**[Verse 1]** You were just youngsters, running wild, Half-grown boys with reckless smiles, And Toni and I weren't saints back then, We were learning life right along with you, my friends. We were bruised, we were drunk, we were barely getting by, Had our own damn tears we were trying to hide, But somehow in the middle of that crazy life, We were teaching you wrong, we were teaching you right. **[Pre-Chorus]** We didn't know what we were doing then, Didn't know those days would ever end, Didn't know every word, every fight, every fall Was becoming part of who you'd be through it all. **[Chorus]** We raised you boys without knowing we did, Loved the hell out of every one of you kids, Through the wild young nights and the stupid mistakes, Through every heart that got bruised and every heart that would break. We taught you things we didn't know we knew, While life was still teaching Toni and me too. And looking back now, God, it's crazy but true— While we were raising hell, **we were raising you.** **[Verse 2]** You saw us laughing, you saw us cry, Saw us get knocked down and still survive, We weren't perfect women with some master plan, We were just trying to teach you how to give a damn. How to love somebody, how to stand your ground, How to get your ass back up when life knocks you down, And even when we screwed it up along the way, There was never one damn day we didn't love you the same. **[Chorus]** We raised you boys without knowing we did, Loved the hell out of every one of you kids, Through the wild young nights and the stupid mistakes, Through every heart that got bruised and every heart that would break. We taught you things we didn't know we knew, While life was still teaching Toni and me too. And looking back now, God, it's crazy but true— While we were raising hell, **we were raising you.** **[Bridge]** Now you're grown, and those days are gone, But pieces of us somehow carried on. In the way you love, in the way you fight, In the way you know when something ain't right. And maybe we failed you here and there, Maybe sometimes life just wasn't fair, But one thing nobody can ever undo— We loved every damn one of you. **[Final Chorus]** Yeah, we raised you boys while raising ourselves, No instruction book sitting on a shelf. Just Toni and me and a whole lot of years, A little too much whiskey and a whole lot of tears. We watched you stumble, watched you become men, And Lord, if we could, we'd do some of it again. Because before we ever understood what we'd been through— While we were living our lives, While we were raising hell, While we were finding ourselves... **Toni and I were raising you.** And we loved you then. We love you now. Every last one of you.
