I look at my son and all of his adolescent sulkiness and I can’t believe that he has had me longer than I ever had my mother. I look at him and realise just how young and immature I was when I lost my mother. Yet I thought, as he does, that I knew it all. Had seen it all. And no one could tell me otherwise.
I now realise I had conjured my mother up in my head to be a hero because she died before I reached these brooding teenage years. Before she and I ever got to experience the days when I just wanted her to shut up. As I know my son does me now. We never got to experience me looking at her like she had two heads as my son does with me now. All I did, as a teenager, was fantasise that if my mother was here things would be so much better for me. Instead of me feeling so lost and out of place all the time. Feeling like the odd one out.
But now I realise a huge part of adolescence is feeling like the odd one out. Feeling like no one understand what you are going through and feeling alone. I look in my son’s eyes sometimes when we are butting heads and I see something that borders on disgust coming back at me. Then I get angrier and start shouting at him. Which only pushes him further away from me.
I realised last night after he went to bed that more than anything I am hard on my son right now because I am afraid. I am moving into uncharted territory. My son has had me longer as a mother than I ever had with my mother. I don’t know what I am supposed to be like now because I had no role model, no mother, in my life at this stage of his life that I can emulate.
So sometimes it’s hard for me to back off. To stop. Because I am trying to make sure my son becomes the best person he can be and knows he has people that care about him. I want him to experience as much as he can with me, my husband, his sister, and our family just in case something happens to one of us.
I realised last night I live in fear of my family dynamic changing because of how abruptly and without warning mine did all those years before. And I am doing the best I can to make sure everyone gets as much love and attention as I can possibly give in the event something happens to me or to one of us.
The other day my husband, son and I had a long discussion about parenting and rules and what I told my son was, “I have never been a parent before so all this is new to me. I am learning how to approach parenthood in the same way that you are learning to be a son so we need to work together. Be honest with each other and let each other know when we are going too far so that we can adjust our behaviours to not hurt the other. I have no experience with being a parent so I need your help.”
I don’t know if he believes me but what I know for sure is I can’t be perfect and I can’t create the perfect world for my son. All I have to do is show him that he is loved and wish for the best. I have to remember to stay in the moment and not project into any time beyond it. To remember I am here and so is my whole family in that moment. To savour it. Relish it. And most of all to enjoy it for what it is and brings. Only then will I not panic.
I have to stop thinking my son should be grateful that he still has a mother. Instead I have to do things that allow my son to be grateful that he has a mother.
Motherhood is the most levelling, humbling and trying experience because it truly is an example of what you give is what you get. And as a mother I am doing the best I can with the battle scars I carry. Remembering my son and I chose each other for a reason. So I just have to let go and let him be. Let it be. And maybe one day I will be my son's hero too because I gave him the wings to fly.
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