I read a beautiful article the other day about mothering adult children.  It said that we come to a stage where it requires us to be more hands off, but always hearts on.  I loved this because it sums up parenting at this stage in my mothering journey as I try to figure out how to love my grown-up kids well.  It means not offering advice unless they ask us.  We allow them to dictate the frequency of communication between us (otherwise we would call them every day).  It requires us holding our tongues more when we would rather give our opinions.  It is a new way of allowing them to take the lead.  A switching of roles of sorts.



My son recently had his wisdom teeth out.  It was difficult watching him in pain, trying to talk with bloody gauze in his mouth, and seeing him so uncomfortable.  I think it is harder in these situations for mothers more so than the children.  The last thing we ever want is for our kids to be hurt.  We would do whatever we could to take the pain away or to even take it on ourselves, so they do not have to experience it.

As mothers, however, I think the hardest pain to watch is the emotional/mental agony our kids go through.  Feeling excluded, having low self-esteem, not feeling like they fit in, body image issues, friendships that dissolve, broken hearts from relationships, or not making it onto a sports team they worked so hard for.  These are the toughest.  When we cannot fix it for them.  When they have to figure out who their true friends are on their own.  When they must experience failure in order to find resilience.  These are the life lessons that can only be learned by walking through them to find strength on the other end.  As mama bears, we want to plead with the coach to let our kids play.  We want to reach out to the kids who are not acting at all like a “friend” to our child and to be nice.  We want to call the boy who broke up with your daughter and destroyed her heart to read him the riot act.  But, unfortunately, we can’t fight these battles for them.  They must learn how to maneuver these situations for themselves in order to cope with a lifetime of impending disappointments.  It’s unfortunate, but it is reality.  Life is hard and if we can help them learn how to have dignity and grace through these experiences, they will be better people for it. 

So, we take our hands off slowly, but we continue to love fiercely.  We can sit next to them and let them vent.  We can give boxes of Kleenex and lots of hugs.  We can offer advice when asked.  We can just be there because they need to know we will always be by their side coaching, encouraging, listening, sympathizing, and loving.  That is something they can count on.  We were teenagers/young adults once, too, so we know how they feel.  We have all experienced heartache, gut-wrenching let-downs, and lost friendships.  This helps us empathize with our children as we know the pain they are going through.  Our past scenarios of turmoil lead us to fully sympathize and love better because we have been there, too. 

As I sat holding my daughter while she cried about friends being mean to her and she just could not understand why, all I could do was hug her, cry with her, pray over her, and love.  Love is what it is all about.  Love covers all.  Love heals.  Love is what mothers do.