As my teenagers grow up, I'm learning to love them from a little further away

Nobody tells you that the hardest part of parenting is not when your children need too much from you. It's when they start needing less.

It was physically exhausting when my kids were babies, but that was the part I was good at. I fed them and bathed them and told them stories and held them to sleep, and even though I was bone-tired at the end of every day, I loved being their entire world. 

Then, as they grew up, they needed more: more space, more privacy, more of a life that didn't include me.

Teenagers are a different breed. They are in the process of becoming people – separate, autonomous, occasionally exasperating, grown-up people – and this journey requires distance.

They need the space to explore different versions of themselves without the pressure of parental presence. They need friendships and secrets and the freedom to make mistakes and overcome challenges on their own. 

Back when I was a teenager behind a closed bedroom door, needing space from my parents, I didn’t understand how difficult it might have been for them. But I get it now. 

LEARNING TO ACCEPT THE UNPREDICTABLE DISTANCE

As much as I know this is a necessary part of growing up, letting them go makes me sad. I watch them build little worlds of their own that do not have room for me.

I feel it most on days when the bedroom door is closed, the earphones are plugged in and the monosyllables are doing a lot of heavy lifting in what technically qualifies as a conversation.

Comedian Tina Fey put it perfectly in a Tonight Show appearance that made its rounds on the internet for good reason.

She said: "Having a teenage daughter is like having an office crush, because you're thinking about them a lot more than they're thinking about you. You go up to their door and you're like: 'A bunch of us are going to go eat dinner… you're probably busy'."

I laughed when I first watched it, but then I recognised the feeling I experienced when my children became teenagers – the vulnerability of rejection from the ones that matter. 

What makes it confusing is the inconsistency. Teenagers are not always distant. They’re unpredictable. One afternoon it's "I'm busy, no thanks," and the next it's "Mum, can we go shopping? I saw this top at H&M", delivered with the same warmth and openness they had at seven years old. 

I was worried that they would be moody and distant throughout their teenage years, but there are days when they surprise me with a desire for conversation and closeness. For a moment, it feels like they need me again. 

So I had to learn a strange new discipline: holding myself available without being overbearing, staying warm without suffocating them, making it easy for them to come to me without making it feel like an obligation. 

I leave the door ajar, metaphorically and literally. I'm now an expert at delivering a nonchalant: "Hey, want to watch a movie together?" while being genuinely okay with a no.

LOVING THE CHANGE

What I didn't expect was that I’ve really enjoyed getting to know who they are turning into.

I was afraid I would lose them, but what's happened instead is that I'm being introduced to the people they're growing into, and that is truly a joy.

The conversations we share are sometimes deeper and more honest. We can talk with a kind of openness that wasn't possible when I was in parent mode and they were in child mode. We are becoming, in some ways, more like people to each other.

The connection feels more earned now, and therefore more meaningful. 

On the days when Truett voluntarily sits next to me and tells me something real about his life, the value of that is more precious than what it was when he was small and disclosure was just the default mode of being a child. When I’m talking to my eldest son, who is 18 years old, I suddenly catch myself thinking: This boy is kind of cool and I really like him.

When my 17-year-old daughter asks about boyfriends I used to date, and why I chose to marry her father, it feels like a conversation between friends. 

Earlier this year, I went on a mother-daughter trip to Seoul with Kirsten. Sometimes, we would sit in silence and read at a cafe. At other times, we would talk for hours about our favourite movies and music. I got to know her as who she is today – a thoughtful, kind, fun almost-adult with a sharp sense of humour – and I enjoyed every minute with her.

Finn, my 14-year-old, still sometimes reaches for my hand. He’s at the age where he’s becoming aware of what's cool and what isn't, but sometimes, in an unguarded moment, he slides his hand into mine while we’re walking. 

I have learned to treasure these moments as they come, without making them mean too much in a way that would make him self-conscious.

That’s what this stage of parenting looks like: taking what's offered and not focusing on what isn't, and being present when they need us and giving them space when they don’t. 

Loving them from a distance isn’t loving them less, it’s loving them differently. 

But some days, it's surprisingly hard. I miss the baby cheeks that I had access to anytime I wanted. I miss the kisses before bed and the little hands that would pull my face close to theirs. 

But that's the job now, being someone they want to come back to, knowing that they will when they’re ready.