My son is 12 years/old. In a few months he will be a teenager. He is a really great kid, a good human being. I am proud of him and love him to bits. But things are changing. They are changing in a way I knew they would. But I admit, I secretly thought or hoped it might be different for us. We have always been really close. I have never been a helicopter mom, intimately involved in the details of his life, but he has always turned to me. Needed me.
In the last few months things have changed and I am really struggling. The truth is, I miss him. I know very little about his life and he wants it that way. He is happy but I am left with this void. The game has changed and I am scrambling to learn the rules. I know this is normal. He is becoming independent and figuring out the man he will one day be. He is growing away from me as he should. That is, after-all, my job as his parent; to prepare him to stand on his own, capable and strong. I guess I am doing my job well.
Me and my boy.
Is a mother ever ready for this? Are we ever ready for our child whose life has been so intertwined in ours for so many years to start to find his own way? I am so proud of him. I am thrilled he is so capable. I see him making decisions for himself where I would have (and did) falter at his age. I see his confidence and strong sense of himself. I admire him.
But I also feel the loss. The loss of my baby, yes, but also of a relationship that is changing when maybe I am not quite ready. I know I can’t go back but maybe if I had known how quickly and completely it would shift I would have taken one more hug or one more midnight cuddle or one more scraped knee that only mommy could fix. I wouldn’t have rushed through it impatiently eager for him to “grow out of it” because now that he has it feels like a sucker punch right in the gut.
I feel it every time I ask him a question and I get an evasive one word answer or a blank screen or an irritated “Mom” in response. I feel it with every secret and every bit of his life I don’t know. And there are many. I feel it when something happens and he turns away from me and toward a friend instead. I feel it not because I am suspicious or worried but simply because I miss knowing him.