When I was laid off, my children knew right away. I’m not good at hiding things and I sometimes wear my heart on my sleeve too much for my own good. Plus, my kids are big. Like young-adult big.

So when I lost my job, I felt a deep sense of shame in telling them the news. I felt like I had failed them. I wasn’t the parent they could be proud of. No child boasts about a parent who spends their days at home in sweat pants, on the phone and net in between reruns of Law and Order or the latest episode of Ellen. I was an outcast, no longer wanted by the working world.

I knew it wasn’t rational. But often what our heads know and our hearts feel are miles apart.

As a parent, you feel your role is to have all the answers. We’re supposed to be strong, omnipotent, heal all hurts and provide all the opportunities. But in a society in which our value is so tied up in our work, when that world gives us our walking papers we feel our value to all, including our children, crashes to earth at the speed of light.

It’s hard to know what my children really thought when they learned I’d lost my job. They said the right, reassuring things.

My eldest said, “Shit, that sucks Mom. But you know you’ll be fine.”

My middle son said, “Hey Mom, you always land on your feet.”

I’ve been a single mom for a lot of my children’s growing up, so it’s not surprising that my two eldest, two boys in their early 20s, were quick to reassure. When moms parent on their own, boys can tend to assume a bit of a protective stance as they get older.

But I really didn’t know if this was all manufactured reassurance, them doing what they thought was right, while perhaps inside they were feeling fear, worry and, perhaps even worse, disappointment or even embarrassment. Things they wouldn’t dare share.

I had a clearer sense when my youngest, my daughter, learned the news. Now in her first year of university, she, too, wears her heart on her sleeve and often her reactions are not guided by a sense of how she should behave but simply what she feels and thinks in any given moment.

When she heard the news she simply blurted out, “What the f**k Mom? That’s terrible!”

Out of the mouths of babes and a 20-year-old.

Since then, they’ve watched as I’ve managed the phases of joblessness and uncertainty. From shell-shocked to panic to resignation to determination. And not always in a straight line.

I’ve always been honest with my children, even when life gets messy or complicated. I’ve tried to find the balance between sharing enough information without burdening or scaring them with too much.

I’ve always tried to respect my children as individuals, separate from me. I’ve tried to recognize that they are not simply extensions of my own existence on this planet, but they are complete beings in their own right.

And this week I couldn’t have gotten a better affirmation that I’ve done an okay job of it all.

It came in the form of an email from my daughter. She’d written me to share something. The email came at 12:44 a.m., still early by her nocturnal clock.

She had just finished speaking with a friend whose parents were planning to sell their house after her friend’s mother lost her job. And apparently she had told her friend about my blog, thinking her friend’s mom may like to read it.

Now, my children all know I’ve been writing this blog since last November, but it’s certainly not high on their reading lists. But this latest piece of news about a friend of hers prompted my daughter to go online and read some of her own mom’s musings.

She came across a post I wrote about three weeks ago titled “Beyond Compare: How I stopped comparing myself to others and began feeling happy right where I was”.

And in her email, she wrote:

“I read the whole thing and I just wanted to say I’m so happy for you. Obviously I know you've been going through a lot of changes recently, but I was not aware of the depth of the change in the way you've been thinking about these things, and I think it's really fucking awesome you've been able to let a lot of that weight go, that comes with the constant worry of self or others' approval. Who the fuck cares what they think?”

So that's all, I'm really happy you have a job that means a lot more to you now, regardless of if the pay is lower, because that is what is important! And I was just happy to read that.  Go mum!”

As I read her words, my eyes instantly teared up. I felt a sense of love and acceptance. I felt that my child saw me for who I was, not simply as her parent.

And I saw something else. I saw that although I’ve been through a lot, her seeing me go through this wasn’t an awful thing, but actually, in some ways, it was a gift.

Without doubt, life’s going to give my children their own reversals of fortune and emotional upheavals.  Who better to provide a great example of working through them to the other side?

And there's one more thing I saw: what makes a child proud of a parent may not always be what you think.

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