Am I Missing Something? Life With Teens and Not Knowing

Friends, when our kids start relating to us differently, some things stay a little fuzzy, and every now and then we catch ourselves wondering: Am I missing something? Sometimes I come home and nobody's there, so I'll pull up Snap Map to see roughly where everyone is. Oh, one is hanging around the Köln Arcaden, a mall in the Kalk neighborhood of Cologne, and the other two are out with their sweethearts. Okay, so at least two out of three I can cross off as safe.

The other day I asked my son what he thinks is the most important thing parents can do for their teenagers, and he said: FREEDOM. The word trust came up too, and being there. Meanwhile, our other kid thanked us for staying with them until they fell asleep for so many years. They REALLY needed that, they said.

We also talked about things that stayed with them for months. Once, when they were little, they saw parts of a documentary about the Gladbeck hostage crisis, an infamous case in Germany, and afterward they were scared for months. We're only finding this out now. Years later. And of course, that should give us pause.

Am I missing something? Right now, even?

What might be going on right this minute that they won't tell us about until later? Is the lack of energy after finals week actually a little burnout, or just a short crash after the stress? Did the new kid on the team really leave for a better team, or was there bullying? Is school really going that well, or are we just not hearing that a few teachers are worried? Do we know?

Some things we can only guess at now. We're not as close to the action anymore. We let go and trust and count on the best. We hope they don't climb into a lowered BMW with a brand-new driver too often, that they don't hop on the back of somebody's motorcycle when the roads are covered in fall leaves, and that they steer clear of vapes because of their athletic ambitions. But do we know? We hope it. We believe it.

We're counting on the fact that we'll somehow pick up on it if something goes wrong. We wish they'd tell us what's weighing on their hearts, or that their friend group might turn to us if they need to. We wish them good friends, the kind they can talk to about things without their parents around. We wish them little pressure and lots of lightness.

We suspect that different things weigh on each of them, but who knows what will turn out to be hard for whom later, or what will turn out to be a breakthrough? Who ends up with which life? In the end, they can blame us for always sending them to piano lessons ("I never wanted that, you forced me"). AND they can blame us for letting them quit ("You should have pushed me much harder, then I would have become a pianist").

The way we do things can be exactly right for one kid and wrong for another. So in the end, we have to look at which decisions we feel good about and which we don't, so we can explain ourselves later. So we have reasons ready when the questions come. So we can have a clear conscience.

When I mention that we have a pretty good relationship with all three of our kids right now (at least that's how I see it), people often say right away: "Well, you must have done everything right." That sentence sets off an inner resistance in me, because no: Nobody does everything right.

What kind of superhumans would we be if we did everything right all the time? That doesn't even have to be the goal. We do our best. And we still hit our limits. We're allowed to let our kids see that. We're not heroes, we're just people, same as they are.

And yes, we try to stay connected and keep trying, we put a lot of love in and get an endless amount of love back. But we all make mistakes. Big and small. And right now, with our oldest having moved out, those of us still at home together feel very clearly that our time under one roof is limited, and we enjoy it that much more.

Life is for learning. And we've learned an incredible amount from each other and about each other. Getting to carry that around as a treasure is something I'll be grateful for forever, in spite of, or maybe precisely because, we're not walking around as superhumans but owning our quirks and rough edges. Isn't that the best thing that could happen to us in the end?