Mourning the Middle Grade Years by Donna Galanti

Just recently, it struck me that I couldn’t remember the last time I read a goodnight book to my 13-year-old son. I asked him if he knew. He couldn’t remember either.

“There was probably a night where you couldn’t read to me, Mom, because you were busy. And then the next night we forgot about it. And the next.”

“So it just faded away?”

“Yup.”

*Mom choke-up*

Since then I’ve been bothered by the fact that:
1. I desperately want to remember when and what that last goodnight book was.
2. If I’d known it was the last time, I would have cherished it.
3. Bedtime reading to my son is forever gone – and why am I just realizing the significance of this now?

I mourn something long disappeared that I had not known was even gone.

Along with the bedtime reading, has gone the picture books and middle grade books. Some I received as a little girl 40+ years ago. My mother lovingly wrote my name in mine, the year I received it, and who gave me the book. The Tooth Fairy brought me books from the entire Beatrix Potter series to all of Roald Dahl’s books.

The picture books have since been packed away in my office and the middle grade books collect dust on my son’s shelves.

“Mom, can we pack these books up now too?”

“Never!” I protest and gently dust them off and take them to my room where middle grade will never die. 

Books like Wonder, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Big Nate, Warriors, Flat Stanley, Goosebumps, Genius Files, Joshua Dread, Captain Underpants (the lunch signs are the BEST!), Charlie Bone (Mom, this is THE best series EVER! You have to read it). Oh, and how amazingly cool for my son that the Charlie Bone series author, Jenny Nimmo, blurbed my first middle grade book.

My son, pushing 14, has now moved on to sucking up darker novels like Marie Lu’s YA fantasy series Legend, Prodigy, and Champion.

And I realized, sadly, he’s also moved on from all of our middle grade shows: iCarly, Good Luck Charlie, Pair of Kings, Drake and Josh, Sponge Bob Square Pants. My middle grade shows growing up included Little House on the Prairie, The Love Boat, Magnum P.I., Benson, Greatest American Hero, and re-runs of The Carol Burnett Show and Leave it to Beaver.

At nearly-14, my son's tv shows now consist of Arrow, About a Boy, Limitless, Dr. Who (okay that’s forever cool), and How I Met Your Mother (soooo not middle grade!). 

I nostalgically bring up our shared favorite episodes to him of middle grade shows buried in tv-land dust.

“Can’t we just watch a Sponge Bob episode tonight? How about the "Frankendoodle" one or "Pizza Delivery" or "Best Day Ever"?” I ask.

“No, Mom. That’s kid stuff.” *Josh sigh*

“What about iCarly where Spencer pranks everyone and does the prank song?” I start bopping around.

“No, Mom.” *eye roll*

“Okay.” *Mom sigh*

I’ve grown with my son as he’s grown, true, but in doing so I’ve also relived many of my own childhood paths – and I don’t want them to end. I’ve returned home to a place where I will always be young, laughing myself silly, whizzing through an adventure, and experiencing so many wondrous ‘firsts’.

As a kid growing up in the 1970s and 1980s there weren’t books categorized “middle grade” and so I downed Sidney Sheldon, Stephen King, Jack London, Paul Zindel, and V.C. Andrews (all soooo not middle grade). I still re-read many today. They were my middle grade. Now I have my son’s too. And someday I hope he’ll come back around to them, like I did. Maybe with his own child. He doesn’t need to relive his childhood now. He’s living it.

He also doesn’t need me to be home anymore after school. He has a job folding pizza boxes and can ride his bike to a friend’s house. He doesn’t need me to read him bedtime stories or cut up his meat. He doesn’t need me to do his laundry. He can do that just fine (good!).

Don’t misunderstand me; I am enjoying the new phase of things. Watching him work, open a bank account, clean his room because he wants to (faint!), be reasonable when things don’t go his way, and calm his frazzled mom down when deadlines loom. “It’ll be okay Mom. You’ll get it done. You always do.” *Josh hug*

He helped me years ago in writing my first middle grade book when I got stuck on plot and character. And soon, I’ll give him to read the YA fantasy I’m writing before I share it with my agent. Although, I still get thrills when he tells his friends that his mom’s new (middle grade) book out is the best book ever. *mom beam*

He may have said goodbye to middle grade for now, but I do love sharing in the new wonders with him. I just won’t ever stop loving middle grade, not since I fell in love with it through my son. I’ll wait for the day he comes back to it. *fingers crossed*

There is one thing that still remains: Mad Libs. Where middle grade toilet humor abounds because exploding butt nuggets, scrubby cow plops, booger blub, and crusty toe nail clippings make everything funny. Thank goodness for that!

Have you ever mourned moving on from a phase in your child's middle grade life?