“I’m Learning To Let You Go.” Hear the Emotional Back-To-School Song That’ll Leave You in Tears

Last month, my oldest daughter turned 12. Twelve—the word feels bulky and foreign as it stumbles over my tongue. 

She’s official a pre-teen now, with one foot in childhood and the other stepping into womanhood. 

She’s ready, I know, for this growing up stuff. There’s a quiet confidence in her eyes, an emerging strength in her countenance that speaks to the capable young woman she’s becoming. 

But as her mother? I’m still trying to stop seeing her as the little girl who made me a mother all those years ago. 

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Then I heard this song by fellow mother of a tween daughter, JJ Heller, and it basically turned me into a weepy mess.

The song, called “Learning To Let You Go,” is all about the bittersweet business of watching our babies grow from infancy to independence. 

Grab a tissue (heck, better get the whole box) and have a listen: 

As Heller writes in an Instagram post about creating the song, “When I first brought this little girl home from the hospital, she taught me what it meant to put someone else’s needs before my own. She showed me how well(-ish) I could function on not enough sleep and what it means to love unconditionally. And now, as she starts her first day of middle school, she’s teaching me how to start letting go.⁣”

Oh boy, do I FEEL that.

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Especially this year, when so much of the familiar world of school and friends and everyday activities has been interrupted by a global pandemic, those not-quite-kids/not-quite-women daughters of ours are trapped in a limbo we’d love nothing more than to deliver them out of. 

But we can’t. And really, we shouldn’t anyway.

We have to let them do the hard work of growing up—and that’s new for both of us. 

I suppose it’s just one more way our mother/daughter relationship is evolving. My not-so-little girl is stepping into her autonomy and maturity, and I’m learning to fall in step ever so slightly behind her capable lead. 

It’s not always easy—but if there’s one thing a dozen years of motherhood has taught me, the destination will be worth the journey. 

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Articles by Carolyn Moore

Carolyn Moore

Carolyn has served as Editor-in-Chief of Her View From Home since 2017. A long time ago, she worked in local TV news and fell in love with telling stories—something she feels grateful to help women do every day at HVFH. She lives in flyover country with her husband and five kids but is really meant to be by the ocean with a good book and a McDonald's fountain Coke. 

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