Our Kids Are Growing Up, and Yes, We're a Little Thrilled

Hi everyone! In a way, Nathalie Klüver has written the book version of our Teen Time column. It's called "Sag zum Abschied leise Yippie! – Was wir feiern können, wenn unsere Kinder langsam groß werden" (roughly, "Quietly Cheer as You Say Goodbye: What We Can Celebrate as Our Kids Grow Up"). She finally has big kids, and she's happy about it. Her kids are a bit younger than mine, but she says the slow process of letting go starts as early as age 9.

She still asked for our expertise, so we gave her an interview for the book. Today, on our column day, we get to publish it. It's about how hard letting go is for me, how I handle my teens and alcohol, and how a family can get through the teen years in one piece.

Finally, Big Kids!

First, a little more about the book. Here's the back-cover blurb: "How absurd: for years we do everything we can so our kids can eventually manage on their own. And when that day comes, our hearts sink. We celebrate every first with gusto, but the lasts tend to catch us off guard. Kids' birthday parties, playing games together, big cuddles on the couch. What used to matter so much now gets a casual wave of the hand.

It starts as early as age 9. From then on, our kids pull away from us step by step, until the teen years arrive and we find ourselves standing in front of a closed bedroom door, glad to see our teens at dinner at all. So what do we do with ourselves now? Get your own life, journalist and mom of three Nathalie Klüver calls out to us with a cheer.

Courage instead of wistfulness, opportunity instead of crisis! In this funny, warmhearted guide, packed with smart ideas and facts, she pulls us away from the kids' rooms and shows us the spaces that are ours again. We're still needed, just differently. Enjoying our kids growing up and practicing letting go: this book makes it really doable!"

Nathalie Klüver, born in 1980, is a mom of three herself and knows the big and small hurdles families run into every day. As a freelance journalist, she writes about juggling work and family for German outlets including Spiegel, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Eltern, Spiegel Online, and Brigitte, and she travels as a speaker on these topics.

On her social media channels she weighs in on family policy, mental load, and preventing burnout in moms. More than 70,000 followers read her channels. She has also written several successful books on modern parenthood, as well as a political book for debate, "Deutschland, ein kinderfeindliches Land?" ("Germany: A Country Hostile to Kids?"). Here's her interview with me, which we did almost exactly a year ago:

Dear Lisa, how old are your kids now? When did you first notice the start of the letting-go process?

Our oldest, our daughter, turns 18 in two months, and our twin boys turn 16 in four months. As for the letting-go process, it really starts at birth 😉 But I noticed a very, very clear shift when our youngest kids turned 14. Suddenly I had big stretches of free time, because they stopped fighting it out physically every single day over who was top dog, and they just got more independent.

What was the first time you had to let go like for you?

The first letting go I remember from the teen years was when my daughter, at 13, slowly withdrew from family life. She spent lots of time behind her closed bedroom door ("How are you doing?" "Fine."), lying down (good cheese needs time to age, I always say), and she stopped coming along on family outings. I really missed her during that time.

(Update from the present: she's in college now, and sometimes we don't see her for several days. That's a totally different thing from knowing she's behind her closed bedroom door. Back then I found it intense when she suddenly came out of that room and went out partying, and I thought: Aaaah, when she was lying down, at least I knew where she was and that nothing could happen to her.)

What's hard for you?

For a while it was hard to get used to the fact that caring for my kids had basically turned into a service job. Instead of reading aloud and cuddling on the couch like we used to, our kids mostly need me now as a food delivery service, an ATM, and a taxi driver. That's an exaggeration, of course. They do value my advice, like when they've got heartbreak... but they no longer sit in my lap, now that they're well over five foot eleven 😉

What do you enjoy?

I love the spontaneous get-togethers at our kitchen table with all the kids, the conversations on eye level, the good relationship we have with each other. I love that I can sleep through the night and sleep in on weekend mornings. And of course, that I can plan my own time again, with more time for work but also for hobbies. Horseback riding, yoga, Zumba, jogging, seeing friends, all without having to find a babysitter. And vacations that are actually relaxing again. It really is great, and I enjoy it a lot.

When it comes to alcohol, I can't say anything yet with my kids (the wildest thing right now is cola). Do you have an anecdote or experience I could include in the book? What worries did you have, and what was it like for you?

So far it's been pretty low-key at our house. I go with appeals to common sense rather than outright bans. As far as we can tell, our oldest had her first beer together with us. She acted very cool about it, but months later she admitted she'd actually gotten pretty dizzy 😉 Today she's almost 18, and we've never had to pick her up somewhere throwing up, or call an ambulance to get her stomach pumped.

At that age, at least, I treat it a bit like food. Total bans or demonizing something can, if in doubt, lead to even more interest or more secrets. I'd rather be openly along for the ride, with lessons learned or tips from my own life, like "Never drink alone, always have good people around you who will hand you water or walk you home if it comes to that"...

Or: "After every alcoholic drink, down a glass of water to stay hydrated. You can just refill your empty glass from the tap in the bathroom." (Plus, you end up spending more time in the bathroom line than at the bar, win-win ;-)) Whether they take it to heart is of course not up to us. Often all you can do is hope they use their common sense.

But in everyday life you can also work in possible consequences of drinking now and then, like: "Any alcohol kills brain cells," or: "Did you hear that so-and-so is in rehab now because of his alcohol addiction?"

Do you have a tip for other parents on how to get through the teen years calmly, and what you should definitely not do?

I love talking with parents of even older kids. They tell me about the crazy escapades of their kids' teen years, and they can already tell me that everything turned out fine in the end anyway 😉 Beyond that, in an acute situation it always helps to ask yourself: Will this still matter to me and our life in three years? If not, just lean back and stay relaxed.

More generally, we can ask ourselves: What would have been good for me as a teenager in a situation like this? And: Where is it worth risking our relationship (for example, I would never snoop through their phones unless a life were in danger), and where is it better to just wait it out and offer help instead of overstepping?

Do you have questions for me, too? Ask them in the comments and I'll answer them. A year has gone by since the interview, and our oldest is about to turn 19, while the boys will be 17 soon.