My daughter is 11 going on 18. If you know, then you know. She's been smart and brave and adventurous, always, and now that she's a tween, she's ready to experience new things tenfold. Her house is a boring wasteland where I, her boring mother, lives. And the world outside is waiting.
I get it. I remember it. Sometimes, it feels like I was only just there.
Being a tween is tough because you're dying to get out most of the time and there's a lot of discomfort in that feeling. You feel more grown up than you are and you usually don't want to be around your parents who don't understand the ways that you are changing. Only because it's hard to keep up — it all happens so fast. So, you hang out with friends as much as possible. You talk on the phone constantly. And, maybe you go to sleepaway camp for the first time.
This summer, my daughter, who is currently on the phone (it's a group chat that I'm not sure actually ever ends), is doing just that. She's off to a weeklong drama camp at a nearby school. She will stay in dorms and hang out with girls she doesn't know and, I guess, learning to act will be part of it, too. But who really cares what she learns because the whole experience will be one huge lesson, right?
Going to sleepaway camp is so exciting and I'm completely thrilled for her. I was a bit older than my daughter when I went to a weeklong camp and slept in cabins and even had my first awkward and terrible kiss. Leaving home and having these experiences are huge opportunities to learn and to grow and maybe, feel a little bit free from the constraints of being somebody's daughter.
Still, now that she's a couple of weeks away from starting camp, and practically packing her bags already, I'm realizing that I'm the one who is nervous. It doesn't make any sense really! For one, I'll only have one kid in the house for a week — that means I won't have to listen to fighting between her and her brother. I can have some special time with my younger son. And I don't have to worry about my daughter's sometimes very tweeny, moody 'tude.
But here's the thing. My daughter is one of the bravest and most strong-willed creatures I've ever met. She's passionate and unique and completely unafraid to be who she is in a way that it takes most humans years to master. She'll dye her hair a different color on a whim, cut off a T-shirt to show her belly, even put up her middle finger in a TikTok video because, well, I have no idea and who really cares? If you don't like it, that doesn't bother her one bit. She's just being herself and she's kind of pretty awesome at it.
It makes me wonder just how she got so bold and so truthful, but I spend a lot more of my energy on hoping she stays that way than wondering why she is the way she is. The fact is, she will need that confidence throughout her life more than any other tool. So I try hard not to disturb it, even though I know in my heart, that so many other things could and likely will.
This is why raising a brave daughter is terrifying for mothers. Because you have your own set of fears, most of which are irrational and only derived from your own experiences. And it's not fair to put your own fears on your child. It's not fair to constantly define her experiences by your own or taint them with your own. Not when she's 11, or 25, or 40.
But you still have them. You just get used to swallowing them when they're silly, or even when they aren't. All anxiety does is make children question themselves and their abilities. It doesn't actually help prevent disasters from happening, especially because brave daughters seldom listen to fearful mothers, and thank God for that.
I am a mother who sometimes gets scared, so my daughter heading out for a week to live with strangers is scary. I'm thinking of scenarios because what if she doesn't get along with her roommates? What if she gets homesick and wants to leave? What if halfway through it she realizes that she actually hates acting and, and, and, what if, what if, what if???
I am also a mother who knows better and is letting go of each and every one of those fears as they come up. No matter what the experience is like for my daughter, terrible or amazing, it will be important in some way. Like most things about my daughter's life and choices, just being her mother doesn't give me the right to inject my own fears onto her. It's something I'll strive hard never to do, no matter what choices she makes in her life, even if I don't like them. Especially if I don't like them.
It's easy enough to shake off these feelings when it comes to something like sleepaway camp, that much is true. It'll be over in a week and she'll be back home, calling her brother an idiot and grumbling about loading the dishwasher. But the point is that it's pretty easy to tug at our kids over little things and big things with the weight of our own thoughts, our own worries, our own experiences. Recognizing that those feelings are usually about us, not about our kids, is pivotal.
When we don't realize how big those pressures feel to our kids, though, when we get in the way of their braveness, when we question every clothing item, every new hair style, every phase or social media post or piercing, we aren't really honoring who they are. We're just recycling our own trauma and our own fears about how the world might perceive them or hurt them.
The truth is, it hurts kids anyway to have their identities or their abilities doubted.
As mothers, as parents, as nurturers, it's hard to stand by and let life happen to our kids, for better or for worse. It's hard to let them make terrible mistakes. The thing is, they are really theirs to make.
Sometimes we need to take a page out of our brave daughters' books and practice being brave, too.
Check out the summer experiences!
*GFS Summer Residential Experiences
July 11 – July 22, 2022
For girls ages 11-17
Offerings: Riding / Polo / Performing Arts / S.T.E.A.M. / Environmental Stewardship
Contact: [email protected]
gfs.org/summer*
