My youngest turned 20 last week. I felt like I was dealing with realities beyond my maturity level. How can I not have a teenager in the house? I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, kick up my heels or curl up in a fetal position and sob. I kept myself together, because no matter how I reacted she would indeed turn 20.

Later that night she asked me if she could meet her friends at Shari’s for one last meal together before several of them went back to college. After she left I pondered why at 20 she was asking me instead of just informing me. She’s certainly old enough to make those kinds of decisions. I know she lives in my house and it’s very considerate of her to ask permission. However, she only needs to let me know of her whereabouts, as she should for anyone she lives with for safety reasons and the other party’s peace of mind.

A few days later, when a similar situation arose, I told her she didn’t have to ask if she could go somewhere, she could just tell me. I would let her know if there was a reason I needed her to stay home. Truth be told whenever she asked if she could meet friends in the dark of the night, I wanted to scream NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! The same was true when either of my daughters asked if they could go to a concert, a friend’s house or visit someone in another city.

I don’t want my daughters out after dark running around, not even a mile away. I don’t want them to travel further than I can easily save them from whatever the big bad world throws at them. I want my whole family to be home when the sun goes down, right where I can touch them when I need to be assured they are OK. However, I am aware that’s the mom in me talking and I have to pause and consider if there is real harm in what they are asking or if my “no” comes from my own internal, mom-martyr angst (that one where we want our children to just do as we say without questioning our motives).

Also, they aren’t doing anything I didn’t do when I was their age. In fact, when I turned 20 I was in Europe finishing my school year abroad and planning on traveling on a Euro-rail pass alone the rest of the summer. I didn’t have a cell phone, Facebook or social media to easily keep in touch with my parents. I called collect occasionally and if my dad answered the phone he’d ask, “Are you OK?”

“Yes.”

“All right. Call in a week.”

If my mom wasn’t in the room to intercept the phone, he’d hang up on me. Apparently, their phone bill was expensive during that time I was away. My daughters are quite sedate and stay close to home compared to my adventures at their ages. Still, I’m the mother now and it’s all I can do to not say no to anything they want to do out of my reach (think the next block, yelling distance, somewhere I can see when I step outside my front door).

But I know part of growing up is doing things away from parents and it’s not healthy to shelter them, especially for my own self-serving purposes. Now it’s just better if they don’t ask. My youngest didn’t have my permission to turn 20 after all, and she did it anyway. We both lived to tell the tale.

Gretchen Leigh is a stay-at-home mom who lives in Covington. You can read more of her writing and her blog on her website livingwithgleigh.com, on Facebook at “Living with Gleigh by Gretchen Leigh,” or twitter @livewithgleigh. Her column is available every week at maplevalleyreporter.com under the Life section.