The Teen Years Slip Quickly Through Your Fingers As You Try to Hold On

Inside: Parenting teens means moving from being your child’s sun to their moon.

Each year, I watched as she bounded down the stairs in her plaid footed pajamas. Her bed-head hair is matted in the back, and I see a speck of sleep in the corner of her blue-gray eye.

She rushes over to the Christmas tree and shakes one present, then another. As she does every year, she organizes her gifts beside her for quick accessibility.

Her voice rings out excitedly: “Come on Mom, get your coffee. I can’t wait to see what is in this one!”

It is always a shock to see how your child changes seemingly overnight

As I turn around to walk towards our sofa, I expect to look down and see my young towhead daughter beaming up at me with her signature close-lipped smile; yet instead, I am startled to see a woman-child looking me directly in the face. Her eyes are wide when she leans in to easily kiss me on the cheek.

“Mom, seriously! Let’s go!” She hands me a package and then leaps over her sisters to sit down in her customary spot by the tree. “Are we doing stockings over presents first? I vote stockings like last year!”

My three teens are too old for Santa, but still get excited by presents. Her sarcasm is rich when she says Mr. Claus brought the new portable speaker she wanted. She is not too mature, however, to squeal the joy of a kid on Christmas when she finds her favorite candy hidden deep in her stocking.

At the end of our celebration, this tall creature says her annual pronouncement: “This was the best Christmas yet.”

She slides up next to me and wraps her long, gangly arms tight around my neck. I almost can’t believe that it is her soft cheek resting against mine. I watch with wonder as she takes the stairs by twos up to her room, phone in hand to start texting her friends.

Sometimes it’s hard to see that kid you loved in that new adult-sized body

An hour later, I am stunned as I watch a five foot six beauty enter my kitchen.

Gone is the messy appearance of a little kid. Dressed in a simple white t-shirt and jeans, she wrapped a new scarf around her neck that tucks her dirty blond hair delicately behind her shoulders. Her lips are painted a soft pink and small silver hoops hang from her ears.

She confidently walks up to me, grabs my hand, and then completes a small turn by ducking underneath my arm.

“You look lovely,” I say to this young lady I barely recognize.

She smiles and pulls her hand away, and I instinctively try to hold on tighter for just a moment longer.

But she’s slipping through my fingers. A little more every day.

I fight back the urge to run after her. I want to pick her up and drop her on the couch so I can tickle her in the ribs and hear her squeal. I want to pull her up onto my lap and read from a picture book, using her chubby finger to count and sound out letters. I want to grab her hand and walk her across every street and into school and through each door.

These are silly thoughts, I know. She grows more independent each day, finding her way without me. I used to be the center of her world, and now I’m just a spectator.

And the changes we see in our kids are so much more than physical

She still needs me, I am sure, but this letting go process is hard.

“Mom, where did you put my gym uniform?” Or, “Can you drive me to Jennifer’s house?” is sometimes all I get in a day.

Other times, when I am lucky, we share belly laughs over a silly joke or a memory emblazoned in my mind, such as when she first learned to boogie board or performed in her first play.

And too quickly, the moment is gone, slipping through my fingers as I try to hold on.

There are so many beautiful moments during these years

I don’t long for the days of tantrums and dirty diapers. I am not sad that I no longer receive 5:30 a.m. wake-up calls to turn on the television for Dora or the fact that I do not have to endure potty training another child. I do not miss the Crayola markings on my wall or the legos I no longer step on in the middle of the night.

But it is hard to know that you are no longer the guiding force for your tiny human, that you are no longer the sun to her small planet.

She gravitates to new things every day — friends, media, causes, hobbies — and it is thrilling and terrifying simultaneously.

I long to hold her back for just one more day, keep her small and uninformed and protected.

But she’s slipping through my fingers as she rushes to grow up, a little more every day.

The transformation is subtle, but profound

So instead of losing my grip, I choose to walk beside her when she lets me.

Sometimes I am allowed to hold her hand, and sometimes I stand off to the side, watching her take on this scary world in her own beautiful way.

My role is no longer to be her sun. My job is to be her moon, connected by a force so strong that it will never break.

I follow her along, providing light in her darkest moments, direction when needed.

Sometimes my presence is large and looming, and sometimes it is small, barely seen by the naked eye. But I am always there.

She’s slipping through my fingers, a little more every day.

So I attempt the impossible for any parent to keep her within my reach.

I let go of her hand.

She slipped through my fingers. I hope my love will always guide her way.

Are you in the thick of raising your tweens and teens? You may like this book by Whitney Fleming, the co-owner of Parenting Teens & Tweens: Loving Hard When They’re Hard to Love: Essays about Raising Teens in Today’s Complex, Chaotic World.

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