My Little Baby Has Grown Into An Adult

As a mother, there is nothing more pleasing or more terrifying than seeing your son grow up into a young man. It does not matter how many parental self help books you have read, or how strong a relationship you have built in those formative years, because from the age of 13 onwards you will feel as if an alien has invaded your child’s body and for a long time you will wonder where have you gone wrong.

Nobody tells you that it is going to be this hard. Until he was 12 years old, he was a gorgeous boy with a beaming smile with a happy-go-lucky attitude. He loved his family and shared a special bond with me and his dad. But overnight my bubbly boy became almost unrecognizable and changed into a quiet boy who liked to keep his thoughts to himself and started staying aloof. I guess this transition from boyhood to manhood must have been difficult for him too.

As for me, I suffered from many sleepless nights as I had no idea how to reach my son. I tried being his friend on many occasions and sometimes tried being a strict mom but his attitude of being aloof all the time, did not change. Now my son is 18 and I feel that I need to give him the space he requires but at the same time have set up a few rules explaining to him that even though it is extremely tough for me to adjust to his mood swings, I am still trying, so even he needs to learn how to adjust somewhere.

I love my son, as much now at 18; infact I love him more. I know that he needed to pull away from me to be independent and I know that I have done my job as a mother to the best of my ability in raising him from a good boy into a good man. What happens next isn’t up to me but I have realised that the time has come to let go.

This article is an entry for BLOG-A-THON.

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