By Angela Williams Glenn 
I thought because I’ve taught teenagers for almost 20 years, I’d be ready for the teenage years with my own daughters. I think we could have a plethora of professional development on mothering teens, and we still wouldn’t be prepared. It’s a journey you have to walk to truly understand it, and even as we try to caution the mothers behind us on the path ahead, the best thing we can offer them is prayer that they too will get through to the other side, though the path may seem a little bumpy and uncertain at times.
Both of my daughters have struggled with those big feelings and moments that come with adolescence and life this past school year and my momma heart hated to see the hurt and disappointment. Struggle is a part of life, and as I tell my girls, necessary for growth, but as a momma it’s hard to not want to race ahead on their path and clear all the obstacles and debris out of their way so they’ll face no troubles on their journey.
I’ve sat and cried with each of them recently. It’s true what they say about bigger kids and bigger problems. As moms, we want to jump in and kiss their hurt away and make everything all better. But they’re past that age, and I can’t fix everything for them. And that weighs heavy.
But in so many ways their problems aren’t ours to carry. They have to carry them. That is a hard realization for us as mothers to come to as our kids grow up. We have to let them find their own way through their struggles. We can be there to listen and offer guidance, but as they get older they have to navigate on their own more while we anxiously wait on the sidelines, wanting to step in but knowing we can’t walk their path for them.
But as we fret on the side, more times than not, they will surprise us with how ready they are to forge ahead on the path laid before them. We’ll see it in the way they take charge of things, in the way they speak up, in the way they take ownership of the challenges they must face.
And the beautiful thing I love about raising two daughters close in age is how much they lean on each other. That has its own beauty on any path they will walk in life, learning to see who and when to lean on others in their time of need.
They’re going to be okay; they’re going to come out of their trials wiser and stronger. They excel in so many ways in the classroom and on their respective fields and courts but watching them lately as they’ve had to face their own struggles, they’ve reminded me they have got this, and they’re not just going to succeed but excel.
We have to trust them to know and do what’s best for themselves, and if they veer off the path in the wrong direction they can, and will, find their way back.
by Whitney Fleming 
by Natasha Smith 
