Growing up is hard to do

My daughter made this screen-printed tee-shirt for me as an art-class project several years ago.

 
Recently, I became interested in a television series called "Bones". The title character, Doctor Temperance Brennen, is a forensic anthropologist, who studies skeletal structures to determine cause of death and injuries a victim might have suffered in life. The series is well-written, with strong characterization, suspenseful story lines and intrigue. Doctor Brennen's life is built on hard science. She only believes what she can observe with her five senses, and she often expresses disdain for the "irrational" carryings on of human behavior. Her social skills, or lack there of, are often comic relief in the show. She simply doesn't get what it means to be human beyond the secretions of hormone-producing glands and cultural stimulation. Emotion makes no sense to her, and so she rationalizes it away.

Tonight, after yet another argument with my soon-to-be-driving teenage daughter, I am experiencing a sharp, rather painful empathy with Doctor Brennen. Teenage emotions are hormone-driven. Their lack of experience can make it easy, at times, to consider their brains less-developed than an adult's. It's easy to dismiss my daughter's emotion and anger as hormonal, adolescent, the result of her lack of worldly experience. It would be easy to dismiss her anger all together, to treat her as if she were five years old and throwing a tantrum at the dinner table... But dismissing a child's emotions feels too much like rejection to this mother's heart. I can no more ignore my daughter's hurt and anger than I could ignore her insistent cry when she was a hungry infant.

These days, soothing her feelings is more complicated than preparing a bottle or changing a diaper. While I'm pleased and proud to watch my daughter's progress as she emerges from her awkward pre-teen stage into the fine young woman I know she's growing into, I'm often frustrated by our lack of ability to communicate, and my own lack of ability to convey adult notions to her. I'm strongly reminded of her toddler years. She would simultaneously shriek that she would "Do it myself!" and throw a temper tantrum when she was unable to pull on her boots, and scream at me for not helping. Everything, in those often trying days, was mommy's fault.

We are dancing, she and I, and both of us want to lead. She is fighting for control as she comes into adulthood, and I am trying to guide her through this process. There is a sense of urgency, a desire to keep her safe for just a little bit longer, to keep her under my wing, where the cruelty of the world can't touch her, but the truth is, she's growing her own wings and she needs to stretch them in order to learn to fly. My baby is growing up.

She asked me, not long ago, about her father's infidelity. She wanted to know what had caused the divorce, what had destroyed her family. She already had suspicions... and as we talked, the tears came and flowed... not for myself, but for my baby. I tried to protect her. I didn't want the kids to know what had caused our marriage to disintegrate. I didn't want them to lose the idea they had of their father. Every child needs a hero, and every child needs a dad they can look up to. I wasn't protecting him, all this time. I was protecting them.

Am I doing the right thing? Am I raising children who will be confident, happy, hopeful adults? Am I giving them the start they need? Am I creating an environment in which my kids can learn and grow? I pray so... but the truth is... I'm just not sure. All I can do is the best I know how... and hope that one day my kids understand that everything I've done since the day they were born, was for them.

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