Finishing Strong

This year my oldest child turned eighteen and graduated from high school, and it was harder for me to let her take this step into adulthood than I thought. From the time we became parents, part of my and my husband’s parenting philosophy has been that we are raising our children to leave us, to become successful, contributing members of society. We have always encouraged them to be independent. As they get older, we slowly step back, allowing them to find their own way (under parental supervision, of course). When the time came for me to step back enough to allow one of my kids to find her own way without parental supervision and with limited parental input, however, it was difficult.

I stayed on her throughout her senior year. My mantra for her was “finish strong.” (She got a bad case of senioritis early.) As I was making my own lists for my own responsibilities, I would check in with her to see if she had filled out this form or completed that assignment. I became more stressed over her schoolwork than she was. Instead of stepping back, I was stepping back in. I think part of the problem was that it felt like this was suddenly it, time to send her off. Suddenly, or so it seemed, we were supposed to launch her out into the real world.

She is our first one, and I began wondering if I had done my best. We didn’t know a whole lot about parenting when we started. I know we made some mistakes, and we will make more, but we do try our best to be good parents. I was stressing myself out. The thought of being done raising one child was enormous to me, but I didn’t want to be stressed out, especially during that time. I wanted to be in the moment, enjoying the celebration of this milestone.

I teach at the same school my oldest attended, and this year I had to be there earlier than she did. One morning I was driving to school on the same route my daughter usually took. It’s about a twenty-five-minute drive on a two-lane road with less traffic than the highway route. Workers were out mowing the grass on the side of the road that day. They had part of the road blocked off, but there wasn’t much traffic, and it was easy to navigate around them.

Yet I thought, I should call Winter and tell her they’re mowing today. Then I realized this information really didn’t warrant a phone call. She’s a good driver, and it wasn’t a big deal. They would probably even be done mowing by the time she drove to school. But I did have a small debate with myself. This made me think of other things I wanted to tell her, things she needed to do, and how I needed to remind her about this, that, and the other.

Then I felt the Lord speaking to my heart, saying, You can’t clear every path for her. He was giving me a gentle reminder. This was what we prepared for. Our jobs as parents were changing. I had to loosen my grip and (probably) let go.

Experience is a wonderful teacher. Yes, we need to share our wisdom with our children, but we also have to let them have their own experiences so they can build their own wisdom. Our children are always going to need us—no matter how old they are—but a time comes when we must take steps back and let them flourish on their own. And they will flourish if we let them.

Now is the time for me to have some active faith. We’ve tried our best to be good parents, and in my experience, if you’re worried about being a good parent, that means you already are one. So take heart, mamas of all ages. We’ve got this. More importantly, the Lord’s got this. He is the one in control, and his way is the best way.

Dana Herndon is a writer, blogger, and a middle school teacher. She and her husband live in Georgia with their three children. In addition to teaching and writing, Dana loves to read, paddle board, and sometimes run. She blogs about faith, family, and enjoying the everyday life at danaherndon.com.