It is hard when your child is eaten by a teenager.
This is completely different than when your child is eaten by a toddler or when they are eaten by an eight-year old. Because at least then, through all the sobbing and conflict, you can usually talk reason into them. And you can see that they are there.
But when your child is eaten by a teenager, you’re not sure how to pull them back from the darkness in their eyes. You see them get out of bed like a bear, become a wild cat during conversation and then a sloth as they work their way to school. And then when they get home, it’s not much better. When your child has been eaten by a teenager, they give apathetic replies to questions they used to ramble on about, they aren’t sure if they want to eat, and you’re not sure if you’ll ever be able to pull them out of their teenage den.
When you’re the parent of a child who has been eaten by a teenager, you feel helpless. You are not sure if they are there anymore, or if they will ever come back.
You empathize with your child because you, too, were once eaten by a teenager. You vividly remember the turmoil of restless days and a variety of emotions. There’s no way in hell you’re going back. Instead, you resolve to jump into the ring of teenage thought patterns again to make sure that you’re the foundation for your child as they navigate who they are, where they fit in and make decisions about where they want to go.
Because while their eyes and ears are covered with glass, you know that no matter how blank their stares are, no matter how many times you feel their walls against your face, no matter how many times they raise their eyebrows, what they really want is to know that you are there, somewhere near them. That you’re the consistent one who saw them through their temper tantrums, the one who wiped away their tears when they fell, the one who will be there when they make it out the other side of this.
And right now, as much as you may try, there is nothing that you, the parent of the child who has been eaten by a teenager can do. You know you’ve prepared your child to be eaten by the teenager. You’ve given them the tools they need to clear away the brush on their own. And they need to make it through this on their own because there’s this big, wide world on the other side. And they will need to know how to swim through difficult social situations, they will need to know how to do things they don’t want to do and they, at some point, will need to carry their own light.
It was their light to begin with. And once they make it through all the muck, you know it will shine brighter than before.
So, right now, you will gently nudge them out of the car to be with their peers and adults no matter how hard it is to see the tears streaming down their face. You will demand that they come out to eat dinner with the family, and that they pick their head up off the table. You will hug them a little longer than usual, even when their arms rest at their side because you know that that’s what they really need right now-especially when they don’t think they do.
You have to stay strong when your child has been eaten by a teenager. You have to continue to encourage, support and love them in ways they can’t even comprehend. You cannot fix this state for them. Because sometimes teenagers eat parents, too. And usually, that leads to very, very bad things that we cannot talk about here.
