Yesterday, I had a rather meaningful conversation with my son.

I can feel the waves of shock, some envy, and also, pure disbelief, coming from most of the wonderful parents reading this. The idea that your adult (now any child above the age of 14 or anyone with a smartphone) progeny would seek you out for a meaningful, not transactional, conversation falls within the realm of fantasy for most of us.

Coming back to the conversation: he shared a dilemma. We should note here that professional dilemmas do not fall my way. Three decades of being an entrepreneur does make me somewhat of an alien on corporate issues. A benevolent dictator by choice and now experience, I don’t understand corporate hierarchies, processes, KPAs, or any other TLAs (for the uninitiated, it stands for three-letter acronyms; LOL!). As I listen to him, I realize that he has already made his decision on what he wishes to do, and I point that out. In fact, I tell him that he is the only person who can figure out what course of action would work for him. He agrees but continues to hem and haw, providing widely divergent theories to substantiate his proposed course of action. Sensing that there is more under the surface, I probe a little more: why the hesitation? And then he says, ‘There is this voice in my head saying something different.’ My heart sings. My baby knows how to analyze problems and make a somewhat informed decision. And he has a conscience! Somewhere, somehow, good parenting prevailed. And then – when he can no longer hold it within him, he blurts out,‘…that voice in my head is you!’

At first, I am so shocked that I do not know how to respond. After a decade of being an empty-nester, I have come to believe in the extraordinary abilities of my children in managing their lives. And in their belief that their mother has exhausted her intellectual abilities to provide any sensible advice. And then I am conflicted. On the one hand, I feel bad that after one decade of being on his own, this poor child still has to listen to his mother’s voice in his head. On the other, my heart is dancing! I try to do the sensible thing – I commend him on his analysis and tell him he should follow through with whatever he decides. I am too removed from his daily life to offer a solution. And as far as my speaking in his head, I commiserate. There is little I can do to remove my voice from his head. Heck, when I am not able to quieten the voices in my head just so that I may sleep well, it would be a stretch for me to take the voice out of his head!

If you met me any time today and wondered why I was smiling like a Cheshire cat for no apparent reason, now you know. The knowledge that I live in my children’s heads and hearts, even when so far, is enough to keep this mother smiling (and even laughing) for a long time.