With the triathlon, I had hoped to recapture the glory of my youth—all the volleyball matches I’d won, the tennis victories that had made my father so proud. But when I crossed the finish line into the arms of my children, surrounded by family and friends, I felt nothing. I waited for a wave of euphoria that never came. I woke up the next morning sunburned and dehydrated, aware only of an emptiness within me.
I needed a new mountain to climb. I had been away from the workforce for nearly a decade, and now that my kids were all in school, I felt ready to go back to work. Over the years, I had been John’s partner as he’d built his investment firm, watching from the sidelines but taking notes and honing my own instincts; now I wanted my own foothold. I started small, making personal investments in founders of early-stage businesses, most of them female. Soon my days were filled with conference calls and board meetings; within a few years, I started my own firm. I made sure my team knew that they could reach me anytime, day or night. I had always been sensitive about gender inequality: I remembered my conviction that I’d be a better class president than my grade school classmate Bradley but also my certainty that he’d win only because he was a boy. Supporting female founders was a tangible way to empower women as they built businesses. Yet more than that, the time spent focusing on others allowed me to avoid looking at myself. With my kids growing up, it was nice to feel needed anew.
Yet at home, I was occasionally thrown by my own reactions to my children’s behavior. I had never tested my parents’ boundaries the way my kids seemed determined to test mine. One night, my teenage son Jack brought home a girlfriend to our apartment, disappearing into his bedroom and closing the door. This would have been a cardinal sin in my childhood home. I stormed down the hall and flung his door open.
“Mom,” Jack asked incredulously, looking up from the floor, where he and his girlfriend were crouched over his computer, watching a movie, “what are you doing?” He had grown into a charismatic, confident young man, rational like his father. I must have seemed unhinged to him in that moment, but I couldn’t explain why I felt like his being behind a closed door had seemed like an emergency.
Later that week, when I was having dinner with a therapist friend, I admitted that I had done this to my son. “You have to stop doing that,” she said. “Where do you want him to be intimate with girls—the park? You’re modeling shame.” I thought back to how my father had talked to me about sex: “Your mother was a virgin when I married her, and I expect you to be the same.” There had been no further discussion.
That’s just the way it was in West Texas. Even though I had become much more progressive since moving to New York City, some vestige of those conservative Southern values ran deep. One night, when I saw my daughter Gracie bolting stealthily for the front door, I called her back so I could once-over her outfit. She was wearing ripped jeans, which back home would have been considered disrespectful or provocative. “Grace—” I started.
“I know you weren’t allowed to wear them growing up, but it’s not the ’80s anymore!” she protested. “It’s not a big deal.”
“Can you please just wear something else?” I asked. Gracie’s friends, gathered at the front door, looking at the ground, pretended not to listen. But I knew they must have whispered about my ridiculous rules as soon as they got in the elevator.
One night, Gracie came to my bedroom. “Mom, have you talked to Gigi tonight?” she asked. “She seems a little sad.”
“About what?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” she said. “It has something to do with you.”
At 10, Gigi was already verbally dexterous and loved to question authority; I suspected she’d grow up to be a lawyer. I went into her room and asked if everything was okay. Her demeanor was solemn as she collected herself, sitting on the edge of the bed with her older sister next to her. I suddenly felt as if I were on trial.
“Mom,” Gigi said, “I don’t know how to say this, but I feel like I don’t know you.”
“Know me?” I said. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t know,” Gigi said. “I feel so disconnected from you.”
“Really?” I said. “After all that I do for you? My life revolves around trying to keep you safe and taking care of you.”
“Mom, she’s trying to tell you something,” Gracie interjected. She was 13 and reminded me of myself at that age: serious, driven, and focused. “We know you do everything for us.”
