Parenting or How Do I Know If I'm Doing This Right?

Thanks so much for all the responses and birthday wishes yesterday. Being off line for awhile, it's nice to know that people are still coming here. (((peace & hugs)))

Above is a pic of my hatchling I took last week, (exam week). So happy for her and proud to announce that she aced her first semester of grade 10 and is still on the honour roll.
All week, she alternated between studying and guitar playing (her way of decompressing from stress). This particular pic was taken on the day her high school held a breast cancer awareness/pink day. Always the realist,  never conforming, my hatchling didn't buy into the commercially marketed pink ribbon T-shirt. She showed up at school wearing a pink bandana in her hair and pink P.J. bottoms. Go hatching! You rock! The kid amazes me...seriously. I feel so lucky to be her mom and this may sound stupid, but I keep waiting for my luck to run out. I keep wondering when the rebellion will begin... when she'll tell me she hates me or when the day will come that she won't give me the courtesy of a cell-phone call to tell me where she is and who she's with....the day when my whole world will come crashing down around me.
It's not that I don't trust her judgement, her choices or her love for me. It's just that I cannot believe how incredibly blessed I am to have her...that she's my daughter. Any mother who has a daughter knows this - something inside us (or inside our daughters?), breaks free all those memories of our own youth, especially those teenage years which is where I'm at now. We remember how we were "at her age". And holy-moly sometimes it shocks me. 
Here's my kid, totally academically oriented, respects adults, is heavily involved in community service and is a kind, loyal, honest, smart, talented, athletic girl.


At her age, I was skilled at dismantling our home phone every morning so my mother wouldn't get the call from the principal telling her I skipped another class or entire day of school. I was dodging teachers, trying not to get caught smoking, and hoping they wouldn't find my weed stash and the bottle of my dad's home-made wine in my locker! Jeeze!!  I never thought I was a wild or bad teenager ( I didn't slut around or anything like that). But when I look at the difference between my daughter now, and my 15 and a half year old self, the difference blows my mind!


I grew up in a very small town. A safe, trusting community. Most parents knew each other and didn't worry like we do now. My friends and I could hang out and walk the streets after dark, no need for cell phones; our parents trusted that we were safe somewhere.
That said, booze, cigarettes, pot and acid were readily available to any teen at any time. And we had loyalty to one another; we lied a LOT to our parents, but we covered each other's backsides in the name of solid friendship. 


My dad was a decent, aware, kind, fair and loving father, but my mom was a total nut-job who showed no consistency at all in which behaviour was acceptable or not, in my young life. So I just  learned to lie about everything I did and everywhere I was, so as not to rock the boat, so to speak,  in case she decided to flip out on that particular day. I learned early on, my mother wasn't the "bonding" type, and I never attempted (nor did she), to have the open and honest relationship that I have with my daughter now. 
And my daughter is not me.....I will remind myself of that daily. It is my new mantra. And my luck won't run out - she won't rebel.  I try to respect her as an individual and give her the space she needs to grow into her own person at every age. I've taught her, guided her, and tried to set a good example .I say what I mean and mean what I say.  I've never tried to impose my own ideals, interests or beliefs on her. (although I don't allow a microwave or cable TV in our home).  I've never tried to mould her into who I think she should be or who I want her to be. I've learned just how much to stand back and how much to step in.  
I don't have the benefit of a hubby for the daily bouncing off of ideas and parenting techniques with and her grandparents are deceased.
That's why I am grateful for my blogging tribe, my mom-friends and my brothers, who will lend an ear and advice any time. The single parent gig is a difficult one - you feel this incessant need to be affirmed, to be validated, and every once in awhile, to be told simply, that you're doing a good job!


Mostly, I just love my hatchling sooooo much, unconditionally, and she knows it. Maybe that's all there really is to it?


Today's Instant Karma ~ do your part to make your community safe for children to grow up in


Carpe Diem !