The letting go

When you were an infant, I fed, dressed, warmed, cleaned and comforted.  I worried, dreamed and laughed as you grew mentally, socially and physically.  I had so much control over your life: so much responsibility.

When you became a toddler, you struggled to apply all the amazing things you were learning.  I struggled to keep you, the house, and others from being harmed in the process.  Much of my effort and time was spent in a struggle to maintain control over your actions at home and in public as you struggled for independent discovery.  It was a new type of responsibility that taxed my mind, emotions and body.

When you started school, you discovered that your parents weren’t the only ones who were in control.  We weren’t the only ones who knew.  Suddenly, I found myself in a new area of responsibility.  My concerns were for how you looked, how your work was completed, how you interacted and were accepted by your peers.  It was often frightening to know I wasn’t in complete control.  In fact, I had responsibility for something I often had no control over.

Becoming a teen is similar to becoming a toddler!  You were learning so much and trying to see where your new ideas and skills fit in your world.  Irrationally you struggled to control your own world.  I struggled again to keep you from harming yourself and others.  While the emotional, mental drain was present, this new responsibility came with a very precarious amount of control.  You were like a 2 year old with hormones and, later, a car!

The transition from teen to young adult is curious.  I think it is unique to the individual, but very similar in parenting. Parents must maintain a home and standards while letting go of the controls.  They must counsel without bossing.  They must require accountability while allowing for the inexperience of the novice.  They must encourage without encouraging license.  They must give and demand respect.  While the heart still holds all the events of child rearing, they find themselves without control or responsibility and their hearts break while they burst with pride.

When we finally succeed, when the goal of independent achievement is reached, a new level of relationship is also established.  Parents must be ready to accept that these new products of our effort no longer crave our means, our management or our advice.  We hope they desire our friendship and must be satisfied with the times when they do.  Otherwise, we may enter again into a new and inappropriate quest for control.  Wounded words may be spoken that only drive the person away.  Even if a level of guilt is established that causes the offspring to establish greater interaction, it will wear like sand in the shoe and create a callous or a sore: neither of which was our goal. 

So here we stand: ready to find our life a solitary thing again, full circle from the naïve young adults ready to enter their own cycle of life.  It is the moment of giving up and giving over.  It is the moment we must trust what we have done in our living and believe that the God we tried to follow will lead those we once led.  It is an act of faith to say “You are God.  You are love.  You rule in the affairs of men.  My children are now men.”