No Longer Cool
I know it's ridiculous and petty, but I am much more upset than I should be by the fact that my teenage daughter no longer thinks I'm cool.
It's not like I didn't realize that, one day, this would happen. At some point, it's natural for kids to pull away from their parents, to start building their own space. And I'm proud of her for doing that -- for demonstrating that independence, and for being willing (albeit begrudgingly) to take on the responsibility that comes with that sort of independence. The fact that she even has a fairly socially-accepted concept of "what's cool" and "what's not cool" is pretty amazing for a child who has historically struggled with social queues in general.
So, I really wasn't prepared to take it personally when it eventually happened. I figured I would easily let it roll off my back, like so many other things. And I'd seen the signs for months,now -- I knew it was only a matter of time before it all came to fruition.
Still -- I didn't expect to feel hurt by her pushing me away. It just goes to show that your children will always surprise you, just as you will continually surprise yourself.
I talked with A. a little bit about it today. I wanted to know where she got this idea that talking to her mom wasn't cool -- was it something her friends had said? She assured me it wasn't, she was just nervous about them seeing my comments to her Facebook posts, that they might defriend her or something. I pointed out that they would be pretty crappy friends to defriend her over something like that, and she agreed, and I assured her I'd stop commenting on her Facebook posts, but I also wanted her to understand that my feelings were hurt.
"It's just that I'm building this new life for myself," she explained. And I thought about how adamant she was to donate so much of her old clothes & toys when we cleaned out her closet this past weekend, how little of her old life she wanted to hold on to -- how it was obvious she was ready for her life to reflect this change within her. She's building an identity, a personality, a methodology of interacting with the crazy world outside. And she wants that to be an identity separate from her mother. I can certainly understand and appreciate that.
But, it still makes me a little sad.