Me and E

Parenting older kids is a lot different than parenting babies. E is 13 now and L is 16. When Charlie and I met they were 8 and 11. The were both fun kids and generous enough to give me a chance even though I know that I represented the death of a dream that their mom and dad would get back together.
E is a funny girl, honest to a fault, thoughtful, smart and stubborn, stubborn, stubborn. She had some behavior issues when she was younger, and Charlie and I made a plan to help her deal with her feelings. When asked why she kicked a boy in the fourth grade, she said, very, very seriously, "I'm not very good at hitting."
Over the years, her behavior has improved. We had her talk about her feelings and we set limits and imposed consequences. For the most part, we were very successful. One time, though, when she was mad, I told her to go sit on the bed until she was ready to talk about her feelings. She burst out with, "I don't WANT to talk about my feelings! The only adults I know who talk about feelings are you and dad!"
In spite of her being a bit difficult, and not mine biologically, she and I are close. She's very bright and determined and I love the way she thinks. One day, when she was 10 she told me that she doesn't understand why we kill pigs to get bacon when the meat could be extracted with, "a simple surgery". When Charlie was in Iraq, E was 9. Charlie sent E and me flowers when she spent the night at my apartment. I asked her if she liked them and she said, "Yeah, I love them, but I can't figure out how dad got flowers in Iraq?"
Recently she has been having a hard time with adolescence. I worry about it a lot, because I think if you don't receive the right guidance and kindness and love in adolescence, you kind of get stuck there and it makes my heart hurt to watch her struggle. I want her to leave adolescence able to stick up for herself in a world that is really hard on women and girls, but I don't want her to be bitter because the world is hard on women and girls. If she's mad, I want it to result in action that makes her world better. I don't want her to internalize it and poison herself with it. I want her to have good, solid friendships without catty backstabbing. She and her friends from grade school have all found new activities as more adult interests develop. She has new friends, but it's different, more treacherous territory. Girls in junior high are hard on themselves and each other. No one is comfortable in their own skin. I went to her chorus recital and I wanted to take a wash cloth and hair straightener to every last one of them (and that's just the boys). I know they didn't leave the house looking greasy and unkempt, but by the end of the school day, they were a pretty rough looking group.
The incredible thing is that E and her friends don't seem to be able to see that they all have discomfort in common. She assumes that everyone else at school is confident and self-assured. One day she came home crying and I asked her what was wrong. Turns out, her friend, H was flirting with a boy E had a crush on. In between dramatic sobs, E told me that, "Ever since H got boobs, she wears low cut shirts. She dresses like she doesn't have a mother and I know she does!(I swear I have no idea where she heard that expression)" I tried to tell her that H is probably just as uncomfortable about the attention she gets from having bigger boobs than everyone else, and maybe, just maybe, boobs aren't even that important, in the big picture, but E wasn't having it. She did casts a few doubtful glances at my own meager chest at this point and I could see her wondering how I could have any idea what a girl with big boobs was thinking. In her mind, at that moment, a well developed chest was the key to happiness, and she wasn't buying anything I was selling. I have become the out of touch adult and my attempts to suggest solutions to her problems are met with polite, but doubtful 'maybe...s', as though she's the one who knows how to handle any situation and I'm some crazy woman that she needs to humor.....that is, when she isn't texting her friends about how much she hates me because I am an unreasonable beast who won't let her eat fried chicken in the car/makes her clean the house/grounds her from her cell phone for not answering our calls.
Which is interesting, since up until a few years ago, I thought my mom was a crazy woman I needed to humor..and I definitely remember talking to my friends about how our moms didn't do ANYTHING, they just made us clean like their little slaves.
This is the hard part about parenting a child that is the same sex as me. I know what's coming for her is a hard few years. I know that the world will underestimate her, try to victimize her, and tell her she's not ever enough. I also know that she's strong and smart, and if we can give her support, encouragement and discipline, she may have the courage to carve out a space where she is enough, just as she is. If she can do that, those hard years will be followed by several beautiful years of independence and personal exploration, followed by a few wonderful years with a loving partner, followed by having children of her own that she will be both hated by and desperate to escape from on Saturday afternoons. That's my sincere and loving hope for her future.