The Letting Go - The Final chapter: What I’ve Learned
Nobody talks about the letting go.
As a mom, it’s been one of the most difficult seasons of parenthood. Yes, harder than that first kindergarten drop-off!
I was just in L.A. visiting my son, who left home exactly a year ago this month, and it struck me all over again just how much I miss him and how much our relationship has changed.
Read Part one here.
When you consider that more than twenty years of our lives are invested in raising, nurturing and caring for a child, it’s easy to see why letting go of that role can be such a daunting task. As a woman who loves too much, and who wasn’t loved in her first marriage, I invested all the love I had in my son. Heart, mind and soul. I’ve written before about how proud I was when he made the leap to move to another country and start living his dream but I also found it incredibly difficult. It felt like a bad break-up, really. Except we’re supposed to be happy about this one because this is what we raised them to do. We spend all those years trying to raise independent, capable humans who will have the courage to go out into the world and build lives of their own. Then, when they actually do it, we're somehow surprised by the giant hole they leave behind. Maybe nobody prepares us for that because letting go is supposed to be the evidence that we did our job well. But knowing that doesn't make you miss them any less.
Biblically, we know that God takes the role of a parent very seriously. We are instructed to raise our children in the "training and instruction of the Lord" without frustrating or exasperating them (Ephesians 6:4). We are to "train a child in the way he should go" (Proverbs 22:6), give good gifts (Matthew 7:11), loving and disciplining them for their sake (Proverbs 13:24), and providing for their needs (1 Timothy 5:8). Ironically, I wonder if those of us who take that responsibility most seriously are also the ones who struggle most when it's time to let go.
Or maybe it's just a mom thing...
At the heart of my difficulty in letting go is fear.
The world can be a scary place. I was always the mama bear when he was young, defending him, protecting him, cheering him on... Now, with him a five-hour plane ride away, I can't take care of him if he gets sick. I can't make sure he's eating properly. I can't know that someone has his back. Perhaps nothing on earth is more testing of our faith than when our children begin to sever the bonds that have held them close to us. Letting go of our children isn't simply turning them loose in the world to fend for themselves. For me, it has meant learning to turn my son over to his heavenly Father. The reality is that he was God's child before he was mine. He was entrusted to me, on loan, for a season. I got the extraordinary privilege of loving him and preparing him but eventually, I also have to trust that God loves him even more than I do. That may be the hardest part.
I have spent most of his life saying, "I've got you". Now I have to trust God when He says the same thing. The more faith I have in Him, the less room there should be for fear. I'm still working on that part.
SO WHAT'S MY JOB NOW?
I still call him "mon petit bébé" (my baby) no matter how tall he gets or how old he is. He is my proudest accomplishment. My greatest joy.
I don't think I would have survived my first marriage without him. Looking back, he gave me a reason to keep going. And when someone has occupied that much space in your heart and your life, perhaps we shouldn't expect the transition into their adulthood to happen without a little grief.
But I've realized something over this past year: My job isn't over. My job description has changed.
While I can't nurture and guard him physically anymore, there are a lot of other things I can do: I can pray for him, encourage him in his walk with God, offer advice when it's asked for. It’s also respecting his privacy just as I would any other adult meaning keeping some of it to myself! I can be a safe place without needing to be the person steering the ship.
Maybe that's the next stage of motherhood: learning how to remain incredibly important in someone's life without needing to be indispensable.
Because something else beautiful happens when we let our adult children go: We get to meet them again, not simply as our children, but as adults. We get to discover who they've become when we're no longer making the decisions. We get to watch them succeed, fail, change their minds, build careers, form relationships, take risks and create lives that may look very different from the ones we imagined for them. And, if we're lucky, somewhere along the way, the relationship becomes something new.
My son is still my son, but he's also one of my favourite people. He's now my best travel buddy and my finest fashion adviser. He’s wise beyond his years and I tremendously respect his opinion and admire his cool demeanour – he definitely didn’t get that from me! He will always have a huge piece of my heart.
PARENTING IS A PROGRESSIVE LETTING GO
Maybe I shouldn't have been so surprised by any of this. Parenting has always been a progressive letting go. The first day of school. The first sleepover. The first time they cross the street without holding our hand. The first time they drive away alone. Their first trip without you. Their first serious relationship. Their first home. At every age and stage, their maturation requires us to loosen our grip a little more. Bit by bit, we step back and let them make their own choices, praying that somewhere beneath all the voices competing for their attention, they will still listen closely for God's.
We spend childhood teaching. Then adolescence guiding. And eventually, adulthood asks something completely different of us: Trust.
Trust the person we raised.
Trust what we put into them.
Trust them to make decisions we wouldn't necessarily make.
Trust them to make mistakes and figure things out.
And, most difficult of all for me, trust God with the parts of their lives we can no longer control.
Maybe that's what letting go really means. Not loving them less. Loving them differently.
A NOTE TO OUR KIDS
And because I can't possibly end this without making a case for why our children should CALL THEIR MOMS!
There actually is some science behind why we moms seem incapable of simply switching off. Research into the maternal brain has found that becoming a mother changes the brain in remarkable ways. Areas involved in attachment, vigilance, emotion, motivation and responding to our children's cues adapt as we become mothers. Motherhood doesn't simply give us someone new to love; in very real ways, our brains adapt to caring for another human being. So after years of listening for cries, watching for danger, checking temperatures, waiting for teenagers to come home, asking whether you've eaten and generally making sure you're still alive, perhaps you can forgive us if we don't magically turn it all off when you move out. Our children grow up and apparently, our mama-bear reflex needs a little more convincing. So when your mother texts, "Everything okay?" because you haven't called lately, remember: she spent decades with part of her attention permanently tuned to you. And while I can't scientifically prove that a 90-second phone call will reset your mother's entire nervous system, I'm willing to volunteer for the study.
Call your mom #JustSaying
