Amanda Lamb: 'Momming' teens around the edges

“Please don’t start momming me when we get inside,” my daughter said sternly as we pulled up to the building where she was to begin her lifeguard training.

“Momming?” I asked with genuine curiosity.

“You know, hugging me, kissing me, talking to me in that voice, calling me honey or sweetie,” she shot back.

Then she went onto mimic how I might act: “Oh baby, are you going to be OK? Do you need anything? Have fun!”

I tried to not to act hurt. I jumped out of the car to walk her inside since it was her first day and we were unsure of the exact location of the class. Other teens were being dropped off at the curb and walking in solo.

“I’m good, I’ll see you later,” she said abruptly, turning quickly to give me a little wave and sprint ahead to the door without me. I could practically see her skin bristling. She was hoping the other kids didn’t see her mother trying to walk her to the door.

What’s interesting about my almost-15-year-old is that she wants and needs a lot of “momming” behind the scenes. I manage her life like an air traffic controller from school to doctors’ appointments to dance to lifeguard training and driver’s ed.

I am also her on-call crisis manager for all the emotional turmoil that teenagers fall into — and if you have a teenager, you know there are many of these moments. Yet, I am only allowed to work in the dark, to “mom” in the shadows of her life, not in the light where others might be able to see me and make her look bad.

I tried to think back to when I was that age. Like her, I’m sure my mother’s effusiveness embarrassed me. But secretly, I knew how much I truly needed my mother in my life - both to manage it and to love me unconditionally like no one else would.

So, for now, I will have to settle for the quiet reward of knowing that someday she will know; someday she will be happy that she was the recipient of “momming.”

In the meantime, I will “mom” around the edges, in the dim light where she knows I am toiling over the details of her daily life, making sure the trains run on time, but never letting on that I am the engineer.