Have you ever been involved in an intense conversation, maybe a passionate conversation, the kind where you spend a little more time in your own thoughts preparing what you want to say next? You are so involved in crafting a response to something that was said you may not even know the next several points your partner just made because you are too busy responding internally. I don’t know about you, but I know I have been guilty of this more often than I care to admit even to myself. But you get it, right? I mean, likely we’ve all been there. Sometimes I can get this way even more with my teenagers—I don’t listen as much as I need to because I’m too caught up making the next really good point I know they need to hear from me.
Is it any wonder teenagers can get frustrated with their parents?
Because it can be difficult as the grown up to admit our flaws and missteps. But they’re there. Our willingness to have real conversations with our teenagers require us to put aside our pride and the idea that we know more than our teenager. Our relationship with our teenager actually demands this humility from us. I say all of this having realized these truths earlier today as I had a bit of genuine conversation with my girls. Because here’s the thing, I like to be right. I enjoy being wise. I need to look (and feel) smart, like I have every answer to every question and all manner of wisdom to every argument they may have about something (the term argument here being the actual act of logical persuasion, not an actual fight).
With teenagers, it can feel necessary to feel in control and far more knowing than we actually are (the why behind this is fodder for a different post). But, what our teenagers need more than any of that posturing is simply us. They need us to be genuine, to be honest, and to be humble enough to admit we don’t know something and, even more, that sometimes we get it wrong. Boy, is that not so easy to do.
But, that’s what I decided to do today. There’s a line from the musical Hamilton that had been echoing around in my mind for several days, and as I sit here at this keyboard, I’m beginning to wonder whether they were something I needed to hear and apply here. In the musical, General George Washington is singing the song, Right Hand Man to the audience. It’s a moment of vulnerability for Washington as he sings, Can I be real a second? For just a millisecond? Rather than continuing on with the idea that he’s got everything together, he honestly admits his faults and his need for help. I have quoted those two lines quite a lot and I’m guessing it was a good foundation for the conversation with my girls today, to remind me to be real with them.
But as much as they need me to be real, they also need me to listen and to hear them. That’s hard for me. But today was a good step in practicing that. And in giving them permission to say, Hey, Mama, I need you to listen and not to talk right now. That is not an easy thing for me because, as I said previously, I like to demonstrate and share my wisdom and my knowledge, neither of which is helpful if that’s not what they’re looking for, you know?
Fortunately, they understand me sometimes more than I do, and today, they were graceful enough to give me the space to be less than the perfect parent I wish I were. They were able to hear me, and, in return, I was able to hear them. Relationships are not always easy. Real conversations are not always easy. Parenting is not always easy. But love is always, always, a choice, and because love is something I actively choose each day, the not always easy things become a bit easier.
(One final note: having talked to my daily-blog-reading 17-year-old and having assured her my decision to shift this blog’s timing has to do with the time investment and not because I won’t be able to find 365 reasons why I love her and her sister, I will be posting these entries once a week rather than daily so I can free up some time for other projects.)