Sanders - Mom, Im not a kid anymore: navigating 25 inevitable conversations that arrive before you know it

Sue Sanders is a writer whose essays have appeared in The New York Times, the Oregonian, Parents, Family Circle, Brain, Child, and on Salon,theRumpus, and Babble, among others. Her stories have been included in the anthologies Ask Me About My Divorce and Women Reinvented. She lives in Portland, Oregon, with her husband, Jeff, and daughter, Lizzie. Lizzie, now fourteen, recently added marine biologist to her ever-growing list of career choices.

Parenting a preteen can be a bit like trudging up a dune in the Mojave. As soon as you think youre on firm ground, the sands slip, leaving you wondering where you stand. When my daughter, Lizzie, was younger, I had many parent friendsboth close and casualto talk with about whatever child-rearing issue of the day left me slightly off-kilter. But as she grew older, the support group dwindled. Some friends moved, others went back to work. Or we just drifted apart. The social glue that had bonded us was our young children, and now that they were older, those ties dissolved.

Even among my remaining mom friends, when we did manage to find the time for a coffee or a glass of wine, our conversation began to veer from kid-centric topics to adult ones. It was as if wed left our parent talk on the playground once our children had outgrown slides and sandboxes. We still chatted about school issues occasionally, but more often we wanted to find out about one anothers lives.

It wasnt that long ago that I was once very motivated to reach out to other mothers. My marriage had ended shortly after Lizzie turned three, and as a full-time single mother I was desperate to talk to people over three feet tall about parenting issues and pretty much everything else. My ex-husband, Mike, and I had been together since college, and thirteen years into our eighteen-year relationship, he developed a severe case of bipolar disorder. When he took his medication, he was the man Id fallen in love with; but hed often refuse to do so and then change into a stranger. After five years and more than a few frightening incidents, I took Lizzie and left. Eventually, I started dating and met the wonderful man whod become my second husbandand a co-parent who Lizzie sometimes calls by name and sometimes calls Dad.

The summer before Lizzie started sixth grade, our family moved across the country, from upstate New York to Portland, Oregon. My closest friends in Portland have children far older or far younger than Lizzie, and it was more difficult to connect with parents of children her age than it had been when she was smaller. Back then, no one thought it odd to ask a total stranger what to do about a parenting challengeor, if asked, to offer advice. How did they get their preschoolers to stop whining? Had my daughter ever announced she was never going to eat anything green again? Did their eight-year-olds have a fiendishly difficult time with spelling the way mine did?

Middle school is a whole new playing field, for Lizzieand me. As a young teen, Lizzies life is more distinct from mineshe is more independent. When I pick her up at school, I see other parents and smile at them, but theyre sitting in their cars, often texting or reading e-mail. On the occasions when we do speak with one another, such as at school functions and holiday music festivals, conversations are limited to small talk. Im not going to place my pasta salad on the table at the back-to-school potluck, turn to the stranger next to me, and inquire whether her twelve-year-old had recently asked if shed ever smoked pot.

Were not sharing these experiences with one another as parentsbut perhaps we should be. By speaking with other parents to find out how they handled dilemmas, we can get a perspective different from our own. Maybe your thirteen-year-old just asked if you had been bullied when you were a kid, or your twelve-year-old jumped in the car after school one day and excitedly told you she just got her period. Whatever the event, its good to hear what others did. Although my MA in education helped me notice which behaviors were developmentally appropriate when Lizzie was younger, the degree goes only so far. No textbook covers what to do when your child comes home from school crying because she had been excluded from trick-or-treating by kids she thought were her friends.

I dont pretend to have all the answers. Actually, other than Why? and Are we there yet? I couldnt have anticipated many of the questions that seem to have been lobbed at me like a surprise attack over the past few years, now that Lizzie is fourteen. I like to think that reading these tales is a bit like the advice you get from a friend over coffee: perhaps you agree on some aspects of parenting, maybe you disagree on others, but its still good to hear from someone who is going through something similar.

This is an especially challenging age, one thats filled with an abundance of drama, including Oscar-worthy eye rolls, deep sighs, and cries of You dont understand! And thats just child-parent dynamics. The child-child drama is set on an entirely different stage, one that to young teens can seem larger than the Metropolitan Operas.

Over the years, I have learned a few basic lessons, though, about how to deal with an emerging teenager. To summarize:

• Hold on to your sense of humorand dont let go. It comes in handy during such parent and preteen classics as the sex talk and the near constant refrain, No, you cant do [insert ridiculous request of the day], even if everyone else is allowed.
• Trust your gutyou already know far more than you may think you do. Experts have their place, but common sense is too often underrated.
• Answer your childs questions honestlyeven if its uncomfortable. Adolescents seem to come equipped with inborn lie detectors. They know when youre bending the truth. That doesnt mean you have to give an unvarnished version of events or that you shouldnt give the truth a bit of a spin. When my daughter asked if Id ever smoked marijuana as a teenager, I told her I had. (I just didnt tell her that several years of high school were spent in a pot-shrouded haze.)
• We dont parent in a vacuumits more like when a pebble is chucked gently into a pond. Theres a ripple effect of how we were raised that, directly or indirectly, consciously or unconsciously, affects how we bring up our own kids. Ive found that if you hated middle school, it can feel a bit like reliving it all over again when you see your child face a challenge. For me, all those feelings of rejection, which had seemed as mercifully forgotten as the permed hair of the seventies, come rushing out of some emotional recess. Everyone carries a bit of their past into their kids present. I try to make sure Im not lugging giant, overstuffed baggage. Sometimes I find it necessary to stop, take a breath, and tell myself (once again), This is my issue, not Lizzies.

And so I bring all this into the foreground while raising Lizzie. We talk frequently about many subjectsfrom puberty to politics, from her class trip to Mount St. Helens to mean girls, openly and honestly, often over her favorite drink: caf mocha without the espresso. I hope that by laying the bedrock brick by brick through genuine communication, it will make things easier as she gets older. I also believe it will help her make good choices when shes an adult. And I hope that one day, if and when Lizzie has children (in the distant future), shell continue the conversation, speaking candidly with them. Because a strong foundation, built with direct talk, can withstand the seismic force of millions of rolled eyes.