Proud Mama
I'd been worrying a lot about this whole growing up thing. Eleven has been a rough year: menses, breasts, attitude, lying, increased importance of social groups over family, etc. I've been feeling like I'm at the end of my ability to do well as a parent. She's entering a period where I have to trust her to tell me the truth, and yet she's not particularly trustworthy. So "trust but verify" seems to be the catchphrase. I can check her breath when her hair smells like smoke and she says it's just that her friend's parents smoke (damn South Jersey - everyone's parents seem to smoke in the house!), but I can't really know whether she's smoking. She's developing an entire world that doesn't include me. She's becoming someone more than I can possibly understand. It's terrifying, especially because so much of my perfectionism is currently wrapped up in parenting well. If she screws up, I've screwed up.
Except, of course, that she has to screw up. The teen years are all for making mistakes in the safety of home where the stakes aren't so high. The rational part of me would much rather have her doing stupid things here at home than do them when the rent or a police record or college is at stake. But the perfectionist in me will be crushed when she does dumb things like I did (oh please, please, please, let her dumb mistakes not be so dumb as mine!). I've been wringing my hands about this for the past several weeks, and spending most of my therapy hours trying to figure out how to cope with sitting with what is.
And then, out of nowhere, the parenting gods offered me a gift of sorts.
My daughter has had a friend, D, who I didn't like rather immediately, but who C immediately took to as her best friend. Such is parenting. So she spent New Years Eve and the night after D's house, and came home on that Friday morning looking pretty distraught. It seems that D had cut her bangs without her permission, in spite of her protest, and she was, understandably, feeling pretty violated and spent a couple hours holed up in her room trying to get past it. I intended to talk to D's mother about it, but (much to my embarrassment) found that I did not have either her name or her home phone number (lesson learned - such are the pitfalls of the cell phone era) and so, after trying directory assistance, gave up on trying to talk to the mother because while I felt it should be brought up, it wasn't really a knock-on-the-door-unannounced sort of problem.
So last night C seemed a little troubled again, and I asked her about it. It seems that D is trying to bait her into a major teen drama fight, trying to get friends to take sides, making up things she supposedly heard C saying, etc. Typical teen girl crap (except that I've seen adults do this kind of thing as well). She told me about how she started out trying to defend herself (I pointed out that that way lay madness), and then she finally realized that D was carrying on for attention, and if she just stopped feeding her, she'd let it drop, and so she did. She knows that school will be a shitstorm for a couple days, and then it will die down. Her own friends were suggesting she seek retribution, but she declined, not wanting to sink to the girl's own level. It's much more complicated that, of course, but I'm trying to summarize here, because, well, unless it's your kid, it's pretty boring.
But suffice it to say, I'm immensely proud of my girl's ability to size up a situation and work to minimize drama, to avoid taking things personally, and to generally take the high road. It was heartbreaking to see her feel sad about the loss of a friendship (she knows that this one can't go on, even when the drama passes), but also beautiful to see her approach it with such integrity. I reckon if she's got such emotional intelligence at the age of eleven, I haven't got too much to worry about in the long run. Goodness knows, if I'd been that smart at her age, I wouldn't have done half the stupid crap that I did.
Ooh, and best of all: she thanked me for being tuned in to her feelings and for giving her space to talk about them. It's not often that you get actual thanks for parenting, but when you do, it's the most cherished gift in the world.
Seems like maybe we'll both be okay.
Except, of course, that she has to screw up. The teen years are all for making mistakes in the safety of home where the stakes aren't so high. The rational part of me would much rather have her doing stupid things here at home than do them when the rent or a police record or college is at stake. But the perfectionist in me will be crushed when she does dumb things like I did (oh please, please, please, let her dumb mistakes not be so dumb as mine!). I've been wringing my hands about this for the past several weeks, and spending most of my therapy hours trying to figure out how to cope with sitting with what is.
And then, out of nowhere, the parenting gods offered me a gift of sorts.
My daughter has had a friend, D, who I didn't like rather immediately, but who C immediately took to as her best friend. Such is parenting. So she spent New Years Eve and the night after D's house, and came home on that Friday morning looking pretty distraught. It seems that D had cut her bangs without her permission, in spite of her protest, and she was, understandably, feeling pretty violated and spent a couple hours holed up in her room trying to get past it. I intended to talk to D's mother about it, but (much to my embarrassment) found that I did not have either her name or her home phone number (lesson learned - such are the pitfalls of the cell phone era) and so, after trying directory assistance, gave up on trying to talk to the mother because while I felt it should be brought up, it wasn't really a knock-on-the-door-unannounced sort of problem.
So last night C seemed a little troubled again, and I asked her about it. It seems that D is trying to bait her into a major teen drama fight, trying to get friends to take sides, making up things she supposedly heard C saying, etc. Typical teen girl crap (except that I've seen adults do this kind of thing as well). She told me about how she started out trying to defend herself (I pointed out that that way lay madness), and then she finally realized that D was carrying on for attention, and if she just stopped feeding her, she'd let it drop, and so she did. She knows that school will be a shitstorm for a couple days, and then it will die down. Her own friends were suggesting she seek retribution, but she declined, not wanting to sink to the girl's own level. It's much more complicated that, of course, but I'm trying to summarize here, because, well, unless it's your kid, it's pretty boring.
But suffice it to say, I'm immensely proud of my girl's ability to size up a situation and work to minimize drama, to avoid taking things personally, and to generally take the high road. It was heartbreaking to see her feel sad about the loss of a friendship (she knows that this one can't go on, even when the drama passes), but also beautiful to see her approach it with such integrity. I reckon if she's got such emotional intelligence at the age of eleven, I haven't got too much to worry about in the long run. Goodness knows, if I'd been that smart at her age, I wouldn't have done half the stupid crap that I did.
Ooh, and best of all: she thanked me for being tuned in to her feelings and for giving her space to talk about them. It's not often that you get actual thanks for parenting, but when you do, it's the most cherished gift in the world.
Seems like maybe we'll both be okay.