On My Heart: Mother and Daughter

When the ultrasound technician told us Brighton was a girl, I burst into tears of joy. I was so happy that she was healthy, and I really didn't care if we were having a boy or a girl... but a girl seemed like so much fun.

But on the way home, I started to panic. The relationship between mother and daughter has been painted as one of turmoil and drama, and I knew from my own experiences that the likelihood of Brighton slamming the door in my face and yelling, "I hate you" was closer in my future than I wanted to admit... because the relationship I had with my own mother was one of delight and fun until the age of 12. After that it was a full on war. 

I have always been fiercely independent, easily frustrated by those who tried to over manage me, and suspicious of people for whom negativity and fear was their everyday language. My mother was my opposite of me - slightly clingy, fearful of the world (you'll get car jacked if you don't lock your doors, you'll get malaria from mosquitoes, you'll poke your eye out with those scissors!) and most comfortable when giving me detailed directions and instructions. She did not trust that life can sometimes work out, and her fears brought out a sense of insecurity in her that led to a need to control. She clung to me too tightly and I fought it every step of the way.

I hated the way she handled me in my teenage years - I was a good kid, but because the world was a dangerous place in her eyes, I was limited and held back and monitored. Because I lacked the maturity to see the situation for what it was, I made life very hard for my mother.  It took years for us to recover from that season, and while our relationship now is fine, I still feel myself bristle when she says something that sounds overly irrational or gives me unsolicited advice.

I don't want that kind of relationship with my daughter, but my fear is that it's inevitable.

Sadly I have already imagined the future drama unfold in my head. Brighton is upset about something she nor I can control, or I set a limit she doesn't like, or I give an opinion that is contrary to what she wants me to say and she freaks out like teenagers sometimes do and we exchange words and actions that we will both regret one day.

I can see this scene because I lived it so many times. The overwhelming feeling of being misunderstood and scrutinized and suffocated by my mother and feeling that uncontrollable, hormonal rage and teenage despair that my life just might end based on what she had just done or said. It was all so dramatic and ridiculous, but at the time my life was so short and my frame of reference was so narrow. I did not know real struggle, or suffering, or pain. I was a spoiled, stubborn child who thought she should be treated like an adult even though she refused to take on all the responsibilities adulthood brings. 

I know Brighton and I will clash at times. It's human nature to have conflict and misunderstandings and for children to push the boundaries that their parents set for them. I get that. What I pray is that she doesn't resist me the way I resisted my own mother, and that I don't try to press her into being like me or thinking like me when she should be herself.

Maybe she won't be the child who slams her bedroom door in my face. Maybe she will never say, "I hate you". I hope that our relationship is more of a blessing than a burden.  I hope she will walk the beginning of this path I have laid out for her. Each stone I will set down is another piece of myself - another part of my heart and my mind that I have carved out just for her so she won't make the same mistakes I made. I know there will be times when she goes her own way and gets lost, or goes her own way and it works out better than we could have imagined. And there will be a day when I won't have any more stones to lay down and she'll have to forge the path on her own.

I am already mourning that day, the day when the separation between us becomes the norm and not the exception. It's inevitable and healthy and the right thing, but it scares me so.  I want her to be protected and safe and be treated with respect and kindness and care. I don't want her to fail like I did. I want her to have a beautiful life.

But there is nothing I can do to ensure that. All I can do is lay down my heart and my worry, stone by stone, and hold her hand until she won't let me anymore and keep saying, "Baby girl, this is the way."