Surviving the teen years…
QUOTE OF THE WEEK: When I was 16 years old, I was amazed at how stupid and incompetent my father was. By the time I turned 21, I was amazed at how much he had learned in just five short years. (paraphrased) –Mark Twain
If I’ve learned anything from my travels and travails is that difficulties in a relationship almost never lie at the feet of only one party in the relationship. Introspection and honesty forces me to admit that at least part of the struggles with my son are be traceable to me. I wonder if, in part, it stems from the velocity and direction of change.
A mother looks at her son and will always see him through the lens of his early childhood when all is promise and joy; when she daydreams about the man he will become. When there is discordance between longing and reality, there is friction both internal and external. I wonder then, if some of our difficulties lie in my own battle between what I want and what I should accept, taking responsibility only for what is truly mine.
For a child change is not only inevitable but desirable, as he struggles to disconnect himself from the past because he believes that connections are limiting and harmful to his growth and independence. There is no awareness of the value or power of those connections and maybe no fear of truly severing them if he feels the underlying love is pure and genuine.
Through all of the struggles I know I can take comfort in the fact that I am not alone; that this dance repeats itself from generation to generation. Socrates is said to have noted of the children in Ancient Greece that: “The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. They contradict their parents and tyrannize their teachers.”
TIP OF THE WEEK: DON’T TAKE IT PERSONALLY (emphasis added)!! Also, get educated. Info at www.cyfs.org or 434-296-4118, and www.ccfinfo.org.
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