Life happens. Shit happens. Good things and bad things happen in this world and we don’t have control over most of them. It can feel overwhelming. As children, we have no control over most of what happens to us. Parents choose. They decide for us what to wear, what to eat, where to go and when to go. But before we know it, we are the parents making all the decisions.
There is a middle ground when kids grow out of having all the choices made for them and having no control, to being a teenager where they want control over everything in their own life. However much they want control and to be independent, they are still bound by the rules of the parents; they are still not fully responsible for themselves. This is a rough middle ground for both parents and teens. I have struggled with this over and over again having had 4 sets of teenagers at different times. I think I am finally getting the hang of it as I enter into the last set. Maybe.
I have often said to my teens as they struggle through various things, “YOU are the author of your own script.” If life is a movie, you have the lead role in it. You cannot choose a lot of things, but you do have control on what your character chooses to do with those things. It is possible to have plot twists; I’ve seen that a lot with teenagers (and even younger) through my life movie. In fact, I am happy to have the plot twists most of the time; this is what keeps the movie interesting.
Life is a movie and we can choose how our lead character makes it through the adventures. We may not have the whole thing written yet or know how the ending will turn out, but we have some control to guide the direction in which it goes. My goal in teaching my kids to write their own script is to give them control of the things they can control to give them confidence in their future. Since I am not the one who will be living their movie, they will be, they need to take responsibility for it. I may be a main character here and there, but most of the time, I will play a much smaller role in their movie. The thing is, as their mother, it is important for me to know my role in their movie is just as the supporting one. I don’t want to upstage the star; I want to be the one that cheers them on as they score the game-winning point or discover the answers to the questions of the universe.
One of the most difficult parts of motherhood is knowing when it is no longer your place to control everything your child does and when it is time to let them fly free. A mother’s job, since the day they get pregnant, is to take care of their baby. Our job is to teach them, keep them safe and provide for all their needs. It is so difficult to let go of that instinct to protect. The unspoken rule of motherhood, maybe one of the hardest, is that at some point we have to let go. When they are little, we teach them to ride their bike and know when we let go of the back, they might lose their balance and fall. But we have to let go. We have to let them steer and balance and choose which way to ride, even if they get hurt. We must trust our children to write their own script and start living it. We have to trust them to make decisions for themselves that we may know will hurt them. But we will be there for them as they make those choices and as they get up battered and bruised to face the next scene.