You realize about the time your child reaches preschool that the parenting role you’ve been playing at (that’s to that moment been all about getting your child to that point) is spinning out of your control. Your job now becomes all about helping your child walk away from you with confidence and strength and security, knowing you’ll be here waiting and welcoming and ready to dive back into his life whenever he needs you.
“It’s ok,” you whisper to him, “it’s time to grow up…”
It’s his life now, more than it’s your life with him. You’re the first to realize it. He won’t even notice the change, it’ll happen so slowly, one tiny step at a time. But for you, the next ten years will be zooming on fast-forward, while you stay a few steps behind him, watching and carefully wiping the tears and bandaging the skinned knees and buying new clothes as soon as he grows out of the ones you just bought him a month ago and driving him to and fro from each of the adventures that help him grow up and help you learn to let go.
You won’t talk as much about each new wonder he bravely invites into his life. He’s making the friends you want him to and learning to choose on his own and tell you about it later, rather than waiting for you to point him in his future’s direction. You’re learning to listen with half an ear to those boyhood and then teen-age conversations, never intruding (well, unless it’s really funny, what these kids sometimes say, and you can’t help but laugh from the front seat while you’re driving them around town). You’re becoming so good at picking apart body language and half-spoken revelations, you wonder if you’re ready to test for your private investigator’s license.
But you never quite know if you’re doing it right, this stepping away and letting him lead. It’s not like you get a performance review for this job like you do in other careers. You’re winging it, remember, from the moment he steps through that preschool room door and more of his life belongs to others than you with every new moment that passes.
Until something magical begins to happen, if you’re lucky and careful enough to surround your kid with other adults he can identify with and talk to when it’s just too hard or awkward or challenging for him to come to you. You’ll be in the next room while he’s talking with one of your friends or on the sidelines while he’s chatting with his tennis coach or you’ll hear it second-hand when he’s moved on with his busy life and the other person he’s confided in rather than you smiles and says, “You have to hear this…”
“I think…” he might say, when he first starts repeating something you’ve discussed with him while he’s pretending to ignore you. Then–
“Did you ever notice…” and “I don’t like it when…”
Sometimes he’s telling someone else about something difficult he’s dealing with that you’ve tried to help with and backed off when he wasn’t welcoming. Sometimes he’s celebrating getting through a good or even a difficult season of his life, and you’ve been wondering all along how he’s really feeling about it, and now know–because of the things your teen says to everyone else but you.
It’s a good thing, you tell yourself, that your child has this amazing support structure and trusts it and you enough to make the relationships he needs to work through what he thinks and feels for himself. But are you really on the outside for good?, you wonder. Has this moment been what you’ve been racing toward all these years.
Then, it finally happens, what makes you smile and sniffle and, yes, laugh–
“My mom says…” he’ll confide to someone one day, almost in awe it half sounds like, almost as shocked as you are when you catch the snippet of conversation and screech to a halt just outside the door to the room where they’re talking, really talking, the way you can’t always get your teen to open up to you. “And I think she’s right…”
It’s the best moment of a mom’s life. A hard working mom who let go but held on and agreed to share but never stepped too far away and dreamed of being closer again while she let the distance grow. A mom who’s watching her teenager grow into the adult she’s been dreaming she’d help him be. And on this day above all others, watching makes you proud instead of more than a little bit sad.
You realize he gets it. That he’s giving you back that confidence you gave away at the preschool door. He’s promising you the same as you promised him. You can do this. You can let go with confidence and strength and security, knowing he’ll be here waiting and welcoming and ready for you to dive back into his life whenever he needs you.
“It’s ok,” he’s whispering back to you…
Tags: anna's world, creativity & inspiration, Parenting, Teenagers
That was very nice. I enjoyed reading it.
after i wiped the tears away, and pulled myself together – a bit – the panic swept over me…i dont know if i can do that……i never was very good at letting go and everyday i am scared that another day has gone, that i cant get back and i wonder if the rapidly growing boy will ‘puff the magic dragon’ me right out of his life??!!!sigh. i will search for this confidence, strength and security….love this post!
You can do it, Joyce, because you’ve already figured out the secret–that you’re in this for him, more than for yourself. Hang in there. It’s the scariest and most thrilling ride ever.
I promise. Even as you let go of your heart, it’s already finding its way back to you ;o)
I remember that point well in my two son’s lives. It was hard. They are now approaching forty (I can’t believe I’m that old) and they know I’m here for them but they mainly go to their dad now for those intimate conversations. Girls mostly go to their mothers, boys to their dads. It’s still hard.
It’s hard, but so rewarding. Seeing them become their own person. I LOVE it, and miss the simpler times…
My children always know the door is open. Wherever they are, whenever they want. They are grown now.
Grown, but never really gone, Mary. At least that’s the promise I make myself every day…
The years do fly by too quickly with children so many memories at least we will always have those when they grow up.