20 January 2010

Because She Can Read


If you have read this blog for very long you may have noticed a few things.

I think our kids are funny.

I like to take pictures of them and to tell stories about them.

There are six of them.

But one does not appear here nearly as frequently as the others.

Yes. I know.

But it has nothing to do with my love for Riley, our beautiful teenaged daughter. (Or maybe it has everything to do with my love for her.)

The primary reason I do not write often about Riley is simple.

She knows how to read.

I love Riley. Of course I do. I think she's funny. And beautiful. Kind. Flexible. Easy going. Friendly. And loaded with potential. I loved her twangy little accent and her unruly, choppy hair the day I met her six year old self. And I was thrilled the day her adoption became final when she was nine.

But this blog is actually not a place where I lie.

Soooo . . . .

The truth for me is . . . parenting Riley can be hard.

Maybe parenting any teenager can be challenging. So I've heard.

And losing both my mother and Kevin's mother in such a short span has altered a bit of our perspectives on ourselves as teenagers. (There are just some memories only a mother holds.) Sometimes I forget that I was ever like Riley. Fifteen. Absorbed in me.

Because most days I feel as if Riley is just so . . . . not like me.

And I never really know how to handle that.

If I am honest, and I did just proclaim that I am, I would have to admit that most days I am pretty confident of only one truth regarding my parenting of Riley. I'm not doing so well.

My tendency is to correct, reason, monologue . . . because I desperately want to see this fifteen year old live up to that untapped potential. I want to see wise decisions. A pure heart. A life that doesn't look like every Disney teen bouncing across our screen or clogging the radio waves.

Yes. I'm pretty sure I just discovered the heart of the issue.

I want what cannot be had just yet. I want the end without the means. I want the prize without the race. I want her to have the knowledge that only comes from experience because I want to spare her the heartache that so often accompanies that experience.

Ah. Fifteen.

Even revisiting it vicariously is difficult.

5 comments:

  1. ~sigh~ i love your honesty...to hear your feelings on this age...to know.

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  2. Trying to remember 15 ...

    Ahhh yes. The sophomore year!!!

    The absolute worst year of my adolescent life.

    Then I got a license (I should stop there).

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  3. She can read....that is so funny and yes it does explain it all. lol

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  4. You are a great mother Lacey, you do a fantastic job. Keep it up! I couldn't do half as good a job as you are doing with your 53 man roster (football analogy) of a family.

    Help her experience life, don't hold her back. Its easier to help her up when she falls or fails when she lives at home, then when she is at college, or living on her own in another city.

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  5. Love this one. Yes, I'm there with you . . . every day. Only there are 3 instead of 1. Look for her strengths and encourage her to grow in them; don't try to make your strengths and gifts hers. They never will be.

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