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Vol. 2009 Issue 02 ~ February

It was a typical weekday 3pm, finding me waiting in my typical spot by the front door, watching for my twelve-year-old, sixth-grade daughter to come home from school. But her typical greeting of “homework” or “good day” would not be coming from her lips. Instead, she dropped a bomb. Something I hadn’t expected to hear for maybe another three or four years, which frankly, just reveals my naïveté. “Remember Jordan from elementary school?” she asked. “Yep. How can I forget? He was your first crush,” I replied. “He’s as tall as you now and has a voice as deep as Dad’s,” she said. “Wow,” I said, helping her off with her backpack, not at all prepared for her next statement. “Yeah, well, he came up to my lunch table, in front of my friends, and said, ‘Wanna go on a date?’”

I just looked at her. Please imagine the look upon my face. This was not the look of a woman who was excited to see her daughter take another carefree step into adolescence. This was the look of a woman who couldn’t decide between crying and vomiting. To which Sara replied, “I knew I shouldn’t have told you.” Ouch.

Now, why am I sharing this with women who have children much younger than mine? To scare you to death? No, I am not that unkind. Keep tracking with me here.

We went on to talk this through, argue this through, pray this through, for a couple weeks. You see, my husband and I didn’t have a plan. I mean, don’t get me wrong. I knew without having to even think about it that no twelve-year-old of mine would be going on a date. But what about the subtle complexities of the middle school years and the whole “going out” and “going together” business? The “being boyfriend and girlfriend but that doesn’t mean we actually go anywhere or talk on the phone or anything” scenario that I was told runs rampant among her peers. What about that?

I struggled with what I wanted to say. Which was NO WAY are you going to have a boyfriend. And the fear that what would stem from that would be her doing what she wanted thirty hours a week and only telling me what I wanted to hear.

But I was sharing all this with a friend, who actually has younger children but sometimes you can have wisdom on something that you haven’t had to walk through yet, and she said, “You should just tell her no to the whole thing. She may go and do what she wants anyway, but at least she’ll then know she is disobeying you and therefore God, as opposed to having freedoms she may not want and isn’t ready to have yet.”

And this is where you come in, young moms. As my kids grow older, I’m finding the balance between being their mom and always telling them what to do is shifting to giving them more responsibility and chances to fail on their own, and it’s not always easy to tell when to order, when to guide, when to let go.

I’ve recently heard it said that when we’re born, we’re each given an acre of emotional land to tend to, so to speak. We are to take care of our own land only, and leave others to take care of themselves. And that is ideal for adults who are healthy on all fronts. But I think for kids, it starts out that we take care of our land and their land; but then it slowly becomes our job as moms to show them how to tend to their own land a little more each day. Not holding onto them with death grips, but also, not walking away too soon and assuming they know what to do.

Back to the Sara story. I told her no to the date and I told her no to the boyfriend/girlfriend thing. She looked at me and said, “But I still have to make my decision.” I took a deep breath and said, “Technically you’re right. Like it says in the Bible not to steal but I could still choose to go rob a bank. However, I would be disobeying God if I did that. I’m saying no, Sara, so if you do this, you’ll be disobeying me and disobeying God. But you’re right, it’s still your decision to make.”

So, ladies, say no. It’s okay. This is not the season of friendship-building. They may not like us a lot for good stretches of time. You can always let the boundaries out a bit, but once you’ve done it, it sure is hard to retract them. Whether you’re dealing with a twelve-year-old or a three-year-old.

She came back to me a few days later and said, “I’ve made my decision. I’m not going to be Jordan’s girlfriend. And actually, I’m not even going to be his friend. I noticed that every time I saw him in the hallway, I’d get sick to my stomach.” To which I replied, “That’s probably the Holy Spirit!” (I’ll use whatever I can!)

© Elisabeth K. Corcoran, 2009

Submitted on : 01-Feb-2009