Mother And Friend?

I once read in one of those parental guidance books where the author said that a mother IS a parent and therefore, can never be a friend. The author also went on to say that a mother who wants to be a friend cannot exert her authority as a parent fully and no child, especially teens would see their parent as a friend because friends and parents are, well, different.

I never thought of my own mother as a friend. She was my mother. Period. She took care of my needs, cooked for me, sewed my clothes, fed me medicine when I was sick and even helped me with my homework. I remembered how she would painstakingly helped me do my maps for geography and we would both be coloring those maps into the deep of the night! But we never discussed personal stuff and definitely nothing about boys. That was a taboo subject and very unbecoming of a young lady to be talking about the opposite sex. Any lessons on staying pure before marriage and warnings on premarital sex were given through veiled references to the Chinese movies we would watch together sometimes.

Years late, now with a teenage daughter of my own, I discover that it is not an easy thing to stay 'communicated' with the young lady. It's like walking on a tight rope. A balancing act - not to hold on too much, lest she should suffocate and yet having to stay firm so that she remains on the straight road. With so much more exposure to the world via different kinds of media, not to mention peer influence, Little Bkworm is a lot more street smart than I ever was when I was at her age.

My mother would never have allowed me to gush over Jason Castro (of American Idol fame) or even the cute school captain, as in the case with Little Bkworm now, whose vocabulary has been restricted to only three words - "He is SO hot!", something I hear almost every day. But I don't berate her immediately because if she cannot talk to me about something that is important enough for her to want to share, she certainly will not want to share anything else in her life later on. And as she faces more challenges in life, I would want to be there for her; not only to guide her but also to be family that she can turn to, in times of need.

While I want to keep a friendly ear and open mind before her, I also remind her that all this is part of growing up. Her feelings of love which seem so real now IS real to her but in actual fact would eventually fade because they are rooted in fantasy. How can you fall in love with someone without actually knowing them?

Having said all that, Little Bkworm is not all sugar and spice. There are times when I feel I am hitting a wall with her. Young people are strange. I should know. I was young once. She comes crying about a tiff with her friends but on the other hand still want to hang on to the 'friendship' because they are all she has. I want to tell her that all is not lost; that real friends don't treat each other like that but when you are thirteen and you want to fit in, reality advice like this don't really mean anything. So I just tell her like it is, hug her and let her know that no matter what, her family is still solidly behind her. I can almost hear her tell herself, "Mum doesn't really understand my problem", though I wish I can make her believe that I have gone through it and I really know how she feels.

While she is learning to grapple with adolescence, so I, too am learning to become a mother of a teenage daughter. And it's going to be a challenging task.