A Letter: What No One Tells You About Loving a Child Who’s Growing Up

What I’ve learned about love, distance, and becoming the mother he needs now.

“We teach them how to live without us, but nobody teaches us how to live without them.” - Elaine Adams

Dear River,

Hey, my sweet boy.

Remember the other day in the car, when I screamed at you and hit the steering wheel?

Remember how I cried?

Remember how you gently asked me to, “Please stop yelling, Mummy,” and I couldn’t?

Remember how you watched the tears roll down my face into my lap the whole way home?

I am so sorry I let it all spill out like that, my love. In eight years of being your mum, I don’t think I’ve ever unravelled quite like that. And for that, I’m so sorry. But I want to tell you what was happening inside my heart that day, because as you grow, I see more and more how your kindness meets even my hardest moments.

You see, I really miss you. Even when you’re sitting right beside me. Even when your voice and your funny stories fill our home every day. Even when you stumble into our bed after a nightmare and press your warm, squishy face into mine—I miss you.

There are days when I feel the space between us beginning to shift. Like perhaps, to become more fully yourself, you need to step a little further away from me. And while I understand it, even welcome it, there’s a part of me still catching up, still learning how to stay close without clinging to a version of you you’ve outgrown.

I’ve often thought that if we had filled our home with more children, possibly the intensity of my love would have had more room to stretch out. Instead, all of it has landed on you. I didn’t plan it this way, life simply unfolded in its own mysterious ways. And I can see how that might feel overwhelming at times. It’s a beautiful thing to be loved so wholly, but I imagine it can also feel like a lot to hold. Maybe even too much, now and then.

You speak with more certainty these days, clearer in your opinions, firmer in your boundaries, and there are moments when your strength brushes up against my softness. Moments when something you say, without meaning to, leaves a small sting behind. You’re not being unkind, my darling. You’re simply learning how to become more yourself, and I’m learning how to loosen my hold while still staying close.

I think the intensity of that day came from something deeper that had been building over time. In the weeks leading up to it, I had started to feel it more and more—the quiet stings, the small moments that left a mark, the loneliness of your growth. On their own, they were manageable. But when they began to compound, they began to settle in. And when I picked you up from school that day, and you spoke to me in a way that brushed right up against the part of me already feeling tender, it was as though something inside me spilled over. It wasn’t just that moment, it was the weight of all the ones that came before it.

I screamed and I cried, because I missed you, my boy.

When you were little, your need for me felt like love—pure, uncomplicated, constant and unmistakable. I felt it with your arms wrapped tightly around my neck, or the way your eyes searched for mine in every room, or the way your whole world seemed to orbit around my presence. And in those years, that kind of love felt so clear to me, recognisable to my heart and easy to receive.

But now, I find myself learning how to meet your love in a different form. It’s still there—I feel it every day—but it doesn’t arrive in the same ways it once did. It’s quieter now, more indirect. A little look. An elaborate story. A small hug on the way to kick the footy. A genuine ‘thanks, Mummy’ when I slide your favourite pancakes in front of you as you colour. And I know it’s love. Our love. I can feel it in the way you still let me in, in your own time, in your own way. And while it may not always be with the smothering of kisses I prefer, it’s no less real. If anything, it’s maturing alongside you, and that is the most glorious thing to witness.

I want to tell you, sweet boy, there is so much joy here, too. Watching you step more fully into who you are is one of the greatest privileges of my life. The way your mind works, so sharp and quick and curious. The humour that spills out of you, catching me off guard and making me and most people around you laugh. The questions you ask. The things you notice.

I love that I now know the ins and outs of AFL, and will happily jump off the couch in sheer excitement when our mate Issac Rankin kicks a 'sick' goal. I love that I’ve become *that* passionate soccer mum, bright-eyed (and loud) on game day. I love that I’ll drive across town without hesitation to find the next book in our series, just to see the spark in your eyes when I hand it to you. And I mostly love the way you still curl into me at night, wrapping your leg over mine as I read to you, revealing that pure and sweet part of you that still likes to know—I’m right here.

So I hold both.

The tenderness for what used to be, and the deep, true, honest joy for all that is emerging.

I’ve come to understand that nothing quite prepares us for how our hearts will keep changing shape in motherhood. We don’t realise, at first, that the love we come to know so intimately—the cuddles, the need, the orbit—will shift with time, and with it will ask something different of us as women and mothers as it evolves. It’s only when we’re standing in the midst of that change that we begin to understand just how many times we’ll be asked to let go and begin again.

And maybe that’s the quiet heartache we carry, not from having to leave, but from staying right here, loving you just as much, while needing to hold you a little more loosely. Being the safe place you return to, even as you begin to walk further into the world on your own.

That’s the bittersweet part, I think… knowing we can’t go with you, not all the way. But also knowing, with a kind of deep, mother-earned certainty, that what lies ahead will only grow more beautiful. That our love, if we let it, will keep expanding, and we’ll keep finding each other in new ways, again and again. Forever.

I love you.

And, I am so sorry I yelled.

Love,
Your Mama x

“We teach them how to live without us, but nobody teaches us how to live without them.” - Elaine Adams