Navigating the borderlands between adolescence and young adulthood as a parent has been a practice in letting go. Simultaneously, life has other matters to settle as mothers we gingerly walk into the lowlands of peri/menopausal territory without a say and often with little map, our body holds the cards and historically our society has refused to give women much grace. It feels like a squeeze at times, as my sons become more independent, forthright and risk taking, I am becoming more reflective, inward and at times angry (feminine rage) as I come to terms with their opening, and my own aging. Of course, we are not meant to age messages tell us, we can fight back with body and beauty treatments, and more so be young at heart and vital, yet still undeniably there is the realisation that we will not enter the spaces where our children will go. There is a closing of one season, and an opening of another.

These years have involved some butting of heads around what youth want and what parents ask, a dance of some sort. I’ve found the shift and pace of societal change tricky to comprehend, in the way I was ‘brought up’ seems to be vastly different from what my kids are exposed to or seem to need. At the same time, there are values that I want to carry forward, and lessons they need to learn without my interference, as life delivers its necessary shaping.

As much as I love my kids fiercely with a lioness heart, I can also be controlling out of fear and worry that they will be hurt, and as they transition to independence, I need to let go. ‘Go’ is an active word, a doing word, yet I’ve come to feel that it is more of a process of being. Of allowing my heart space to grieve this transition and welcome in this new relationship with my children. To give buckets of compassion to my controlling, fearful self that was borne out of anxiety. Patterns developed from a childhood spent looking after my mother post divorce where she lived in a scattered fog. I learnt to preempt any hitch or hiccup and hyperaware of the emotional landscape around me. Many of us were parentified, asked to carry an emotional burden for our parents or forced to grow up early. When triggered, I start to micromanage everyone around me, somehow hoping for connection yet in reality, trying to make myself feel ok. If I jump on a drone and zoom out, I can see how disempowering this is for those I love, and how basically we don’t learn to trust ourselves if we are constantly told how to be and behave. This is what I had growing up: the oscillation between hands off parenting and being overbearing. I want to parent differently, to ‘break the cycle’ for the next generation, oh the pressure yet I can try my best.

Ultimately, I am coming to realise I am NOT in charge. Oh the arrogance and foolishness around this belief, I smirk at myself, yet the desire and allure of control feels so tangible, which is partly why we hold on to it for dear life. Yet this flimsy illusion has been shattered by my teacher, my teenager with his headlong, curious and explorative nature. And that is a gift, I am finally beginning to understand instead of react, to embrace with some level of humility rather than try and change him/circumstances out of wanting to feel safe. It is a human need to want safety, but we cannot take this at the expense of another’s freedom, especially if they are our children who we wish to grow up into independent, thriving and resourceful adults. At some point there is a reckoning, do you choose your relationship, or do you choose your fear? If we choose to relate to them, we do not have to condone everything they do, but we need to accept they are going to make their own decisions, mistakes (like us all) and learn by doing so.

Maybe life is about living and making mistakes, we are NOT going to get it right. And that’s ok, I’m a product of my upbringing and my kids will be a product of theirs. There is no perfect parent, and it is ludicrous to imagine perfection within the co creating improvisation that it is. We are fallible humans raising humans. I can be anxious, unrelenting, mercurial and grieving, yet also deeply loving and quick to own my shit. Showing our children our vulnerabilities and articulating why we behave as we do, especially when they disagree with our actions, can help our relationships. As a work in progress, my children continue to show me where I can grow. As the next gen lands, I am in awe of their emotional intelligence and the way they communicate, grateful for what I can learn if I am quiet and willing to listen.