When a young man lashes out at society in the most brutal of ways, I cannot forget the fact that he is someone's son. I have three sons. I cannot help but wonder.
We take on the world when we raise a child. We do the best we can with what we have. We learn as we go. There is no training manual and evenif there was, each model is unique and responds to the same circumstances in different ways.
My adult sons (now 36 and 27 years old) did not tell me just how hard their high school years were to endure until my youngest was entering high school. The pains one son went through simply to fit in and be like everyone else were significant. My other son went through pain because he would not conform to those standards and walked his own path. The advice and perspective each one of them had as my youngest was on the cusp of entering high school were eye opening.
Teenage children walk through the doors of their high school years and life comes at them in a variety of ways. Teachers may or may not understand and see them for the unique person that they are. A subculture within the school labels them, as they assume they know the person within. Peer groups have the power to accept or ostracize. Then there is the pressure of a whole new level of learning, homework and scholastic expectations.
I walked through the doors of a high school as an adult when I worked for the school board and was confronted with a steep learning curve not unlike a new high school student. There was a feeling of "survival of the fittest" within those walls. I didn't survive.
Ihave empathy towards the students who fall between the cracks in life, at school, at home, within their social group, in society. There are so many pressures out there. It isn't an easy life we are asking our youth to walk through.
We do what we can as parents. We cannot infiltrate our children's every thought and buffer out the world. We have to be brave enough to set them free and experience whatever life throws at them.
Is it enough that we do not live a life of violence within our home? Will that take away their violent tendencies?
Is it enough that we do not keep a firearm within our home? Does the lack of a weapon deter a violent nature?
Is it enough that even though we do our best, we are imperfect in our parenting? Each and every one of us can teach our children all we know and life could still tempt them with something we never in our wildest dreams imagined.
All I can do is provide the best home I know to give my child. I have fought to maintain the peace and serenity within these walls we call a home. When it has been threatened, I have made changes. All I know how to do is to create a world within our home and family that my children will subconsciously navigate their lives toward. It is all that I know how to do.
Our world has become a strange and foreign place to me. There is a quiet, subtle change out therethat makes me want me to keep my teenage son safe within these walls. Even though my adult children have survived and appear to be thriving out there, there is a fear lurking within me.
When the someone's child lashes out at the world, I wonder, "Could I be his mother?" We cannot control the way our teens internalize the world, their pain, their isolation and the way they perceive life. We can do the best that we can and it simply may not be enough.
Love your children, young and grown. Sometimes, that is all that we can to do.
