I began writing this little post a couple nights ago. I couldn’t sleep because I was truly concerned for my 16-year-old son. He said some things about how he was feeling emotionally, and it scared me. He is the child most like myself when I was that age. Yes, it is payback when you know exactly what they may attempt because you remember exactly what you would have done at the same age. As a mother, I think about how they are acting, what they are saying and feeling, and try to contain or prevent catastrophe before it happens. I seldom brush anything off. I am dealing with the greatest gifts God has given me. They mean everything to me, and I take nothing lightly.
I talked with my son that night about some things I saw going on with him. I wasn’t sure if I got through. After all, he is a teenager, and we assume they are caught up in their own teenage world. After laying in bed that night, unable to sleep due to concern for my son, he knocked on my bedroom door early in the morning, then came in to talk. He sounded like a grown man as he told me it was time for him to pull it together and do what needs to be done. How hard it must be to be barely 16 and at the same time becoming a man. It’s an awful lot of pressure. I expect him to act like a man, yet he has all of these rules as my child. As I rubbed my eyes and listened to this precious child whose feet I used to love to hear pitter-patter down the hall, knowing he was running to my room at night to sleep with me, my heart ached. How I desperately want to fix everything for him and protect him from every pain this rough world has in store for a boy becoming a man. Unfortunately, that will not help him and I cannot.
I could protect them all from some pain when they were younger. There were rules to keep them under my wing and not too far from the nest. I knew which trees were safe for climbing and how far down the driveway they could ride their bikes. If a knee was scraped, I grabbed a band-aid even though it often wasn’t necessary, and gave the wound a kiss. That was it. All better. By age 16, I can no longer heal their wounds, physically or emotionally, with a bandage and a kiss. I can only guide them and be here through it all.
Our children will most likely never know the tears we cried behind closed doors, or the prayers we begged for in the middle of the night. Until they have children of their own, they won’t understand that our hearts break when theirs break, maybe even harder than their own.
Motherhood is a powerful force. There is truth in the phrase, The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world. Let us be aware mothers, of what we are shaping and how limited our time is. Kiss the wounds, large and small. Have the talks, from “Can we get a puppy?” to “Mom, I’m in love.” Just keep at it. It is so worth it. I don’t have all the answers, but I know I will never regret one minute of bandaging wounds, the pitter-patter of feet running down the hall, the millions of kisses I have placed on their cheeks, and the many, many times I have said, “Come here and sit down. Let’s talk.”
**This article was written by Melissa Nicholson of Aprons, Heels & Yoga Pants. See more from her on her website.
