn’t get somewhere, my husband also has a college degree. I’m pretty sure he would have figured out how to handle it.

The funny thing is, I remember that they didn’t miss me all that much when I was gone.  (I remember one heartbreaking moment at the airport when my then infant son had no clue who I was when I got off the plane. Ouch. That hurt.)

Perhaps they didn’t miss me because I micromanaged my absence to such a degree that they hardly noticed I was gone. In my exhaustive efforts to make things easier, I may have taken away an opportunity for them to figure some of it out on their own and maybe miss me a little bit. And imagine the stories they could have told me upon my return!

I probably wouldn’t change a thing about what I did. As we all know, there’s no instruction manual for motherhood, especially being a working mom. We do the best we can with the circumstances we’re given.

This weekend I’m going away for my annual Girls’ Weekend. Granted, my kids are perfectly capable of taking care of themselves, being 16 and 20. But I still get that itch to leave a list or write an itinerary or suggest clothing options. You see, it never really goes away, that need to mother.

What about you? Do you have opportunities to travel without your kids? What do you do to prepare for that?