Acquiring parenting skills by reading “how to” books is like learning dancing via mail correspondence – unless you’re really there, physically doing it, it’s not at all the same thing!

I have an only son and brought him up almost single-handedly after an early divorce. He was the baby I cradled in my arms, the son who went through two packets of diapers in three days, the boy I spoon-fed and dropped off at kindergarten, whose awkwardly colored drawings I hung up on the fridge and who would come howling home from the playground after a fall from the jungle gym.

But the strangest feeling I had, the first time I felt powerless to help my son, was the day he came home as a sixteen year-old and cried his heart out on the kitchen table because his girlfriend had “dumped” him for another boy. Eddie is usually emotionally reserved so the fact that he actually burst into tears was a shock in itself.

I had a myriad of emotions – anger at the girl who had hurt my Eddie, motherly scorn that she was so blind as to not see his value, an overpowering urge to heal him and make it alright, a sense of desperation at his tears, a sense that I should preserve my common sense and give him good advice and comfort (this was, after all, a minor teenage heartbreak that most of us go through). I know I talked to him and calmed him down, though to this day, I still can’t remember what exactly I said. As we sat up late that night drinking cocoa, he smiled his sad lopsided smile and said “I can’t really blame her, Mom, she said she just fell in love with the guy… and one should always give true love a chance, right?” I, who had been barely suppressing volcanic, seething feelings towards this girl, suddenly felt so very humble.

Looking back today, I feel a sense of pride: I had raised a boy who was capable of really understanding love, of opening his heart and truly sharing and who didn’t bear malice. It was the day my son taught me a lesson about loving and letting go.