Raising Teens is Like Writing Books

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Raising teens is like writing books. In both cases, the “author” of the developing project moves from inception, to draft, to completion in a nonlinear fashion. In fact, despite the customary stages through which one might expect such burgeoning forms to progress, there is almost always a situation or ten that takes place which throws any personal estimate of what “ought to be” out the window. Fortunately, both “imperfect” children and “imperfect” texts still tend to succeed.

The trick for authors and for moms, and for mom authors, is to embrace acceptance. Whereas it might feel easier to love a blotched page than to love a blotched child, especially if that child’s “stain” derives from neglecting to move much needed laundry from the washer to the dryer, the child, too, can prove endearing.  Consider that book signings can be as dull a requisite as is attendance at high school pageants and that the signings only have the potential to increase sales, whereas membership in an audience to a teen’s performance has the potential, as incredible as that notion seems, to enforce life-long bonds.

Further, reflect on the fact that losing a chapter to hyperspace, because of pressing the wrong sequence of keys might result in exaggerated grouchiness, but that losing a chapter of parenting will certainly result in more than decades of regret.  True, when crafting a book, one can fall into fits and spurts of anger, resentment, bitterness, loss, and even into that state in which one feels as though earnest effort has little meaning. One ought to remain aware, though, that a similar response to the foibles of children can be profound in unfortunate ways.

More specifically, while our penned pages might, in the end, get recycled into bird litter, into fondue kindling or into bathtub boats, our fostered children, in contrast, might grow into teachers, into paramedics, or into rocket scientists. More importantly, they might grow into the persons who hold doors open for overburdened neighbors, who stay up late listening to colleagues’ problems, who remember to invite unpopular friends over for coffee, and who call up their old moms to see how they’re doing with their latest literary struggles.

It is unlikely that publications or adolescents will regularly concur with their guides’ ideas about what is best in this world. Yet, their existence has the ability to cause us to conform to what is most beneficent. It is unlikely that books or children will ever evolve according to schedule. Yet, both have the potential to fill our life spans with wonders otherwise unimagined.  Neither writing nor teens ought to be taken for granted no matter how extensively we bumble. Although, sometimes, it’s simpler to turn a page, we need to persevere in our creative efforts and it’s imperative that we regularly show our children that we love them.

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