A Letter to My Teens

To My Teenagers,

These past few weeks, I have been actively thinking of you, praying for you and being curious about you. And the result is a softening of my heart towards you. While you are so loved and always have been, I have allowed your moodiness and teenage stink eye to harden me towards you. I have been more concerned with your grades and your behaviour than I have been with your heart. And for that I am truly sorry. But so much more is coming to light and so much more that needs to be said.

This is not simply a letter of apology for all the areas I've been blind or gone wrong. Sure, there are many and I would like to make that right but kids aren't perfect either. So I guess, instead of dwelling on individual rights and wrongs, I'd like to look at how we can compliment each other and work together.

Being 16 now is so different than when I was 16 and even more so when your grandparents were 16. And yet, my parents taught me how to parent by giving me life lessons, just as their parents taught them how to parent with their life lessons. So every generation brings their learned lessons down to the next generation. Sometimes this is great, and sometimes it isn't. There's a lot more I could say about this, but I won't bore with it today.

All that to say, things are different. And that scares me a little. The lessons I learned don't seem to have equipped me for what I'm coming up against.

You and your friends live in a world where every fault and mistake can be filmed, photographed and put on display for all to see. You are being taught about things like human trafficking and sexual assault without fully understanding the impact of these horrors. You are being given words to express yourself without being mature enough to understand their implications. You are being exposed to drugs that are killing you and technology that turns you into an addict.

And I don't get it. I didn't live like that. So I fear it.

I fear it because my love for you surpasses the love that you will find from any friend, device or drug out there.

My love for you is what dictates my every decision regarding you. Because you are my child.

And so my dilemma grows. I want to teach you how to be free-spirited and run wild. To be young and enjoy hanging with friends. To ride bikes and play at the beach. To eat new foods and new ice cream flavours. And I don't want you to do it with a phone in your hand or the thought that touching a girl's hand might be misconstrued as sexual harassment.

The expectations I'm placing on you might feel unfair. I want you to be a child and I want you to grow up. I want you to be responsible but not know too much. I want you be free to play but I definitely don't want you to use drugs or stay out too late. This all comes out of the love/fear war raging inside me. I don't always know where one ends and the other begins. It's confusing to me so I'm sorry if it's confusing to you too.

I feel like my writing today has me going in circles. And mostly thats how I feel when it comes to you. I feel caught in a tornado of emotions, clothes, body-odour, friends, activities, cologne and food... so, so much food, that I'm not sure where to plant myself to gain control. But mostly what's swirling around me is a passion for seeing you thrive coming from a love that is buried so deep inside me that it would embarrass you completely if your friends found out about it.

Except that I know that their parents are going through the exact same thing. Love and fear and passion and joy and pain all wrapped up into one big ball of teenage goodness. And that is why I like to meet your friend's parents. Not to embarrass you, not because I don't trust you but simply to meet my allies on this parenting road. I need friends too, you know.

So kiddos, I love you. This little letter doesn't even begin to express the feelings in me. I want to personally punch those who came up with social media (and yes I know I use it too... no irony there), and start crusades against drug dealers, and put a hex on the inventors of vaping, and my list could go on for days... And probably I won't do any of those things. Because most days I just feel like I'm one Mom against the world. Most days I feel like my fight for you is a fight against you.

But I pray. I pray for you. I thank God for you. I thank God that He is the centre of the teenage tornado, that when I need to plant myself, I can be rooted in Him. I thank God that I am not one Mom alone against the world, but that there are so many parents out there who are fighting for the best for their kids. I know that this Christian talk embarrasses you. I'm ok with that... it made be uncomfortable too when I was a teen. But it's a part of our family and I believe it's vital so I have to say it.

If you hear nothing else from my rambles, hear this. I am for you! God is for you! I love you! God loves you! I am always here and will never turn away! I will stumble and I will fail, and so will you. And it will get ugly I'm sure. But, if you will have me, we will stumble and fail and be ugly together. Because together, you will survive being a teenager, and I will survive being the mom of a teenager.

I love you!