Is it possible to keep our children in a tight “bubble” and still give them independence, or do we have to choose between what is right, and what society is begging us to comply to?
I am a stay at home mother with five children. Three of the five children are in their teens and well on their way to becoming young adults. The oldest is going to be seventeen on Tuesday and often discusses how she can't wait to leave the nest and find her wings. She is my step-daughter, but I still consider her one of my own, and it hurts to think she can't wait to get away from us all. The middle children (one is my step daughter and the other is my son) are both fourteen and hitting that middle ground where their friends are dating and they've been told either that they're not allowed - or have chosen on their own that they're not ready.
I often wonder with this day and age if we keep our kids too tight against us; so much so that they're eager to spread their wings and fly off to their next adventure. When I was younger I was out running the roads on a regular basis. I remember being nine years old and off riding my bike with a close friend and being gone the entire day. Now my mother didn't think so much of this venture but at the time she was just concerned that we were cold, hungry, or tired. Now? Now if one of my children disappeared for more than a few minutes I'm thinking they've been kidnapped or sold to a pedophile.
The two youngest children are both beautiful girls (no, I'm not biased) and I keep them on a tighter leash than any of them. Stories are piling in on a daily basis about children of all ages disappearing and sometimes they're found, but many times the ending isn't as happy as a fairy tale book that we often read to those same children. Sure, we warn them not to talk to strangers, yet we make them sit on Santa's knee at the mall and take candy from a person dressed in a bunny suit at Easter time. These mixed signals have to be confusing to them and there's no way to change it.
I've decided that the only thing to do is love your children. Love them dearly, but not so much that they don't know how to breathe without you. Give them wings that work only when they're ready to use them, and point them toward clear skies. I think once they've developed a clear foundation they can build their life on the building materials offered to them.
