Growing Pains

I don't remember most of my childhood or my teen years. It all seems like it happened a really long time ago, when in reality it was very recent. After all, I'm only nineteen. In a few more months I won't be a teenager anymore, because of this I find myself reflecting on my teens a lot. I ask myself: what has happened, how did we get here, what did we learn etc. Part of my reflection has been examining the relationships I've had over the years; the most important one being my relationship with my mother. Which I can argue has been the most important relationship of my early life.

I think about my relationship with her and how it has changed and evolved so much over my life. I grew up with a "single" mother, and I say single mother because my mom has been my primary caregiver for as long as I can remember. In my early life, I idolised her a lot. She was my everything, and I thought that she was the sun, the moon and the stars (don't get me wrong I still think of her as all of this, I just think my perception of her has been humanized more).

Anyway, as a child I was really attached to my mother. However as I get older I realize that my relationship with her is also growing, expanding and evolving. I have never been a rebellious child, I've been stand offish and weird and strange, but never a rebel. Yet, like any teenager, I have spent a good amount of my teen years in conflict with my mother. I think that, as we both grew up, we became wary of each other and that led to us hurting one another. As I step into young adulthood, it has been important for me to reflect on our dynamic and possibly decipher it.

I think I have finally figured it out. You know how in a lot of (African) households, parents are wary of their children when they hit puberty or enter their teen years? Like, all of a sudden Bokang who was a sweet, docile child becomes Bokang who is moody, rude, selfish etc. It's like as soon as we hit our teen years we become the enemy. I think I've figured out why this is. Buckle up because this might be a lot (also I'm not a psychologist):

A lot of African parenting is mainly authoritarian parenting. For those of you who don't know, authoritarian parenting is a parenting style that focuses more on obedience, discipline and control. Our parents raise us as extensions of themselves. They see us as a part of them and parent us accordingly. Therefore a lot of the time they have dreams for us; who they hope we will be, what they hope we will achieve etc. There is a deep attachment from our parents (mainly our mothers) to us.

When we are children (especially as toddlers) we don't really know the difference between us and our mother. I mean if you spend 6-9 months inside someone's womb, you eat from their breast, they're the first thing you see every single time you wake up; it'll be hard to separate them from who you are. We think that we are one living, breathing soul. So our parents form a huge part of how we view ourselves, and our identity, ideals, beliefs and values stem from our parents. As children, we need our parents. It's human nature, we would literally die without them. However, as we grow into our preteens and teen years, we learn to separate our self image from our parents, while they never really do.

Teenagehood is about stepping into your own. It's the period where you want to learn more about yourself and the world around you. While in childhood you looked to your parents to show you through life, when you're a teen you want to start navigating it on your own. You start to learn things about the world but more importantly you start to learn more about yourself. Adolescence is where you start to form your identity, outside of your parents. So you experiment, you start being more independent, you start doing life (ergo life isn't just happening to you anymore) and you're doing all this while navigating some really big emotions.

As a teen, you forge an identity for yourself that is separate from your parents. You start to become your own person, and sometimes parents tend to not like the person you're becoming. I mean they too had hopes and aspirations for who you would be, and when you grow up to be something different, it's confusing (and maybe even painful) for them. As you grow you start to create boundaries; you no longer share certain things with your parents, you need your own room, you need privacy etc. However, with authoritarian parenting where having absolute control of your child is a must, boundaries are a no no. This is where conflict arises.

It's hard for an authoritarian parent to relinquish control over their child or to respect their child's boundaries. Sooner rather than later your teens become a battlefield. You're going through changes you can barely understand; and your parent is not really someone you can talk to. After all, you see them as more of an authority figure rather than a confidant. Therefore you grow distant to them, and you gravitate towards your friends who are experiencing something similar. You become a stranger to your parents, it becomes harder for them to understand you and this creates that wariness I was talking about earlier.

You know as a child, when you notice distance between you and your parents you're at a loss. You don't know what to do. At this point there are two paths to take: the first one is to turn back to your parents and second one is to keep moving forward. I was(and still am) the person to turn back to my parents and especially my mother. I feel like I have been lucky enough to always have her there for me. When you're doing life, you face some really hard challenges and this happens while you're navigating some really big emotions. So you do what you did as a baby; you reach for the only person whose embrace has always made everything okay. I will always reach for her, the woman is my lifeline.

As I continue to grow, it has been important to me to be purposeful about maintaining the relationship I have with my mother. After all, it's so easy to become distant. I feel that our relationship has been able to evolve in this way because she has given me the freedom to figure out who I am. I'm not saying that we don't fight anymore, after all conflict is inevitable in any relationship, but I think we are starting to understand each other more. In navigating the treacherous shoals of our mother-daughter relationship (and yes I am quoting Morticia Addams), I have found the most healing and learned the most about myself.

My relationship with my mother forms a very big part of my identity. I will always be her daughter. It's a term that doesn't even give me gender dysphoria, simply because it's the only term I can use to adequately describe the dynamic between us; that of a mother-daughter relationship.

When I was younger, I needed my mother. Like I said earlier to me she was the sun, the moon and the stars. I couldn't live without her and I kinda had to like her because I was a baby and she was all I knew. Now, even though I still need her sometimes, I actually want her. I have grown to love and appreciate her as a person and want her around instead of simply needing her for survival. Whenever I reach for my mother, it's because I genuinely want her around. It's comforting to me to see our relationship grow into this, because I've seen the alternative in people around me.

As I continue to grow, I'm curious to see the form/shape which our relationship will grow into. I look forward to seeing how it evolves, the same way it has evolved the past 19 years. I am excited, and my only hope is for us to always choose mutual understanding and closeness over wariness and distance.