Parenting is tough. I know, duh!! It really proves to be much harder as the years go by. Maybe it’s because I have more children with each passing year. Let’s hope that’s not always the case. At some point I’d like to stay at the same number of kids for awhile. Some days are tougher than others, some easier. As new challenges arise, I find myself feeling completely unqualified to parent my troops.
Recently my son let me know that sometimes I make him mad. My first response was to be defensive and try to justify the things I do. Instead I said, “What do I do that makes you mad?” In my mind I was thinking of all the things it could possibly be; I don’t play with him enough, I shout, I ask him to do too many chores, I won’t let him have unlimited sweets. The list was endless in my mind. I was sure he was about to come up with my greatest short coming. He said,”When we play blocks, you turn them over the wrong way and after all roads have a line down the middle.” You might be thinking he was babbling about something that didn’t make sense. Let me explain. We have the oversized cardboard blocks and on one side there is a line from where you fold them together to make the block. When we build, he likes to make roads and it frustrates him when the blocks aren’t facing the same way, or the “right” way. Huh. That’s it?!?! I was coming up with criminal offenses and all he could come up with was that I turn the blocks the wrong way.
It was at that moment that I realized I beat myself up way too much. I know that may not be a news flash to most people. As a self described type A personality, perfectionist I rarely see the good in what I do. I am getting better, lest I end up in a mental institution or worse, my husband and children end up there first. When it comes to raising kids I really scrutinize every aspect of what I do, from what we have for dinner to how neat I keep their rooms. With every baby I have had to let some things slide a bit. When we first had Zion I had well meaning friends that said we had to lower our standards of how the house should look. I think that’s just something lazy people say to make themselves feel better. Who knows? I still have the same standards, I just can’t meet them. My base boards haven’t seen the light of day in two years due to dust on them. My blinds are only clean on the top, not the underneath. As I write this there is laundry in the dryer, getting wrinkled. When I do get all my cleaning done, I finish and honestly expect a roar of applause for my hard work and efforts, sort of an Academy Award moment. That never happens. I will even call my husband and let him know if I have cleaned so he can comment on it when he gets home. Poor guy.
As for my son and his gripe toward me, I assume he just hasn’t figured out yet that I may be lousy at parenting. Maybe his barometer is based on how well I build blocks. Maybe my daughter’s is on how well I can braid her ponies’ hair. Maybe my tiny guy measures it on how many books I read to him. Maybe I should take a moment and see what is important to them and see that I actually am doing a good job. Whatever they measure my parenting success by, it doesn’t matter. My measure of success is at the end of my life when I want to hear those two words, “Well done! “ Each day, as my challenges arise, I seek the One who is the perfect Parent and who knows my children better than anyone, and I know He is pleased. That should be enough for me.
When Sam was asked in preschool to define his mother’s love, I anxiously waited for back to school night so that I could see the big revelation of my devotion and creativity, pictorially displayed for all to see. There were a few scibbly lines on a beautifully framed piece of paper and underneath the teacher had quoted Sam as saying “my mom loves me because she pushes me on the swing.” I was a bit disappointed that night, but it has come back to me over the years that Sam knows love when I involve myself in his activity. I don’t think Sam is so unique, either. Lately I have been meditating on I Corinthians 13 (you know the one!). I looked at Love is Kind today. Webster says “kind” is generous, gentle, friendly, sympathetic, tender-hearted. I summarized it for myself as being an action or attitude that looks outward with grace – it listens and then meets needs without thought of reward. You are a kind mother – and that, at the end of the day, pleases the Lord!
Comment by Pam — August 10, 2007 @ 2:20 am