I will hold onto you, even when you let go.
To my teenage son,
I will hold onto you even when you push so hard that I feel my heart break.
I will hold onto you when you know the words you said hurt.
I will hold onto you even when the aggression in your tone frightens you.
I will hold onto you when you expect more from me than you’re willing to contribute.
I will hold onto you until you feel safe enough to let go and I hope and pray I know when that moment is.
But for now, I know you need me, I know you still crave my connection and I know that deep down you are trying so desperately to connect but with every fibre of your being you cannot.
Why do I know this? It’s the little things.
It’s the things I watch out for when I am drowning in thoughts of concern and worry.
It’s the little gestures, comments and routines you hang onto that tell me; my little boy is in there. It’s the love heart you have after my name in your saved contacts, it’s the hug that you don’t pull away from, it’s the constant calls to check where I am and it’s the person you become when you are not overwhelmed with school and all the expectations that holds.
I remind myself you are learning how to be a man with the person you feel the safest in the world - me. The person who you hope will hold on. The person you hopes will not make you feel worse for the actions you know are wrong, the anger you so desperately cannot control and the worry you hold that this is ‘who you are’.
It is not who you are, because I see you. Beneath the anger, beyond the lack of hygiene, underneath the limited conversation, through the utter exhaustion, aside from your cravings for all things fried and independent of your lifeline - your phone.
I will break, I will struggle and I will flip my lid. But what I will do, because I know that you cannot, is: reconnect. I will forget the insults; I will process the anger and I will forgive even when you cannot. I won’t always give in, nor will I compromise the values and morals I expect in my household BUT I will hold space for you to learn, space for you to regulate and space for you to reconnect even when it isn’t through words that you find so hard to say.
Why can I hold this space? Because I am the adult.
Today as I drove you to the station, I noticed you didn’t sit on your phone, I listened as you spoke and engaged in some conversation and then as you walked up the stairs to the platform, I noticed the three times you turned back to wave. These moments are rare these days, but I will keep that feeling close and this is what gives me the motivation to hold on.
I have lived my struggles of development and I know through it all I was a good person who didn’t always know the right answers. What I know beyond every piece of advice, every strategy for parenting and every sleepless night of worry, is that I am a good person who is raising a good person. I am a mother that will choose connection over correction. I will choose compassion over conformity.
I know your brain is flooded with hormones and is underdeveloped in all the functions needed to even try to manage your overwhelm. I remember the recent conversation we had about how hard you find school and the demands of your mental load. I tried to remember and connect on common ground but you rightly put me in my place and said ‘It is different now’. When you mentioned all that happens online with phones, social media and the content you are exposed to I crumbled. Your load is so much heavier than mine ever was because there is no reprieve. You cannot escape the social expectations of your peers - which is harsh. I do not wish to take your social connection away but I can hold on while you learn to navigate the right way to deal with it.
Parenting a teen is harder than I ever expected. It makes me look inward and face my weaknesses full on. It highlights all my triggers and then serves them up on a platter for dessert. Parenting an angry teen is a whole new lesson in patience, tolerance and understanding. But if my boy was listening I would tell him I will stick with you. I will advocate for you when people suggest stricter parenting, harsher punishments and stronger consequences. What I know deep down is that who I was at 14 is not who I am now and I will use all I know and all I have experienced to hold on.
It is a choice to push away and I know that choice is partly self-preservation for you.
Because if I can’t you may lose the one connection that you need the most - mine.
Love Mum xoxo
“Safety is not the absence of threat, but the presence of connection.”