Yesterday afternoon, I got a call from a mother in distress. \u00a0The woman was a stranger to me, a single mom struggling through tough times with a troubled teenaged son. \u00a0My younger son went through his own tough time at age sixteen. \u00a0I knew right away how things were for her — the helplessness, the worry, the anger, the isolation, the sleepless nights. \u00a0Of course, it always helps to talk with a person who’s already lived through what you’re enduring in the moment. \u00a0And so, I was glad someone had given her my number and that she had had the willingness to call. \u00a0I listened, as best I could while driving down the highway, and tried to offer her the only advice I felt qualified to give: \u00a0get help.<\/p>\n
It seems like such a simple thing, asking for help. \u00a0And yet it can be so hard. \u00a0Hard to admit, “What I’m doing isn’t working.” \u00a0Or, “I have a problem that is bigger than I am.” \u00a0 Revealing the cracks–in our family life, in a relationship, in our own carefully crafted personas — means showing just how vulnerable we really are. Most of us have a lot invested in putting a good face on things, a message our children internalize early and master by adolescence. \u00a0They get pretty good at acting as if they don’t care, even when things are falling apart around them. Even when, inside, they are as lost and scared as we are.<\/p>\n
I’ve learned a few life lessons from my teenaged sons, and most of them can be boiled down to the first lines of the Serenity Prayer, adopted years ago by 12 Step programs. \u00a0If you are sharing your house with someone between the ages of 14 and 18 or so, you might think about taping these words up on your bathroom mirror:<\/p>\n
God grant me the serenity
\nto accept the things I cannot change;
\ncourage to change the things I can;
\nand wisdom to know the difference.<\/p>\n
In one way or another, motherhood seems to demand that we confront this idea every single day. \u00a0For much of last year, the operative word for me was “courage.” \u00a0“Courage to change the things I can” means courage to admit that things aren’t working, and that we have a responsibility to our children and to ourselves to find a better way. \u00a0More often than not, the first step on that path is the willingness to say, “We need a hand here.” And then we are called to summon in ourselves yet another dose of courage. \u00a0The courage to follow through, and to make hard choices and sometimes painful changes. The courage to be the best parents we can be, moment to moment, even when that means letting go of an ideal or a vision of the way things “ought” to be.<\/p>\n
Asking for help ourselves, we lead the way for our children. \u00a0We affirm our own faith in the world, and strengthen theirs a little, by saying, “We aren’t alone.”<\/p>\n
“I have to go now,” I finally said to my caller, promising that we would speak again. \u00a0I was meeting my son, to watch him play squash, a sport he discovered this winter and has taken up with a passion. \u00a0I’d never even seen a squash match till a few weeks ago, when I googled one on YouTube, so I’d know just what it was that Jack was so excited about. \u00a0Yesterday, we sat together and watched the varsity team, as he explained squash strategy and how to score. \u00a0By the time he entered the court to play, I had my bearings. \u00a0I sat with his best friend, who cheered him on in true best-friend spirit, and who kindly gave me a bit of play-by-play as the match progressed.<\/p>\n
Afterwards, over dinner, we talked about how much has happened in a year, how good things are now, how excited Jack feels as he looks into the future, wondering where he’ll go to college, what he’ll end up doing with his life, what might be just around the corner.<\/p>\n
These days, I’m working with the “wisdom” part of that prayer. \u00a0My sons are both so close to being all grown up. \u00a0And being the best parent I can be now means remembering that how they each “turn out” isn’t up to me and my husband anymore. \u00a0It’s up to them.<\/p>\n
Wisdom is about knowing what I still need to keep hold of — our family values, basic agreements for living together in the house when the kids are at home, and confidence in their good judgment when they’re not. \u00a0It still means consequences that are directly related to poor decisions, although we don’t have too many of those at this point. \u00a0And it means knowing what it’s time for me to let go of: \u00a0the idea that it’s my job to make the world right for my children.<\/p>\n
We are feeling our way into this new, more mature way of being and relating to one another. \u00a0And it’s a pleasure, realizing that I can show up, be present, and trust that my sons have learned the most important lessons I had to teach them. \u00a0Including the one that can save us all: \u00a0“Ask for help.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
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