How Bad Is It?

This week out of the blue my son ran to his room upset about something. He wasn't public about it. I just happened to notice something was wrong. I followed him to his room to ask him what was wrong.

"It's nothing," he told me; but he was clearly upset and because he was upset I was upset.

"It can't be nothing, sweetheart. I can tell something's bothering you," I encouraged.

"I just want to be left alone," he persisted.

And so we sat for a time, with me prodding and encouraging him to share what was on his mind. And he insisting that he wanted to be alone and that it was nothing. No amount of coercion could encourage him to share. And after a time I let him be.

But while I feel he is old enough to have his privacy in some matters, it left me unsettled and worried.

For several years now, we've been a family of sharers. In fact, I would say my daughter generously shares with her ability to recount her daily activities in nearly play-by-play recitation; and I love it. It gives me a clear picture of how she feels, what she is dealing with, and how her life is going. It makes it much easier for me to understand what is on her mind and what is going on.

But James is a boy, and I suppose boys are by nature non-sharers.

I remember often picking Joey up from school and asking him how his day had gone. "Fine," was the typical response. And that is often all that I got from him.

As Kate prepares to leave this fall for a mission for our church, and I think about the void we will feel without her I admit that I've been looking to James to fill that hole for me a bit.

That is a duty he should not be required to perform. No child should bear that responsibility in a family, but I'll admit that he has many times before. He has a natural ability to lift others' spirits. He can sense other's feelings and draw them out. He comforts us almost without effort. It's a gift he has had since birth.

So now as my not so little son begins to keep more to himself, I'm feeling a little lost as to how to enter his world. How do I comfort the comforter? I want to know what he is thinking, and yet he deserves some level of privacy. It's a conundrum I've yet to answer.

So how bad is it? How bad is it that he wants to be left alone, and I want to pry and meddle until I know his innermost thoughts? It's the constant tug and pull of parenting that leaves me feeling bewildered sometimes as I try to give my children their freedom and yet protect them.

It's a sign he's growing up. It's a sign I'm not yet ready to let go. And yet somehow I can't help but hope we'll meet somewhere in the middle where he shares enough to ease his heart, and I hear enough to ease my own.