can you be friends with your teenage kid?

i found myself gifted with the very rare & elusive afternoon alone.

i knew it wouldn't last long but there i was. husband at work. one kid gone. one kid working. one kid sick in bed. two babes sleeping. what was i to do. seriously. i stood in the kitchen for a few minutes. the laundry was already going. do i clean the house in peace? log some much-welcomed mom time on netflix? 

i find when i have even a few minutes of quiet that i can once again hear myself. faint & often frazzled but i'm in there. 

as i stood in the middle of our kitchen floor with no one needing anything & nothing imperative to do, the words came quick & i began journaling through my jumbled thoughts.

our oldest had just left for a babysitting job & as much as i relish hanging out with her in the summertime, she's still an added energy presence to the craziness that is our house in the summer. it's that thought that stopped me. how much i have genuinely loved hanging out with her lately. i thought about how our relationship has evolved as she's gotten older. it's not better or worse than the connection i have with our other kids, just different. maturity has lent us a lot of shared interests & intriguing thoughts. we have inside jokes, similar taste in music & movies, like to talk fashion & even politics. while i don't share everything with her, i am able to share a bit more of life in hopes of instilling important insights into adulthood. as much as my initial instinct is to shield her from every hurtful comment or difficult decision, it's not real. that's not life. 

she needs to hear about some of the bad & know that just because i have a bad day, doesn't mean i have a bad life. that just because something terrible happened, doesn't mean i have to collapse. she needs to be taught forgiveness without expectation, how to set healthy boundaries in relationships, that you must accept grace to give it, that life is about balance, that she doesn't have to be the best, that messing up is human, that giving up should only mean giving it to God. she needs to know that as a child of God, she has eternal hope, unconditional love & a river of forgiveness that stretches on forever.

over the last 15 years of motherhood, i have learned a lot about myself. and honestly, surprisingly so. i feel that at any given time in our life, we feel pretty sure of ourselves. we think we know who we are. we feel that we've arrived. we feel we have things figured out. only to realize over time that finding who we are was never really an end destination but a constant evolution. a constant rediscovering of oneself. of learning & growing. of stretching our bones. 

one thing i have learned & accepted is that i'm not perpetually well-equipped for every stage of life. what i mean is, while i whole-heartedly adore my babies, toddlers are more my forte. while i can engage & direct my middle school babes, high school is where i feel i thrive. and that's okay. and accepting that has been very freeing. and honestly it's been a beautiful process. for the places i feel i fall short, my husband soars. and i can see the grand design for a marriage of two. a compliment. a completion.

but while i stood in our kitchen on a thursday afternoon in june, this one question kept rattling around in my mind, am i allowed to be friends with my teenage daughter?

i've heard the answer my whole life. 

no. 

you can't be her friend. 

you need to be her mother. 

she has enough friends.

she needs boundaries, not a "yes (wo)man".

as if one cannot be both. if you are your child's friend, then you must not be a very good mother. if you're being a good mother, then friendship with your child will be lost on you. it's like i was trained to think this way. or brainwashed. whether i really thought about it-or believed it to be true-or not. and not by my own mother because i always considered my mom my friend-without compromise. maybe some mom started all this after her friend betty was trying to be the "cool mom" & let her kids do whatever they wanted out of her own fear of rejection or isolation. 

i don't know. 

what i do know is if you want to grow a relationship, sharing is important. sharing time. sharing life. sharing the precious pearls each of us carry inside. scars from broken hearts. regret from poor choices. embarrassing moments of growth. if you want to get closer to someone, you do that by giving a piece of yourself to them. forever threading your two hearts with an invisible string of trust. so i share precious memories & my everyday struggles with our teenage daughter. always appropriately for her maturity level.  never compromising my sacred marital covenant. always to the best of my maternal awareness. 

my problem is, i just can't get on board with any of this you-can't-be-her-friend stuff.

i 1,000% consider our teenage daughter my friend. and i cannot wait for future friendships to unfold with each of my children. while the details & definition of our mother/child friendships won't be the same as my husband & i's or the same as my adult female best friends, our friendships will assuredly be there. present & full of boundaries & rules & consequences when necessary. i mean, isn't that how a good friendship works? when one of you falls short, the other is there with outstretched arms. when one of you loses their way, the other texts you the gps location. you share knowing looks. you know each other's drink order. you accept each other for who you are & who you are not. you speak without fear of rejection. an intimate relationship built on tear-stained shoulders & sound embraces.

today i am thankful for that moment of quiet. and yes, it didn't last long before baby by baby they awoke from their naps & little needs needed to be met. and maybe no one but me has ever thought about this or maybe i'm way off base. maybe you think this can't be done or maybe you've just never seen it modeled, but as for me and my house, we will continue being friends with our kids.

my only request is that you please don't call me betty.

xo