I’ve navigated a good few rites of passage in my life – marriage, motherhood, the sweetest transition into becoming a grandmother, and so many more quiet thresholds in between. But nothing has felt quite like this moment: standing at the threshold of another letting go, not of a child, but of a man – my son – who is approaching his 40th year on this planet and who has just gone through something I experienced many times – a grueling Oftsed inspection.
He’s tall and steady now, in senior leadership in a big secondary school, a father himself, with two daughters of his own. On the day of his unannounced inspection, I watched how he rushed in, after 12 hours at work, to cuddle his girls before bedtime.
I watch him nuzzle their necks, hold their hands, guide them, make mistakes, learn, and love in his own way. I feel an overwhelming sense of pride. And at the same time, a quiet ache.
I’ll never forget the moment I watched him marry. As the mother of the groom, it’s a peculiar and profound role…so different from the fairy-tale spotlight so often placed on the father of the bride. We aren’t typically the ones walking anyone down the aisle, or making grand speeches. We’re often quietly watching from the edge, holding a hundred memories in our hearts while our sons take a step we’ve known was coming but still feels like another tiny goodbye. It’s a moment of silent surrender, handing over the centre of his world to another, while blessing the union with love and restraint. The pride is deep but so is the ache. And yet, this too is part of the great letting go. This too, is love in motion.
Because here’s the truth no one prepares us for: motherhood is the long, slow practice of preparing the one you cannot live without, to live without you.
This isn’t a clean break. It’s not a dramatic severing of ties. It’s a subtle, complex, deeply emotional shift and one that unfolds in moments so ordinary they can almost pass unnoticed: a text replied to hours later, a celebration planned without you, a quiet gap where your voice used to be central. No longer being the first person they turn to, but one of many they might update. The shift from “What do you think, Mum?” to “I thought you’d like to know what I chose.”
And while I’ve known for ever that this is what love demands…this loving and letting go…nothing truly equips a mother to emotionally detach from the very being who taught her the depth of unconditional love.
Letting go isn’t just an act of love – it’s also a process of grief. It’s remembering the baby we held, the little child who needed us daily. It’s missing the rhythm of that caretaking, the identity that came with being at the heart of someone’s world. And now, it’s watching the cycle again, as I witness my daughter-in-law prepare to go back to work after the birth of their second child.
Yes, there is pride. Joy. Relief even, sometimes. But it’s tangled with sadness and nostalgia. A mother’s heart can be both full and empty.
There’s a beautiful transformation in my stage of life: shifting from being the hands-on caregiver to becoming a quiet supporter, an emotional anchor, a presence rather than a guide.
I’ve had to really learn to respect his family’s space, to trust his choices. And that’s no small feat after decades of being a protector and guide. But he doesn’t need that from me. What he needs is for me to see him fully, as the man he has become, and to love him from a place of respectful distance. I am so proud of him.
And my identity? That too is evolving. I’m more than a mother. I’m a nanna, a celebrant, a storyteller, and a witness to life in all its beauty and ache. Letting go has cracked me open…but you know the saying…where there are cracks, the light is coming in.
As a rite of passage celebrant, I speak often of thresholds. We mark births, deaths, marriages, retirements but this, this shift in the mother-child bond as our children become fully themselves, this too deserves ritual and reflection. Our culture doesn’t celebrate a mother’s rite of passage at all!
It is a rite that is so often invisible, but it is sacred. It is one of the deepest initiations of a woman’s life.
So to any mother walking this path with me, I say: you are not alone. You are not weak for grieving. You are not clingy for caring. You are not outdated because your child no longer needs you in the same way. You are simply crossing a threshold. One where your love is no longer shown in holding tight but in letting go with grace.
The poet Rumi said, “Life is a balance between holding on and letting go.”
And if you, like me, are learning this balance in real time, know this: there is a new kind of relationship waiting on the other side. One built on respect, space, and mutual admiration. It’s not the same as it was but it can be just as beautiful.
This, too, is love.
Love in motion!
Latansani 