One of the things I’ve come to realize as a mother is the relationship between a mother and her daughter is complex.  It’s the best of times—and the worst of times.  

After spending the last several years dealing with the WORST, I am starting to see what I’ve been hoping to see all along.  My daughter is finally growing up and becoming a responsible young lady.  She’s actually kind of fun to be around these days.

Yesterday she came home from college and treated me to an evening out.  First,  we went enjoyed a nice dinner together.  She shared her college experiences and I updated her on the her three-year-old-”kids-say-the-darndest-things”-son.  Then went to see a Tyler Perry play.  

Hanging out together made me realize some things about motherhood:

1)  If you train up a child in the way that they should go, when they are old they will not depart from it.  They may stray away from time to time but I truly believe they will come to their senses.  I’m living proof of that!

2)  You cannot be your child’s friend while trying to raise them.  Children need an authority figure and not someone they can “negotiate” with on important things like discipline.

3)  You have to be willing to forgive your children for their mistakes.  I definitely was not happy about my daughter becoming a teenage mother but harboring those negative feelings three years later serves no purpose.

4)  A mother is not a person to lean on, but a person to make leaning unnecessary.  I see so much of myself in my daughter, and even though her struggles and challenges started out much differently than mine as a young woman, I am convinced she’s going to be alright in the end. 

I guess I have my own mother to thank for that.

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