You Better Accept My Kid

Here recently, The Little Man has been experiencing growing pains.  Not the actual physical ones, but the ones that hurt even more than that.  The ones that hurt your little heart and you think that the world sucks.  He's discovering that it's your friends that can cut you to your core the most and as his mother, my first instinct is to cut the fucking asshole who hurt him take him in my arms and say "there, there...mommy has you and it's okay."  Alas...he is too cool for mommy stepping in and so, I just wait here offering silent advice while letting him know that I am here if he wants to talk.

All the while, inside...I am seething.  Because I know.  I KNOW what he is going through.  I think we all know what he is going through.  As kids, in junior high and high school, we want to be accepted.  We want to be invited to things.  We want to feel wanted.  We want to be part of a group.  I wish I could say that I was one of those kids who didn't give a rat's ass about all of that.  But I would be lying if I said that was the case.  But because of my religion at the time, I knew what it was like to be the outsider.  To be different.  To not fit in.  I longed to just be invited to things.  I would love to be able to tell The Little Man to "let it roll off, these kids don't matter.  Just be yourself and it will be fine." But, I know that won't phase him, because it does matter....to him.  I purposefully decided to raise my children in a way where they were not forced to  "stand out" due to something that was forced on him by me and his father....(as in my case, was religion).   Even with doing that, I knew that it didn't matter if you were different because of religion, hair color, weight, height, buck teeth, or whatever....everybody, no matter what, just wants to fit in.  And the truth is, as much as I claim to not need to be accepted by others in my grown up part of life, I do.  I still feel the need to want to fit in.  I still want to be invited.  To be a part of the group.  I pretend that my feelings don't get hurt, when I am just like my son....I won't let you see it.  I will deal with it internally and you will never know.  I don't know if that need for acceptance ever completely goes away.

What I do know is that without acceptance of myself, acceptance by others won't even matter.  Does that even make sense?  Hell...it does to me, but it never would to a teenager, but I'm sure gonna try to explain to them and teach it to them.  What I'm not gonna do is pass on my old and current insecurities onto him.  Lawrd...I don't need them, and he sure doesn't either.  He's got enough on his thirteen year old mind...trust me.  What I am gonna do is corner that asshole "friend" who opened The Little Man up to a world of hurt and let him know that he better accept my kid....or there will be consequences.  Okay, so I will only do that in my head, but wouldn't it be nice if every once in a while, it was okay to beat the shit out of a teenager for being a punk to others?  What...oh, I know...I know...the horrors that I even put that thought out there.  In the meantime, I'm over here googling how to get away with terrifying a teenager who doesn't belong to me and not go to jail for it. 
Not really, but it sounds good.