No More Volleyball

The volleyball season has ended. Mandy made her goal of getting onto the JV team. She did great. The entire first quarter of school she stayed after school and practiced for three hours. She had games on Friday afternoon and all day Saturdays. She was able to maintain her grades, her paper route and her sanity. An unbelievable accomplishment in my mind.

I guess I should relax, but I can't help but worry. Her 15th birthday is just around the corner. I don't feel like there is enough time left in her childhood. I don't know what I am doing. I am worried about walking that fine line that separates her from me. When she is successful is it because I taught it to her or is it because she did the work. If she fails, did I fail? Everyday it seems like my influence is more in the background and her efforts are the determining factor in her successes or failures. Does it matter anymore what I do?

I want her to learn to stand on her own two feet. I want her to make her mistakes and learn her lessons now while she has our support and a safety net. But, I really don't want to see her fail. Don't we learn life's lessons through struggle? Wouldn't it be better in the long run for her to struggle now instead of later? But, I just can't watch her struggle. I can't let her stay up late on a school night to learn the hard way what happens when you don't have a good nights sleep. I can't let her eat a bunch of crap and then learn how it makes you feel. A part of me feels like I should be setting the boundaries so that she becomes accustomed to living in an appropriate way, a part of me thinks she needs to struggle and figure it out on her own.

My parents gave me very few choices and becoming an adult with all that entails was difficult for me. I was forced to follow all the rules and never make mistakes, then on my own the freedom was too much for me to handle. I stayed up all night, even if I was tired, just because I could. Now when I ask Mandy why she is doing something her answer invariably is, "because I can". At this age I just don't know my role anymore. I don't know where the explaining to her the rules stops and the learning it for yourself starts.

I guess it is a gradual progression, two steps forward, three steps back. I let her have some freedom when it goes well a little more freedom, when it goes bad a little less freedom. My main concern isn't really about sleeping and eating, it is about entitlement. If I do too much for her she feels like she is entitled to be treated like a princess and she feels slighted when the rest of the world doesn't treat her that way. Trust me I learned that one the hard way. So in essence being overly nice to her makes her feel cheated, gives her unrealistic expectations when dealing with friends or teachers. I know this in my head but in application I don't like to be mean.

We have been watching the tv show Brat Camp lately and seeing the blatent manipulation of the kids is a bit eye opening. Keeping a clear headed persective at all times is unrealistic. I guess the best I can hope for is to not let things get out of hand. Looking at her all grown up and feeling her childhood slip away I wonder if I have made the right choices. I wonder if she will be ok. I have always been so set in my ways about parenting, to parent exactly the opposite of my parents, that now at the homestretch I am second guessing myself. She is on the right path, but I guess this is the time when I left the right path and got it all screwed up. As I see her exert her independence I get so scared of the choices she might make, but she isn't me. She is right at the cusp, right at that age where she still sees the world as black and white, smoking, drinking and sex are all bad. Anyday now she will awaken to see the all the gray areas.

Drinking may be dumb but being uncool is worse. A little bit of drinking wont really hurt me, but it will make me a part of this group of kids. They sell beer in vending machines here in Japan. They sell narcotics over the counter in the drug store here in Japan. When the newspaper interviewed the kids, 85% said they drank. I just want to lock her up and start homeschooling. But, then I will have to eventually send her off to college.

As I look back at my youth and all the criticism I have for my parents, I can't help but notice I have no idea what I am doing. I love her, I want what is best for her, but there is no way to do this right. No matter what choices I make there will be failures. No matter how hard I try and how much I sacrifice she is destined to hate me too.