I’m Ready Now, Mom

 “Mom, I don’t need you to lay with me before I go to sleep anymore,” my son Spencer, 10, said to me the other evening as he popped himself out of his bedroom to advise. I spit out the charcoal-based toothpaste from my mouth into the sink, looked up and asked him to repeat what he had just said; I didn’t think I had heard him quite right. 

“It’s just time for me to grow up. I’m going into grade five now, and I don’t need you to sleep with me anymore. I remember I had a nightmare at Dad’s when I was five, and since then I’ve been afraid to go to sleep at night by myself. But I’m ready now, Mom. And…I love you.” Just as quickly as he appeared, he vanished back into his room, to do whatever a 10 year old boy would need to do next. 

I stood there, neon green toothbrush in hand, with feelings of bewilderment, amusement, joy and pride, as I let this new information integrate into my nervous system. My sweet Spencer passed another milestone, and it meant that I had to shift and accept this next new form of personal expression, as he shared his insights and inherent needs. 

It’s inevitable that our babies will grow up. And, it’s important to honour the times in which they proclaim they know what they need as they express themselves with clarity. Accepting those wishes when we have spent so many years deciding for them what was best as children, is what will continue to present itself as a parenting life lesson. To trust they know, to trust they can navigate their own life, to trust that they will be okay. 

Sometimes, as we honour our children’s decisions, our own insecurities of whether we have done enough to prepare them for independent sleep, driving a car or choosing a life partner will bubble up within. So during those humbling moments that we all experience, may we place our hands on our hearts and remember that we can also trust ourselves.

Lyndsay Campbell is a co-parenting mother of two boys, a Life Transformation Coach and
Reiki Master.