I know. My title makes you uncomfortable. But it’s time for me to get real about mothering teenage boys. I have a young teenage boy (well, now two teenage boys since I first started writing this piece!) in the house quickly plunging into all things puberty, and I’ve become quite sensitive to the boundaries that are shifting in our relationship. I suddenly feel an acute need for privacy around my own sexuality as I’m certain my son does too. The four of us share one bathroom. That was fine back in the day, but now I find myself wondering. Should I leave my bra out, hide my thong in the laundry basket (haha- who am I kidding? This mom butt doesn’t wear thongs). But back to the case in point, things are moving at warp speed here. I can smell testosterone in the air.

I’m also starting to feel the pain of not knowing, of being left out of the places I was once included. I’m not invited into the doctor’s office anymore. I’m not wanted as a participant in his peer group, and even seemingly benign gestures of love like a pat on the head can be quickly shirked off. “Stop touching me!” “Why are you sitting so close?” No more snuggles under the covers on Saturday mornings. It can be easy to get my feelings hurt and forget what is developmentally happening for my son. Some days I just don’t know how I fit in. However, I’m trying to embrace the important role I have in accepting and not reacting to the natural separation of intimacy that occurs between a mother and son in the teenage years.

I have a lot of mom friends with teenage boys, and the conversations about our boys are expansive and often intrusive. “Does your son have pubic hair?” This question was asked by a mom on the playground in elementary school when I was bemoaning to whoever would listen about my son’s umpteenth trip to the principal’s office. Huh? “Well, he’s probably starting puberty early. A surge in hormones.” I was grossed out to learn that her son had the beginnings of peach fuzz. It turns out that my son had ADHD. It seems some mothers invade because they want explanations for why they don’t have a good little boy anymore. If you can identify any pubic hair on your child, then voila! your son’s dismissive and mean behavior isn’t because he doesn’t love you anymore, it’s just because of hormonal changes. But according to my son, it is because he doesn’t love me anymore. I’m learning to take those words from him in stride. The days of deciding and knowing all the ins and outs of his life are over. And I happen to think that’s healthy.

I was so grateful this past year to participate in a small study group on sexuality with fellow therapists. The most valuable lessons I learned were from the two men who shared about their mother’s refusal to let them have privacy and separate. It shifted my thinking. I started paying attention to privacy and parenting teenagers. How much is too much information when it comes to your son? Do we really need to know every text they exchange or the changes in our son’s genitals? (the answer is No!) It can feel confusing as a mom because one year you are helping him take off his clothes at the doctor’s office and answering every minute detail, and of course the more you know, the better mother you are, and then you hit this awkward moment at your son’s 11 year old check-up where they are asking about the HPV vaccine and listing off early symptoms of puberty. The doctor doesn’t offer suggestions of how to respond to either.

Some moms get hurt in an unhelpful way, and by that, I mean taking their sons’ changes too personally. Rebellion is simply rejecting Mom and Dad. That is good. It helps our sons develop a separate strong self. But when mom responds with this entitled sentiment, “I’m your mother and have a right to know everything about you. I’m your mother and have a right to always feel good when I’m with you. I’m your mother, and we should always be close” it feels seductive. Son isn’t allowed to reject her. Pressuring my son to come close, stay close or expose parts of himself that his internal voice is telling him not to do is confusing. And it pisses him off!

Demanding to know all can create an additional problem. Mom can be unaware of her own need for new boundaries that the teenage years require. So what about mom’s sexuality? How much does she share about herself? Where and what does she keep private? Some things are obvious. Don’t lay your vibrator out on the coffee table. But what about the mom that likes to sleep naked and doesn’t lock her door or the mom that walks around the house in a silk robe with nothing underneath? These things happen. They’ve happened to some of my guy friends, and it made them feel uncomfortable and weird. I don’t know if it’s an unconscious wish by the mother to keep her son a nursing baby or if it’s something worse. Some mothers aren’t happy and the child becomes the one source of joy. It’s difficult to hold good boundaries in the relationship when Mom’s happiness is hinging on it. In either case, it’s detrimental to the relationship when Mom pretends her sexuality doesn’t exist but leaves it all out in the open.

When my son was four years old, he asked if I would be his wife one day, and if he could live with me forever. I told him, “No. I’m already married to your dad. One day you will grow up and want to live in your own home with someone you have picked to love. And you get decide when that happens.” I have to admit I was flattered and felt so loved in that moment by my little boy, but I’m glad I kept my response to him in check. I wanted to say we would live together forever, but I knew that wouldn’t be fair to him. In fact, like children often do with their parents, he was unconsciously looking for me to set a boundary.

Do parents (dads included) have an access code others don’t? Well, yes and no. And when is access denied? Shouldn’t that be an option all along? Because I am your parent, I am allowed to invade where others aren’t is a harmful message. Maybe it’s because of my own story of sexual abuse, but I always wanted my boys to know how to say and when to say, “No” to answering a too personal question or participating in an intimate behavior like bathing or changing in front of anyone. I know several fathers and mothers who have showered with their opposite sex child well past the age of five thinking if the child didn’t like it they would tell them. I disagree. Children have to be taught it’s okay to say no. The parent-child separation starts the moment the baby is born. It is one of the cruel realities of parenting. And setting boundaries with Mom and Dad is the first place baby gets to practice. It might look like letting him choose to dress in private, close the bathroom or bedroom door when he wants, not asking to see or check his private parts past early elementary school age. The checking private parts might sound odd to someone without children, but it’s a thing with some mothers. I overheard a woman on the playground once telling her other friends that her daughter’s clitoris was abnormally large. Everyone nodded or added some detail of their own about their child’s genitalia. Yuck. And oddly normal?

Do we believe, “If it’s mom, or dad, the boundary doesn’t apply?” Because that isn’t true. Exceptions should make sense to our children. When my son was 8 years old, he looked his doctor in the face and said, “I haven’t seen you for a year, and I don’t feel comfortable taking off my clothes!” The doctor agreed. Now I’m the one being kicked out of the doctor’s office, and that’s how it should be. It seems imperative that if a child knows something doesn’t feel right, he would expect his mother and the safest people in his life to know that too. Using our special mom role to gain unwanted access is seductive. There are a myriad of ways we might consciously and unconsciously do that. Love and trust are formed when we allow our boys to choose how close or how far away they want to be. I don’t undervalue the equal importance as a mom of being available, pursuing her son, and staying engaged in his world. This piece just isn’t about that. In the end, I know the best path for a mother-son relationship is one with generous margins where there is room for us both to exist.

Oh, and you’d be happy to know that a master bathroom for mama is being added to our house this summer!

Inspired in part by http://mentalpod.com/Phil-Hendrie-podcast