As I previously mentioned in my first post, I feel led to write about my current parenting situation. By situation , I mean that I want to simultaneously love and squeeze my teenage daughter and swiftly dropkick her in the throat. Can anyone relate?
Have you ever just loved a human so much, yet they infuriate and frustrate you at times? This is the perpetual loop of having a daughter. When she was born, I then learned I was having a daughter. I thought this was for sure the best choice of genders. On many counts it was. On others, no so much.
A girl is your best little buddy, and you see yourself in her, and you see her sweetness and her love and contagious smile. It is so heartwarming. You spend countless hours talking, playing, giggling, and as they grow you still do these things but you add shopping, eating good food, tv, movies, music, nails, hair, and so much more. You get her, because she’s a tiny, better, new chip off of yourself.
Then they grow up, they start facing the challenges of learning who they are, realizing they have a body image, battling the onslaught of social media, negativity, suffocating standards of todays society of what a “girl” should be. It is heartbreaking and beautiful. You tell your daughter all the right and pretty things “you are beautiful, you have a great heart, you are smart, you are motivated, you are a child of God.” Yet it still slips through the cracks of the world telling them they are never pretty enough or skinny enough, and they need male validation.
Raising a teen daughter is a cycle of her knowing she is worthy, then still going out and making choices that indicate otherwise. She knows you are the ride or die, yet will treat you like you’re so annoying and do not know what you are talking about. You look at her sweet angelic, young lady face and you see that sweet cheeked, curly haired baby girl that lit up every room every time. The girl who thought you were the best mom ever. She still will tell you you are though, she will still let that baby girl pop through here and there and your heart just melts. Then on another day you realize she has directly went against something that you know for a fact you have raised her better than.
Then comes a boy, and you have those experiences, the ones where you can tell her that he is not going to be around long or that he is not a good fit. This girl will never take that to heart. She will learn for her self. She should. You should let her. To a degree. You can’t just let your girl run wherever with whoever just because, but you have to let her spread her wings too. DUDE, this is the hardest part. Like are you too hard? She thinks you are. Are you not hard enough, your childless friends think you’re not. In the end it is a play by play job. You can plan all you want, these kids will throw you a monkey wrench quickly. That is part of the joy though.
I can literally ruin my daughters life by cutting a snowflake incorrectly out of paper….yes that happened today. She acted like I slapped her because I wanted to try a different technique than her for snowflakes. You know, typical terrible mom stuff. I am struggling, she was such an angel for 16 years that I thought I was in the clear. I was not in the clear, not by a long shot. She ebbs and flows like the ocean in a hurricane. I am between get the heck out already and omg please never leave. It is hard. SO VERY HARD.
She’s a great kid though, literally. My heart has never felt more sad than at the thought that sooner than later, she won’t wake up under our roof every day. The past 17 years have been around her, she has brought so much joy to our home that I can’t fathom it changing. I know the joy will grow and evolve and it will find new outlets….and inlets. I just have to mourn the loss of my “Little girl”.
Being the mother to a teenage daughter is the best and hardest job I have ever had! I would not change a moment. Pray for me, I am not okay!
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