Thirteen

The day has arrived. I am officially a parent to a teenager. I don’t claim that it “feels like yesterday” she was a newborn. At least, not exactly. My years of young parenthood—although sprinkled with many sweet and adorable moments—went slower than I expected in their challenge. What is a more accurate description for me, is that I see the years ahead in a set momentum, of which I am afraid if I can keep up. I feel the end near and looming.

And when I say keep up, it is not about the running around and constant juggling of schedules—though these things do leave me harried—it is about the philosophical and practical parts of parenting growing children. Because I have found being a parent is one of the harshest, all-consuming, never-quite-sure-if-I-got-it-right-but-only-get-this-one-shot-so-I-hope-I-did experiences I’ve ever been given. Being a parent forces me to reflect upon myself and my world views with unrelenting vigor; it is a self-imposed litany test of constant self-awareness.

Because who wants to screw up? Not any of us. We second guess ourselves often, cast our minds back to dig up the validity of our beliefs, hoping it is not a pile of sand. We want things to be better and easier and shiner for them. We fret over the large expanse of what ifs thinking this will save them somehow, and then one day we find we’ve fretted away their childhood instead of living it with them.

As a parent to a teenager, we can't help but to remember our young, often foolish selves at that age. As adults, we know all too well the teen years are the dawn of real consequence, the beginning of the arc that is the shape of our lives. We think, if only my child can avoid the mistakes I’ve made, this will save them somehow. We can be quick to obsess over our past, doling out well-intentioned lectures, in hopes they may have that glossier future.

But lately, I’ve embraced the idea that maybe my job as a parent to a teenager isn’t to save them. Maybe it’s simply helping them discover their own path and revealing the tools they’ve uniquely been given. Maybe this means understanding that my own messy, avoidable and jagged mistakes are certainly very important pieces that make me who I am, but have nothing to do with my kids. They are simply and gloriously mine.

My children will have their own glorious mistakes in which neither I, nor they, can predict what that might be—no matter how much fretting is done.

My daughter just turned 13. It is an important moment in her young life. I see in her now who she might become, that the end of her childhood is a blink away. It will go fast, I know, but observing the thoughtful person she is today, I am confident it will end well.

For her though, life unravels slowly. I can feel the youthful energy brimming around her edges, her urgent desire to fling it out as far in the world as possible and see what happens. For her, there is no looming end.

There is only a bright and exciting start.

This blog is dedicated to all the parents who are in the throes of raising teenagers, and for one of the loveliest teenagers I know, my daughter.