2 Mascaras and 1 Deodorant

It’s been years since I last posted to my site, but not a day has passed that I still try to live into being HerFirstRoleModel. The last time I shared the challenges of such a calling, my daughter was a preschooler. Fast forward to her current status: tween! Yep, she’s arrived to that developmental age of “night and day”. Some days, she is content to be making slime or some other of her creative concoctions and other days, she is crushing over NHL hockey players and scrolling Pinterest for her ideal mate. Parenting can be a roller coaster, as it takes its direction from the unpredictable path of the tween herself.

There is however some predictability: the unpredictable nature that makes up my beautiful 11-year-old. She is of course, physically stunning. Only a couple inches shorter than me, strawberry blond curls and sun-kissed freckles, she is stunning. Her awkwardness has given way to a young grace, albeit unsure times. She is fiery in all the good ways: defender on the ice, champion for the friendless and unwavering in her convictions. She is also unbelievably kind and nurturing, volunteering with our church toddlers once a week. I hoped for all these things. Prayed for all these things.

I was looking back at my first post and introduction to this blog. I began it with a different concept than where it has gone. I was a curator for other mom voices, interviewing women with daughters, asking about their experiences and seeking their advice about a variety of major topics like discipline and sexuality. It was inspiring and what I needed at the time. But since then, I have grown a lot more comfortable being a girl mom. In fact, I relish it and can’t imagine myself as anything but. It has probably been the most defining task of my adult life, and one that on most days, I accomplish without much drama.

Don’t get me wrong. Raising a daughter can be dramatic, but so far the drama is mostly in my head when I let my biggest fears take shape. But, truly, the biggest drama these days is whether or notmy daughter will agree to lend me her mascara when I can’t find my own. Spoiler alert: she says “no” every time!! As I have heard nuermous times, “you could give me pink eye, Mom.” Be sure to insert the eye roll here. I have never had pink eye, but that fact doesn’t factor into her decision to keep her mascara far away from me. But her deodorant? I can borrow it, no permission necessary.

So what gives? Why the stark contrast when lending her toiletries?

Short answer: she’s working on her independence. Aside from her hygiene theories, my daughter is executing her God-created need to begin distancing herself from her mom (and her dad too, but at a reduced pace). She’s acting quite normally for her age. Whew! I am doing something right. I am reassured that she is like all her friends and classmates at this age. It can be dizzying at times, as she pulses in and out, clinging to rejecting, and back and forth again, 5 times over in one day.

When my daughter and I run to the grocery store or go to the mall, I can’t step farther than 2 feet from her. When she stops to look at something on the shelf, I can’t keep moving to the next aisle but instead have to wait patiently for her. In contrast, every morning, she demands I stop a block short when I walk her to school. And that kiss to her head? No way, no how!! “Someone could see you, Mom!” But a sharing stick of deodorant? No problem. I guess pit sweat is an accepted exchange between mom and daughter. And our sweatshirts simply float between closets, because sharing clothes is pretty cool too.

I used to let those distancing moments, like no longer accepting a gentle head kiss, bother me. I’d take it personally and see it as a rejection. And then become confused when she clung to me in the grocery check out counter. But not anymore. I understand that this is just part of the process of growing up. It’s the start of adolescence. If anything, I try to encourage her independent moments and the physical distance she exercises in a given day. I know she will come back to me when she needs assurance or help. And I am ready to give it. I have worked so hard over the years to build her trust and to create a safe space between us just so she can begin venturing out on her own. This is what she needs to do so she can prepare for the day when mom won’t be hanging in the Sephora aisle with her and she’ll being making her own grocery store runs. Or rather, when she goes to a Friday party with her friends or gets picked up for her first date. I know that as her adolescence grows, she is going to have these moments of first. And she is going to be nervouse, and will even make some mistakes and choices that I wouldn’t make for her. She will experience let downs and disappointments, challenges and struggles when I’m not present. And she will get mad at me and her dad, and probably say mean things to us, because she’s scared. But all this work to create safe space and give her some little independence will serve her well the day I’m not around to help and she needs to act on her own agency.

Her growing independence with ebb and flow over the next 5-7 years, and I am preparing to flow with her as best as I can. And if that means, I always need to pack my own mascara, I can handle that.