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Miserable Mom – The Do’s and Don’ts of Sending Your Kid to College by Sharon L. Brecher (Book Excerpt)
March 7th, 2022 Robin Gorman Newman

Ch.1 – How it All Began 

Sending your child off to college is really hard – kind of like chopping off an arm and sending it to live somewhere else. But let’s be real. It’s not death or disease or world hunger. It’s worse! I’m kidding. Well, I am now that I have some perspective.

The idea of my child moving out of my house was incredibly overwhelming. So in order to cope, I did what I’ve done during previous rough patches and turned to friends, family, and those with experience for support. And you know what I noticed? I noticed that people sometimes say and do the dumbest things exactly at the time the one thing you really need is for them not to say and do the dumbest things. And you know what I did in response? What I have always done – I smiled and expressed appreciation knowing they were just trying to help.

 

The truth is, the insanity brought about by my fear of loneliness was sometimes exasperated by others, but usually it was my own feelings of insecurity reeling out of control that pulled me down the rabbit hole. However, sometimes without realizing it, … Continue reading..

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Brotherly Bonding Despite an Age Gap by Sharon O’Donnell
May 3rd, 2021 Robin Gorman Newman

I remember when I was pregnant with my third son, knowing he would be nine years younger than my oldest son and six years younger than my middle son, and I worried about the age gap. Would they still be close?  Would they still create memories together and bond, despite the oldest would be in high school when the youngest started kindergarten?  When they were growing up, the oldest two looked out for the youngest but also often picked on him.  At one point when Jason, my youngest, was in 4th through 8th grade, his brothers were in a school and college with a different calendar than his schools, and so I sometimes took Jason and one of his friends on brief vacations because my other sons couldn’t go. Since Jason had a late-in-the-year birthday, I decided to hold him back and start kindergarten one year later. This meant that there was a 10-year age gap in school between Jason and my oldest, Bill. There were some chaotic nights of homework at our house as the work ranged from addition facts to Calculus. But as the years have passed, the gap seems to have lessened.

There were some … Continue reading..

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What’s One More Year? by Sharon O’Donnell
August 14th, 2020 Sharon Johnson O'Donnell

My middle son, and his fiance, have been dating since they were in 10th grade — it’ll be eleven years in November. Yep. 11 years. They went through high school together where they both played on the basketball and baseball/softball teams, and I still think it’s cute when they go outside to throw the baseball around.  They got engaged in December of 2018 and planned the wedding for October of 2020; he was busy getting his CPA certification, and she was in the middle of a five-year pharmacology PhD program at UVA, and she would also be working in a lab in Germany for the fall of 2019. Thus, waiting until October of 2020 made sense. We were sooo looking forward to the big day in Charlottesville.

But alas, Covid 19 came into the picture, and in July, my son and his fiance made the difficult decision to postpone the wedding rather than their wedding party and guests taking a risk with their health.  So now it’s October of 2021. Totally agree with the decision but still it’s disappointing. On the bright side, at least I’ll have another year to lose some weight before the big day!  I guess when … Continue reading..

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Pandemic Reflections by Sharon O’Donnell
April 30th, 2020 Sharon Johnson O'Donnell

I really don’t know where to begin. Who ever could have imagined we’d find ourselves in a situation like this back in January? Or even early February? My childhood best friend (and also still a best friend of mine now) flew from Tampa to see me and my family on February 20th through the 24th; at that time, Covid 19 was not a consideration. Yeah, we heard something on the  news about it, that it had been in China and Korea and even into Italy. But it became a dire situation so quickly.

My 95-year-old father was scheduled to have hip replacement surgery on March 11th after years of incredible pain and bone loss that he had lost most of his mobility and had to be transported around the house in a wheelchair. My 95-year-old mother was still in their house with him, and my three siblings and I had been taking turns staying with them. In October, we had hired a caregiver to come in from 10 pm ’til 7 a.m. so that we could focus on the days. We were looking forward to the surgery decreasing my dad’s pain. At that time in March, most of the warnings … Continue reading..

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Trips for Two by Sharon O’Donnell
September 7th, 2019 Sharon Johnson O'Donnell

One of the things about being an older mom with a child considerable younger than his/her siblings, is that you inevitably begin to spend more time one-on-one with that youngest child as time passes and the siblings get older. When my two oldest sons were in college, I found myself eating out or going to movies very often with my youngest son, their little brother who was nine and six years older than them. And since I held my youngest back a year in school because he has an August birthday, there is a decade gap in school between my oldest and youngest. My oldest was a college freshman in 2009, while my ‘baby’ just started his first year a few weeks ago. That’s a lot of time in between. An age-gap baby indeed.

But I’ve so enjoyed my one-on-one time with my son, which was frequent, especially when my husband travels a lot. What I’ve enjoyed most are the trips that my youngest and I have gone on together. Several weeks before he went off the college two and a half hours away, Jason and I went to Chicago together — just the two of us. I loved it, … Continue reading..

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Blurry Vision by Sharon O’Donnell
July 27th, 2019 Sharon Johnson O'Donnell

Is it really the end of July?

Six weeks ago when my youngest son, Jason, graduated from high school, the summer seemed to stretch out lazily ahead of us. His freshman year of college was over two months away, and there seemed to be plenty of time to do and say the things I wanted to do and say before it was time for him to leave. But somehow the weeks passed without a lot of that getting done or said. There was graduation week, filled with fun with friends and family and school events. The next week Jason had his wisdom teeth out, which basically was a ‘lost’ week where nothing really happened except him wearing an ice pack around his face and eating a lot of ice cream, applesauce, and mashed potatoes. Then we went to college orientation at UNC-Charlotte for a few days, and then to Charlottesville, Virginia to accompany my middle son, David, and his fiance as they scoped out wedding venues for next year; this was a brief but fun family trip as our oldest son, Billy, drove down from DC, also. And then it was the 4th of July week, followed by buying college … Continue reading..

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My ‘Older Mom’ Mother by Sharon O’Donnell
April 7th, 2019 Sharon Johnson O'Donnell

Not only am I an older mom since I had a child when I was 38, which is considered advance maternal age; but, my mother is also an older mom because she had me when she was 38. I’ve written in my book, Please Don’t Let Me Be the Oldest Mom in the PTA, about our close relationship, particularly how my being the youngest child meant that we spent a lot of time doing things together as my siblings got older and did things with friends.

Mama is now 94 years old. She suffers from macular degeneration, so her eyesight is poor, but I think she compensates somehow because she still cooks great meals and gets around pretty well. When me or one of my siblings takes her to the eye doctor though, suffice it to say that she has to squint to make out the top line. I really don’t know how she does it. She has been a wonderful mother, grandmother, sister, great-grandmother, friend to many, and of course, wife.

My father is also 94, and he also is a gem. Worked in his own business from the 1950s until just this year when hip and leg pain … Continue reading..

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No Place Like Home by Sharon O’Donnell
March 24th, 2019 Sharon Johnson O'Donnell

My husband and I have lived in the same house for 29 years now. We almost moved to a bigger house outside the city limits back in 1998 but decided against it. I even wrote an article about this housing decision for one of my regular columns for our local newspaper, and I came across a copy of it a few weeks ago. I had to laugh when I read about our oldest son, then 6, telling us that if we moved he would keep coming back to visit the people who moved into our house. I’d forgotten about that.

Our oldest is now 27 and living in DC with a steady girlfriend, our middle one is 24 and engaged to his long-time girlfriend, and our youngest is 18 and a senior in high school who will be going off to college three hours away in August.  This is the empty nest they told me about. It had seemed so far away. Since my oldest and youngest sons are nine years apart, I’ve had at least one child at home since 1991, and the realization of how much my life and routine will be changing has hit me harder than … Continue reading..

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My Boy’s Going to be a Husband! by Sharon O’Donnell
December 23rd, 2018 Sharon Johnson O'Donnell

I haven’t posted since July. Lots of changes. My youngest son started his senior year of high school in August and then began the college application process. He’s been accepted into several wonderful colleges and is looking forward to the decision process over the next few months. My mother-in-law passed away in late September, which was a very sad time for us all. We did enjoy seeing all the relatives whom we rarely get a chance to see who came for the funeral. I had a nephew get married in October, and it was a blast celebrating with him.

On the day after Christmas, my husband, youngest son, and I will leave for Denver, CO for a quick trip and to meet my oldest son out there with his girlfriend and her family. My oldest and his girlfriend leave in DC but are in Colorado visiting her family for Christmas, and we will go out to meet her parents and siblings for the first time. Can’t wait!

And my middle son . . . the one who suffered from bouts of severe anxiety in high school and college . . . well, he just passed the third of four parts … Continue reading..

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New Humor Book About Mid-Life Moms by Sharon O’Donnell
July 14th, 2018 Sharon Johnson O'Donnell

 

It’s been a long journey getting my second humor book published, but it was finally released this week. Please Don’t Let Me Be the Oldest Mom in the PTA is my take on the humorous and poignant moments of being a ‘later’ mom, complete with those times when I was called my son’s grandmother (thank, buddy!), when I realized I was the oldest mom at the PTA meeting, and when I discovered a new age spot had appeared overnight, prompting me to ask, “Where the hell did that come from?”  I was 38 when I had my youngest son after having two who were nine and six years older than my ‘baby’. I knew right away that being an ‘older’ mom was a bit different than motherhood had been the first two times around. My sons are now 27, 24, and almost 18–I’m the mom of men now rather than a mom of boys.

I started working on the ‘oldest mom’ book ten years ago– yes, as in a decade ago, right after my first humor book, House of Testosterone:  One Mom’s Survival in a Household of Males, was published by Houghton Mifflin in the spring of 2008.  … Continue reading..

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