It was halftime. With only 6 players that showed up at this last weekend’s soccer game, our team was dog tired. The score was close, but we were behind. Still, the fact that the other team was only one goal ahead was impressive. They had 8 or 9 players on the field and 4 on the sidelines waiting to be brought in. We just had our 6 – three forwards, two defense, and one goalie. And our boys were holding their own. But I couldn’t help but notice the dejected look on my son’s face as he made his way off the field. His face was red, his hair clinging to his forehead in a wet mass of sweat. He had played his hardest, as did the rest of the team. He sat down on the blanket near the bowl of grapes, his water bottle empty as he had already drained it. And instead of eating, he just sat there. He caught my eye and I could see the pain he was trying desperately to keep under the surface.

I struggled with what to do. Raised by a single mom, my son had more sensitivity than a lot of boys. My nature was to run to him, scoop him up, tell him it would all be ok. But I also knew that he was growing up, and that part of him needed to learn that sometimes things weren’t perfect. He needed to learn how to get past hardships on his own.

I couldn’t just let it go, though. I decided to just go over and make sure that he was getting enough fluids and to let him know how proud I was of him. I leaned down behind him and asked if everything was ok. He immediately leaned his little head against my chest and tried desperately to hold back the tears that wouldn’t be held back. And my heart broke as he hid his tears from his teammates but needed some comfort.

I have a rule with Mr. Wonderful, something that I am very firm on. If I am in a stressful situation that needs to get done, and he sees that I am at my breaking point, he is to walk the other way and just let me handle it. It seems cold, and if I hadn’t set this rule up with him I would probably be very offended to see him walk away when I seemingly need him the most. But the thing is, I know that once anyone asks me if I’m ok, I will break down in tears and will become extremely vulnerable when I need to be strong and finish what I’ve started. There is one woman at work that has a motherly nature to her, something I find so wonderful and endearing about her. When I am in that space, all she has to do is look at me and the waterworks start. There are times when Mr. Wonderful wants nothing more than to step in and save the day when I am at my peak of frustration. But this deal allows me to get what I need done, and be able to talk about it later when I am in a better place.

My son inherited his sensitive gene from me. And as his mom, I have the hardest time just stepping back and letting him handle it. I want to save him from sadness, keep him safe, comfort him when he is down. When my little boy was 3 and we had just moved away from his father into my parents’ home, he needed a lot of comforting. And I needed it too. In the evenings we would curl up together on the couch under a big fluffy blanket and watch TV before bed. My daughter, Ms. Independent, would sit across the room. She handled things in her own way, inheriting my stubborn gene just as readily as my son took on my sensitivity. Little by little, my son became more independent and didn’t need so much coddling. But every now and then he would collapse and need a little pick-me-up hug to get going again. And here at 8, he was leaning against me with huge tears threatening to spill over and was tugging on my heartstrings.

“What’s wrong, honey?” I whispered to him, the other boys totally oblivious to what was going on.

“Coach took me out of the forward position and made me play defense, and I hate defense!” he whispered through a sea of tears.

Oh brother. This is what was going on? I felt like a chump. His dad, who was standing in the sidelines, later told me that I needed to stop coddling him so that he wouldn’t be such a “mama’s boy”. And I’d pinpoint my ex as the bad guy for saying something like that, except that any other dad I talked to basically said the same thing.

As a mom, it is so hard to stop the coddling. And as a single mom, I don’t have someone here to tell me when to reel it in, or to tell him to “toughen up”. I’ll admit that I love those times when my son leans on me and needs a hug just to keep on going. But unless I want a 35 year old son living with me in the basement, I better start backing off when I want to step in and “save him” and just let him learn to be strong for himself. Um, mostly.

I think this will be harder than anything.

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