Mary Rooke Commentary and Analysis Writer
Welcome back to Good Life, a newsletter about navigating our modern culture and staying sane in the process. This week, we discuss motherhood and the importance of guiding your children.
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No one really talks about the emotional weight a mother has to carry when her daughters go through puberty. That’s where I am right now. We are smack dab in the middle of the preteen stage with one of our daughters when the hormones are raging and emotions are out of control. But I’ve been here before. I know what the signs are and how to guide her through this stage. Still, that doesn’t make this period any less exhausting.
I am not one of those parents who can let things slide. I hate the attitude that modern parenting promotes, which suggests that children are inherently resilient. Any adult can tell you that there are moments in their childhood they’ll always remember negatively. There’s even a popular trend on social media where kids talk about past instances with their parents, and their mother scoffs and denies any culpability.
When you are a kid, your parents are your whole world. As you grow older, that world expands to friends, teachers, and peers. So while I make up the bulk of their emotional development, I take every word and action seriously as if this moment will be remembered forever.
Some will say that this puts too much pressure on me as a parent, but I wonder if they see the result of generations of children growing up under the “resilient” mindset and just how broken our society and family life have become. So I push that “advice” aside and give all of myself to making sure I am putting their best interests at heart in the decisions, words, and guidance I choose for them.
During the teenage years, this is obviously a harder task than when they were still considered little girls. I have to fight against social conditioning that tells them they aren’t going to have a good relationship with me, their mother. I have to counteract peer pressure and negativity about themselves that they receive from the world outside our family.
The thing that keeps me going throughout all of this is that I know I’m not just raising children; I am raising the next generation of mothers and wives. I don’t want to wake up one day and find that my daughters are struggling with the emotional weight of motherhood and marriage. I know a lot of their ability to thrive in these roles comes from how well I can prepare them for the task.
Women have this uncanny ability to continue pushing themselves for the sake of their family, sometimes well past the point of exhaustion. Men do it too, but for women, it’s different because it often involves carrying the emotional and physical weight of the entire family.
My husband is fantastic at helping me. Although we comfortably live in our desired gender roles, that has never stopped him from stepping in to make dinner or help pick the girls up from school. Still, the bulk of raising our girls naturally falls on me because I am one. I have gone through all of these stages. I can recognize and inherently track what they need and when they need it better than he can. This isn’t an attack on him; it’s basic biology.
So when my second oldest came to me this week, telling me she felt emotionally out of control, despite feeling like I had been running a nonstop marathon since my husband’s hospital stay, I went into action.
My job in that moment was to calm the storm. This is probably the most crucial period of our relationship. I had every right to brush her off and tell her it was no big deal. I had just sat down for the first time all day, but I know from dealing with our older daughter that if I wanted my second oldest daughter to trust me with the same intensity that my oldest does, I would need to set aside my own needs and settle her.
She told me what was going on, and I grounded her back into reality. Every situation requires a unique approach to dealing with it. This time, she just needed me to explain why her emotions were getting out of control and give her the freedom to collapse into me. I held her, combing my fingers through her hair until I felt her body relax.
When she laid down, she had soft tears in her eyes and down her face. Those were gone now. It helped that my older daughter had seen what was happening and waited for her sister to get up before going upstairs to bed. As soon as her sister stood up from my chair, she grabbed her and joked, “Welcome to the club.”
I thought to myself that I had done a good job with our first. At least good enough for her to recognize that her sister needed some reassurance that every girl goes through this stage. It also made me hopeful that as they see their sisters going through the emotional rollercoasters, it will reinforce how they handle their own daughters when the time comes.
This is why I push myself the way that I do. The exhaustion is a sign that I am giving my all during this season of my life. It’s a blessing that I have been given the gift of raising four beautiful, kind daughters, who will hopefully be prepared enough to do the same.
What I Saw This Week:
I was pretty shocked to hear that Trump has decided to increase the number of Chinese students U.S. colleges are allowed to admit annually. You can read more about that and my analysis on why making this official U.S. policy would be a disaster HERE.
Please continue to send any questions or comments about the newsletter to [email protected]. While I can’t always respond, I do try to read them all! The community we are building is one of my favorite parts of this experience.
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This post is adapted from Mary Rooke’s weekly Good Life newsletter, which tackles navigating our modern culture and staying sane in the process. If you have not already subscribed, please consider doing so here.