Echoes.

One of the hardest things about being a mom is knowing where to draw the line.
You know what line.
The Friend/Mom line.
You see, being a woman means that I tend to be the heart of the family.  Ie, the person who kisses the owwies, the person who holds you when you cry, the person who makes sure that you always know you’re wonderful and the person that you can talk to at any time.
Because I’ve been a single mom, that’s made my relationship with my daughter VERY close.
In fact, I have to say that in some ways it’s probably too close.

No, I don’t mean in a creepy way, you jerks.
I just mean that she is used to being the center of my attention.
And in a way, I failed her in that, because she technically never was.
Oh, she was during illnesses and sores and accidents and stressful days.
But above all, I’ve always known that I have to be okay in order for her to be okay… and she has to be okay in order for me to be okay…

But I’m the one she’s going to look to.
How I react gives her the clues she uses to react herself.

So, through the years we’ve cultivated a closeknit parent/child relationship which also can border the friend relationship.
Right know, the parenting part comes first – I don’t have a problem making the decisions that back that up, but there is always a part of you that hurts when you have to follow through.

Many of her friends’ parents seem to have trouble drawing that line.
Many of the people we know -not necessarily friends, but just people we know – seem to have trouble drawing a line at the fact that she is 12 right now and that 12 is old enough to get jokes you hate that they get, but not old enough that it’s open season on telling them.

And because of that things that she tells me sometimes mean that I have to make a decision.
To act or not to act.
To date, my decision has been to act 100%.  On the parenting side, which is the right side.
And her decision to talk to me has been from the friendship side.

I’ve let her know that there are things that ALWAYS mean I have to share it with another adult.
Secrets that can harm them or someone else are #1.
Secrets that could be troublesome down the road are on the list.
As well as secrets that could put their parents in a bad situation.
Anything that breaks laws is an obvious.
As well as anything that puts a child I’m responsible for in a position I wouldn’t want my own child to be in.

I worry that she’ll soon stop talking as openly to me because of this.
It’s already happened in some areas.
She knows where I stand on certain things – for instance, some of my BIL’s friends are unsavory and I simply won’t allow her to be around them.  A 12 year old should not be around situations that are too mature for their years.

I watch her friends’ parents fall into the trap of wanting to keep the closeness and so stepping back when they should step forward.
I don’t feel better than them.
I feel more right than they are.
But I don’t feel superior, which is strange, since technically I do feel I’m making the better decision.

But there is a pain of losing some of your child’s trust.
And a pain of knowing that they have encountered something that you didn’t see coming – not that you can see everything coming.
And there is a pain of knowing that you can’t just pick her up, escape to the moon and keep her from these crazy people that live in this area.

I have to put my hard hat on and go to work sometimes.
Sometimes the crashes and bumps along the way mean that we both need helmets to make sure we come out of it brain intact.

And sometimes I just hope that the lessons she’s learning now from me STICK and that when she’s my age with children of her own – that she’ll choose to stand on the parenting side and teach her children that  there are things that matter more than their happiness with her and whether or not they want to hang out with their mom at the moment - their safety mentally and physically is the most important thing in the world to her – and she’ll fight any monster she has to to make sure  they walk through life’s line of fire unscathed.