The following essay was written for Mommybloggers by guest author Marti Lawrence.

Nobody told me how hard it was gonna be, to be nice.

I gave birth, then watched the terrible twos turn into the tumultuous teens in the blink of an eye.

I see my child, marching across life's beach, going for a dip in the Ocean of Relationships. I want to build a cruise ship, or be like Moses and part the sea, so that neither of us has to swim those treacherous waters.

But I can't.

A boyfriend is causing my baby pain. My child is being lied to. A broken heart is inevitable. I want to murder the cur.

But I can't.

Although my experience can read all the signs, I can't tell my daughter that her consort is a louse, because even at my advanced age I remember the sweet taste of forbidden fruit. To tell a teenager that the person they are dating is undesirable, is like dipping the miscreant in chocolate.

So we will suffer. I will worry myself silly, 'cause I can see it coming. Already the phone calls are ending in tears. My child is on the edge of a breakup, and all I can do is be there to pick up the pieces.

I will endure great anxiety...so many teens take their own life to escape rejection and hurt. I shudder. I don't even want to think it about it, it is so terrifying.

I will see the anguish, and know it is only the first. More heartache will follow, because to love is to open oneself up to both joy and sorrow. I will have to convince this young soul that it's worth it, and to try again.

I will have to smother the urge to preach. I will have to avoid blanket denouncements of an entire gender.

I will have to overcome the urge to relate instances of hurt feelings I have gotten from my husband, her father, lest it color the relationship between the two of them. I will have to make her understand that those we love the most can hurt us the deepest, but we mustn't fear loving them.

I will have to listen to her wonder what went wrong, and assign self-blame. I will have to be supportive, assuring her that liability for the relationships failure is not hers to bear alone. That this too shall pass, without discounting the current suffering.

I will have to force myself not to display hateful behavior or grudge-holding, because that sets a bad example.

I will have to be nice, and it is going to be so damned hard.

To read more from Marti and her new book "Queen Klutz - The Misadventures of a Very Clumsy Woman", visit her website Enter the Laughter.