Where is your pool’s edge?
I’m rereading the book Untangled by Lisa Damour. It’s book designed to coach parents through some of the natural behaviors in their teenage girls. The author does a great job clarifying some of the ways teen girls treat their parents and demystifying the reasons behind these behaviors.
I lent the book to a friend and then, after a few days of really hard mother-daughter time, I hastily borrowed it back. As I was rereading it over the weekend I came across Damour’s swimming pool analogy.
Teenagers are breaking out of childhood, basically taking a big plunge towards adulthood. It’s like they are in a swimming pool, playing, splashing around, goofing off with their friends, treading water, trying to stay afloat. But every so often they have to come to the pool’s edge and hang on. They have to catch their breath. When my daughter is splashing around in her pool she has no time for me. I frustrate her. I’m uncool and annoying. My rules about her phone and her chores have no place at her pool party. She wants to be with her friends, float on her raft, have underwater tea parties. But when she gets tired of splashing around, when she’s done holding her breath and doing back flips she’ll need some support. She’ll need to hold onto the wall and take some deep breaths. We parents are the pool’s edge. We represent the clear support and comfort that comes during childhood. Our poor…
