Don’t Blink

I watch as the little boy who, days before, wouldn’t go in the deep end unless every buckle on his red Lightning McQueen life-jacket was secured and tight now swam freely. I watch as the little girl who, days before, was afraid to go in this same deep end, secured with life-jacket and Daddy’s arms, now pushed us away, swimming only with a purple noodle to support her. And I watch as a baby who only days before spent just as much time getting out of the pool as in it made her way through the water, unafraid to fall.

And I don’t want to blink because before my very eyes they are changing, growing. I’m afraid that if I look away for just a moment, I will miss a moment that is gone forever. If I look away for a moment, when I turn my eyes back to them they will be older, one step closer to independence.

I want to freeze-frame, burn these images into my memory, bottle them up and take them with me wherever I go. I want to keep my babies babies, safe in their parents’ arms. Yet while I try to keep them within our grasp…

…I know that someday they will be ready to soar. I will watch and hope and pray that they look before they leap, that they choose wisely, because ultimately, I know, the day will come when these choices will be their own. And as they walk away on their path to independence, no longer clinging to my grasp, I will grab the hand of Him that promises that if I train them in the way they should go, even when they are turning away from me, they will not turn away from what I’ve taught them.

So I watch wide-eyed as they jump, amazed at how high they can soar.

On Any Given Day

I lay on her bed, frustrated at the events of the day. Sundays were supposed to be our day, our day for church, family, and relaxation. Instead, everything was in a constant state of frenzy from the moment we woke up until right then, as I was trying to get my daughter to go to sleep. The kids were horrible on this particular day, and try as I might, I couldn’t get them to cooperate. My nerves were on edge, and Matt and I were at each other’s throat.

“Hannah Grace, stop talking,” I reprimanded her. And I began my normal habit of introspection when the kids didn’t behave. Why had I failed at parenting again?

I closed my eyes, hoping that if I looked like I was asleep, Hannah Grace would copy me. The sky didn’t reflect the time of evening that it was, and light began to stream in through the cracks in the blinds. The thunder rumbled a low groan.

“I don’t like thunder,” she said.

“It’s okay.”

“We need to go somewhere.”

“There’s nowhere to go, Hannah Grace.”

“I want to go to the mall.”

“You’re not going to the mall.”

The pitter-patter of rain began, while the sky remained light.

“I like the rain,” she said.

“I do, too,” and I silently thanked God for the rain I was craving all afternoon, the rain that kept teasing me but never came.

I kissed Hannah Grace as I warned her to stay in her bed, and I moved to the hallway. I watched the rain through the big window above the front door.

Hannah Grace began crying again, and Matt moved from Caleb’s room, where our son was now sleeping, to our daughter’s.

As the rain washed the dust and the heat down the street, my insecurities began to roll off of me in the big raindrops.

I thought about the play dates where a friend’s child blatantly defied her or another’s threw a tantrum. I thought about the mother who made a threat and didn’t follow through, yet had a well-behaved kid. I thought about the child who wouldn’t venture away from his mother’s side, afraid to make new friends, safe from getting in trouble. I thought about my child who was never content at my side and found a new friend wherever he went.

And I thought to myself they’re all different. It’s not all about me.

I thought how I must have been easy to raise. Afraid to get in trouble, I never did. I never got detention, but I never took risks. I thought about my sister. She was harder. She was the toddler who couldn’t control her curiosity. I identified one of my own children with her personality.

I thought about how I parented, how the good I did outweighed the bad. And I thought about my children, how they are good children. They’re just children.

The heavens opened and released the last bit of rain it had been saving. I watched the downpour and let out a cleansing sigh. And then the pitter-patter resumed amidst a greenish sky until the drops faded away to nothing.

Matt appeared at Hannah Grace’s door and moved into the hallway. He reached out a hand and pulled me up off of the floor. We gave each other the knowing look that spoke thank goodness that’s over, and we hugged.

Sometimes we have bad days, too, and we’re the adults. But we’ll be okay, and so will they.

How Not to Hate Parenting

Cinderella and the prince get married, and they live happily ever after. Sigh. Cinderella may not fit into our culture’s modern way of thinking, but she does get one thing right: She gets happiness. Meanwhile, the rest of us swim upstream in our constant pursuit of an ideal that seems fleeting.

Maybe that’s the problem; we’re chasing an ideal that is fleeting, an ideal that’s made for the fairytales. We’ve yet to realize that real life isn’t about happiness but, instead, endurance.

I recently read an article in New York magazine by Jennifer Senior titled “All Joy and No Fun: Why Parents Hate Parenting.” While the very end of the article mentions the idea that having children brings purpose and lasting value to one’s life, the first five pages highlight many of the different reasons parents in numerous studies cite themselves as unhappy. To say the article wasn’t the most uplifting piece I had read during the day would be an understatement, but as I processed through what I read, I couldn’t help but ask, “So what?”

Is the idea that parents are unhappy and that their unhappiness increases with the more children that they have that shocking? Perhaps finding oneself unhappy isn’t necessarily bad but just a phase associated with anything that has value and takes hard work.

When I think of marriage, I think of the idea that Hollywood perpetuates–marriage is about passion and falling in love with that one person who is destined to make the other person happy, and the details as to what happens after the wedding are rarely shown. Then I think about reality–marriage can have passion, but more days are filled with the choice to love, as the in-love feelings can be fleeting. Marriage is hard work, and unfortunately, many marriages end because people state they are no longer happy, no longer in love. And that’s the problem with basing a relationship on a feeling–we’ll find disappointment when the feelings fade as they tend to do.

So when I read that parents with children are unhappy, I wasn’t that surprised. Maybe people look to babies the way they look to finding their soulmate–as a person to add happiness and beautiful feelings to their lives. But in reality, adding a baby adds a lot of hard work, and the feelings of happiness aren’t always there. I was mulling over this idea after my daughter had dumped an entire bottle of sesame seeds on the carpet, and my vacuum proceeded to push them around rather them suck them up. Yes, I knew the feeling of unhappiness that tends to accompany parenthood.

And while my unhappiness at that moment was brought on by a specific event, I could identify with a longer lasting feeling of discontent. I thought about this past year, and I analyzed my own happiness quotient. One year ago, I had my third child in three years, and on numerous occasions I had told my own husband, “I’m just not happy.” Blame it on hormones, adjusting to life with three children all under three feet tall, lack of sleep, infrequent moments of solitude, or a combination of the above, I wrestled daily with my own cloud of depression.

However, at no point did I think that I hated parenting. I knew I was having a tough time, and I had to ride out the wave of unhappiness knowing more peaceful feelings would come. Perhaps one of the reasons this article left a bad taste in my mouth was this underlying theme that unhappiness is unacceptable when unhappiness is just normal.

And yet, while in one breath I could say that unhappiness is normal and not groundbreaking news, in the other I was shocked at the statistics. Why did so many parents find themselves unhappy, especially when they had more children? The article unpacks many reasons, and each could justify another article alone, but two stood out to me.

Parents are tired. The article seems to focus on families with both parents working, and these parents have to deal with the stress of work all day to then run each child to piano practice and baseball only to deal with disrespect when they get home. I couldn’t help but think, for what are the majority of us working?

Are we working solely to meet our bills or because we simply love working, or are we working to give our kids the ‘better’ life, the life of soccer practice and cell phones and college tuition and weddings? Thinking about the cost of raising a child is overwhelming, but perhaps we could give our children more by giving them less. If the harried pace of life is causing more moments of unhappiness with our children than happiness, perhaps the 60+ hour work week for both parents needs to be evaluated.

Do our children really need cell phones and new cars when they turn 16? Do we really need to have our kids in a sport by the time they turn 3? Is it our responsibility to put our children through college? My husband and I are wrestling through these questions ourselves, but I would venture to say that if working to provide for these extra things is robbing a family of joy, then they aren’t necessary. Instead of the parents having to shoulder all of the responsibility for the extras, teach children the value of saving.

And teach children the meaning of family. One of the other reasons cited in this article as to why parents find parenting so disappointing is that after all the time they put into their jobs and their kids, they still have a mound of chores to do–the work is never done. Perhaps the work is never done because we’ve allowed more of the work to be ours than necessary.

My parents are wonderful parents, and they taught me all the things parents should teach their children. They were physically present at every gymnastics meet and school function, and they were emotionally present during every talk we needed to have. However, the one idea that they did not promote was that I was a part of the family unit, and my contributions to the family were necessary.

I was a good kid; I made straight A’s and was a nationally competitive gymnast. I never went through the teenage rebellion that many do, and I had a good group of friends. My mom didn’t want to add more to my plate because I was working hard at school and gymnastics. However, as I have since told my mom, by not requiring me to shoulder more responsibility in the home, I was allowed to remain selfish. I loved my family, but I did not see myself as a contributing member–my parents were there to contribute to me. My parents and I agree now; I should’ve been made to do more as a child.

Now that I am a mother, I see how much work my parents did to provide for my sister and me on top of the daily chores they did around the home. After reading this article, I see that they were not alone, but I have made a decision that my children will not grow up with the selfish mentality that I had. They will contribute to this family in meaningful ways, and my hope is that they will grow into better adults, as a result.

Unhappiness is a part of parenting as much as it is any part of life, but as is the case with anything, we are in control of our emotions. We can choose to allow our feelings to rob us of the joy of parenthood, or we can look at the deeper issues. Children don’t bring unhappiness–we allow ourselves to create it.

While each family is different with its own dynamics, it is the parents’ responsibility to sit down and analyze how the family unit is working. Perhaps the parents need to work less while the children work more. Perhaps, as I discovered during my own fight with unhappiness, the issue is one of needing space. Perhaps the issue is more complicated. One thing is clear–the majority of us can continue to find unhappiness in parenting, or we can make the choice to take control of our lives and emotions and find contentment.

We only get to live this life once. We can wait for a happily ever after that won’t ever come, or we can take control of our family and those choices that are ours to make. After all, we are the adults; let’s show our children how real life works.