'Weed' Be Better off Doing it This Way

Sooooo.

I had one of those Mama Bear moments yesterday, y'all.

You know the kind.

I was so pissed at my kid, I couldn't see straight. I orbited here for a couple of hours and I even ranted to a few friends about what he had done and how angry I was.

But I was also noticing something. My "head" was angry. But my body wasn't.
This intrigued me.
I went through all of the motions one expects to go through as a parent - rehearsing the conversation I would have with him when I saw him at the end of the school day. What I would impart on him as punishment for his actions. Blah, blah, blah.
The funny thing was, when I saw him, I found that what I wanted most was to hug him, not scold him. So I said nothing for a little while.

Just observed my unusual self.

And took mental notes, in case this led somewhere fascinatingly awesome in a world of parenting that can sometimes be so damn overwhelming and feel so repetitive in the cycles through which we approach things with our kids. I observed how I was acting from my head, in ways that I knew my fellow parent friends would commend me for acting, or at the very least EXPECT me to act.
The evening went on, I cooked, helped the younger kids through evening routines. And then a section of time arrived where it felt right to call my teenage son into my room and talk with him.
I had no idea what I was going to say, but I felt intuitively that this was gonna go a whole new way and we were both gonna learn a lil somethin...

And oh did I learn.

I asked him why he had been skipping class.
And the conversation twisted and turned and went up and down avenues of familiarity, crossed through intersections of reminiscent territory...but finally ended up at a brand new destination.
A whole stinkin new exit off the highway of Beat One's Head Against the Wall When Parenting Teenagers.

I asked my son the question of what track he wished to pursue as a young man, who is going to graduate high school in two years.
Not an out of the ordinary question, really.
But his answer was....and, y'all THIS was the place where the blinker came on in my "car" to turn off on that brand new exit... I could either make the choice to try on a new perspective or pull out the old and stale one and regurgitate a bunch of "parentally appropriate" bullshit that no teenager ever really even listens to anyways. I decided to save us both some time and turned off down that Highway Exit, screeching my emotional tires a little as I made the last-minute change of direction.

My son told me that he would be growing marijuana when he is older. Like, plain as day he says this.

As in, WEED.
He was as emphatic about it as if he was planning on moving to Iowa to grow rows and rows of corn.

I could have flipped my shit. But interestingly enough, i found myself curious about this chosen path, and his utter bluntness about it, with me, his mother. A soft whisper urged me to not blow this moment - In the eyes of my son, who was being very courageous and openly vulnerable with me about what his dream is for his future.
He was very matter-of-fact about his plan. (It did include college by the way).
He seemed completely confident in his ability to make his way in the world with this as his (legal) profession of choice.
We ended up talking for another half hour about this whole idea of his. And I realized something with a humble heart. My son is brilliant. All children are, if we give them the space and place of non-judgment to share themselves with us. There is no certain way to parent. It isn't a cookie-cutter endeavor.
It is an adventure of the heart. Every dang day.
Sometimes I really fuck it up, I'm not gonna lie.

But what's important is when it flows, like last night.
When one of my children dares to be real with me, and shares a moment of vulnerability with me, realizing that I could either be "cool" about it, or act from a place of old patterns and conditions of parenting.
I did softly remind him that he is almost 17, and skipping class won't really help him set those dreams in motion.. and how I expected him to make choices that are in his own best interest at this point. I did have to impart some of the boring junk, it did have its place. But I didn't punish him and I felt completely in alignment with that decision.

Then I recorded the name of this new Exit in my GPS of the Parenting Highway.

I absolutely adore it when Life offers me a chance to learn how to

Live For Real.

Moonpie anyone?