When Loving Your Child Means Letting Go

Our children become the very foundation of our lives. When they are young, our world truly revolves around them because they depend on us for so much.

Have you ever felt like you failed your child?

Oof... if you have, please know you are not alone.

For years, I tried to put bandages over the broken places in my relationship with my daughter. The truth is, yes, I made mistakes in my life. To be fair, she has made mistakes in hers as well. But does any of that change the way I feel about her?

No.

I love her to my core.

As parents, there comes a time when we have to step back from our children's lives. It is one of the hardest things we will ever do. We have spent years fixing, helping, guiding, protecting, and doing everything we know how to do to help raise good humans who can go out into the world.

Then one day, it is their turn to fly.

My daughter wanted to fly at seventeen. She graduated, made plans for her future, and stepped out into the world. Looking back, I realize how young that truly was. To think you have life figured out while also carrying the weight of life's hurts and challenges is a lot for anyone, especially at that age.

For a long time, I carried guilt over the things she had experienced. Some things were within my control, and some were not, but guilt doesn't always separate the two. A mother's heart has a way of carrying burdens even when they were never hers to carry.

The bandages I tried to use came in many forms, but often they came through rescuing. I wanted to make things better. I wanted to protect her from pain. I wanted to make sure she never felt alone.

If I'm honest, I think a lot of that came from a fear of failing.

That has been a struggle of mine for much of my life—the fear of letting someone down, the fear that I didn't do enough, the fear that somehow I wasn't enough.

Can anyone else relate?

If you can, I want you to know you are not alone. I am praying for you.

Over time, I realized something difficult: every time I stepped in to rescue her from the consequences of her choices, I was unintentionally making it harder for her to learn and grow. My love for her was never the problem. My understanding of what love looked like had to change.

Sometimes love looks like helping.

Sometimes love looks like encouragement.

And sometimes love looks like stepping back and allowing someone the space to grow.

During those years, I was also carrying grief. Her father passed away suddenly when she was fifteen. Although we had been divorced for many years, we remained connected while raising our daughter, and I considered him one of my best friends.

His loss changed both of our worlds.

Grief has a way of bringing every hurt, every regret, and every unanswered question to the surface. As time passed, I realized my daughter and I carried different perspectives about our family history. There were things said and believed that I couldn't go back and change.

And that was a painful thing to accept.

Over time, our relationship became more distant. There were moments in her life that happened without me, and I had to learn how to process the heartbreak of feeling left out while still choosing to love her.

As a mother, that is a very difficult place to live.

I am a fixer by nature. I will analyze, pray, think, and search for every possible way to make things better. But eventually, I had to face a truth that was incredibly hard for me:

Some things cannot be fixed by us.

Some things have to be placed in God's hands.

Learning to set boundaries with someone you love deeply is one of the hardest things you will ever do.

It doesn't mean you stop loving them.

It doesn't mean you stop praying for them.

It doesn't mean you give up hope.

It means you recognize that you cannot live someone else's life for them.

Today, I am learning to wake up each day and build a life filled with purpose and meaning while trusting God with the things I cannot control.

In many ways, this site was born from that journey.

Because I know I am not the only woman who has carried these struggles quietly.

So many of us walk around holding pain that no one sees. We smile, we show up, we take care of everyone else, and then we go home and wonder if anyone understands.

Women need a place where they can share the hard things.

A place where they can be honest without judgment.

A place where someone else can say, "Me too."

That is my hope and my prayer for Sweet Tea Society.

That it becomes a place where women can gather, share their stories, lift one another up, and remember that they do not have to carry everything alone.

So friend, pull up a chair.

Pour yourself a glass of sweet tea.

Have a good cry if you need one.

Say a prayer.

And remember that even in the broken places, God is still working.

"Carry each other's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ."
— Galatians 6:2