Pre-Teen Asher

 

With Jada in Taiwan and Aaron in Kansas, who would’ve thunk that the biggest transition in the Huang household is that Asher has been replaced by pre-teen Asher? Whether or not Asher’s evolution into a surly teenager-in-making has anything to do with being the only Huang kid at home, his arrival in this phase is pretty much right on schedule. 

Doesn’t make it any less jarring for us his parents. Sure, he still has his sweet moments where he wants to hold hands and do kisses, or walk together to school, or read bedtime stories. But, as we observed with his two older sibs, and as parents have experienced since time immemorial, we are also getting out-of-the-blue outbursts, requests for freedom, and of course a deeper voice. 

“Untangled” is a book about adolescent girl development which I found helpful in understanding what is normal about girls growing up into women. Girls are different than boys, but there is something transferrable about the book’s central metaphor, that growing up is akin to multiple aspects of a child sending out a search party to explore an older version of themselves, and based on what they observed they decide whether to stand pat or move forward. I say “multiple” because (and this is what is often confounding for us parents) this happens along more than one dimension – physical, social, emotional – and are often not synchronized, so someone can act more mature socially than they are emotionally, for example. 

I think this is more pronounced for girls than for boys, but the central premise holds, which is that the pre-teen years for boys and girls are about exploration of a larger version of yourself. Asher is, like all boys his age, trying to figure out who he wants to be as a 5^th grader that is different from whom he was as a 4^th grader. Which means that, when we try to block that search party, it’s frustrating for him because he is desperate for information to know whether to stay the same or move forward. 

There’s no doubt that, as his parents, we sometimes have to block his desired paths for his own safety. But, as hard as it is to launch into the unknown with him, we are trying to give him space where appropriate to experiment and expand. That means giving him freedom, albeit with guardrails and consequences at times, but nonetheless freedom that is oftentimes scary for us to grant since he is still so young. Every day, nay every interaction, seems a tense negotiation of his pushing for more freedom and us either saying sure or alternatively bearing the brunt of his rage when we say no. 

Asher is also getting bigger physically, which is its own dynamic since he is a future large Black man in a world that too often suspects and fears and acts with force against large Black men. Which is something we need to mind in this calculus around giving our pre-teen the appropriate outlets of freedom. To cite one example, we’re really leery about letting him leave the house with toys that look too much like real weapons, which may be good policy for all kids but is especially fraught for our Black boys. This too is a source of tension, as Asher is rightly frustrated that he is hemmed in because of his race and because of the existence of racism. To which we can only and consistently and sympathetically reply, “yes, it’s not fair that some of your friends can do this and you can't, but it’s what we need to do so you’re safe.” 

As with Aaron and Jada, we will blink and pre-teen Asher will give way to teen Asher and then young adult Asher, and we as his parents will need to parent and adapt accordingly. We are to love our kids at every stage of development, and help them in and through every stage of development, and by the grace of God and with the help of our extended village, we are doing our best to do that for Asher in these pre-teen years.