married with kids
August 11, 2013 § 50 Comments
A lecture lead to a book, which resulted in an apology that started a conversation. The lecture was given by the author of a book whose subject is parenting a teenager. The apology came from my husband and then from me. The conversation: how we parent our children with actions and words that create a subtext for love and marriage, respect and compassion. And visa versa.
This belief that parenting and marriage are connected by demonstrations of respect and love, kindness and compassion is not new. In fact, I would say that our mantra as parents is centered in an intentional commitment to Do Better; better than our parents, better than other parents, better than ourselves. We fall asleep mindful of our errors and wake conscious of our goals. Still, in action we sometimes fail with one another to model what we most believe; tired or hurt we speak defensively and act unkindly to the very person we promise to share our life with.
I speak only of my experience, from my perspective.
All of my parenting books and good intentions are balanced by my errors. Kind words unraveled by actions, values disproportionate to deeds. I am the sum of my behavior and my children mirror this truth. I teach as I learn and between knowing there are moments of brilliant ignorance. The greatest lessons in our marriage as parents have been those that come to us as we regained our footing, dusting off the sharp corners of our emotions to see where we fell. For my husband and I, most recently, we found that place in a book that highlighted how we behave in moments of frustration.
If I were to itemize our errors they are last words, criticism, and blame. We balance these with apologies, but the contradictions in our words create doubt. Knowing this, the predictable potential for harm in moments of unpredictable chaos, we can practice new expectations to lend one another the compassion and kindness we endeavor to teach. Where we lack patience we must learn to exercise silence to better hear and more consciously choose our words so as to create conversations that foster greater understanding in place of arguments that assign blame.
Where once we were two, we are four. Individuals, Partners, Parents, and Students in an experience that challenges us daily to look outside ourselves while demanding we look honestly and directly at ourselves. My husband and I are modeling for our son and daughter the partner they may become as they grow into a future of choices that reflect their experiences as our children and witnesses to our marriage. For this, I can do better.
in writing
June 16, 2013 § Leave a comment
Ever endeared by the promise of a postmarked envelope, I have come to find them more meaningful on uneventful occasions. Too often a holiday creates an expectation of grand acknowledgment, one that overlooks our flaws and celebrates only our accomplishments.
I thought of this first on Mother’s Day when my husband’s card to me was filled with repetitive reassurance of my strengths as a mother and my family’s good fortune. I thought of it again last night when pressed to create a similar declaration of exceptional parenting for Father’s Day.
Here is the thought that chased around my script – parenting is a bundle of mistakes and mundane moments sprinkled with remarkable moments of love. We don’t memorialize our errors, rather we hold tightly to ideals of perfection.
I am grateful everyday for the traditional trappings my husband’s busy days provide. Our home rests in a safe neighborhood and between our walls we are blessed with comforts that are a privilege. Our children do not want for food and they are clothed in warmth.
Still, as parents, most of our greatest gifts to our children have come from moments of colorful, noisy mistakes or discoveries that undermined our assumptions. We gather our individual flaws into efforts to model strengths for our children to learn from, each day a new beginning in a love story centered in a commitment to be present.
To my husband,
Thank you for the everydays between, before, and after the holidays; the grand gestures of love and the everyday routines that build toward our future. Thank you for growing from your mistakes and giving us room to uncover our own lessons. Thank you for modeling a man whose footsteps our son can grow into while walking beside you and for demonstrating the kind of man we can hope our daughter might one day find in a young man’s friendship. Thank you for being perfectly imperfect and uniquely ours.
Love, Me
learning as we grow
December 5, 2012 § Leave a comment
Yesterday I listened to a speaker address timeless and contemporary concerns in parenting teenagers; universal messages of acceptance and patience were tucked among entertaining anecdotes. Sitting beside me a close friend punctuated the afternoon lecture with small bursts of laughter. Side by side I was mindful that my friend is a witness to my journey, the muddled moments and the small victories. The reassurance of a stranger sharing clinical and personal wisdom alongside the company of a close friend sharing experiences and friendship in mothering I felt the same unspoken sense of community that causes me to smile at a new mother, swaying gently with the memory of my own children as infants. In parenting we are a village without boundaries, learning as we grow.
Returning home I reevaluated my tendency to over-diagnose my son’s sometimes erratic behavior as symptomatic of his unique medical diagnoses, reassured that so many of his recent struggles are overwhelmingly typical. So then when my son walked though the front door in a gust of tears and frustrations I felt prepared to embrace the day’s gentle reminders to parent from a place of compassion. Rather than react, I let my son unravel his mood without judgment or lectures. I didn’t coddle or criticize, I treated the child whose shoulders fall closer to my own height these days in much the same way I treated his younger sister recently when she was struggling to share something difficult – I diffused both of our defenses by taking a step back and listening.
Something that previously would have upset me became an opportunity rather than a failure. My son shared his error and without my projecting responsibility he accepted responsibility freely. In turn, I accepted my disappointment alongside pride. Most importantly, I shared a moment of growth with my son I may have hindered with assumptions and expectations. It was an imperfect moment, but I am learning; finding my way with humor, humility, and compassion for the young man finding his way.
finding my way
July 4, 2012 § Leave a comment
My journey through motherhood is freckled with occasions to second guess old choices. Hindsight often jests at my expense. Should’ves and would’ves, maybes and might haves pile up accusingly mocking my good intentions.
Reflecting on my decisions, sifting through reservations and regrets, I was reminded that my worries are not at all unusual. Parenting children with special needs my doubts are not dissimilar from parents of neurotypical children or those whose children live with physical disabilities or illness. We are an eclectic community of individuals nurturing uniquely beautiful children into a place of independent strength founded in unconditional love and confidence in their abilities.
Today as I count the paths unchosen, curious if I have overlooked a simpler journey, I am reminded of the lessons in love and resilience that have accompanied my errors. I carry my apologies alongside my hope and move forward towards the next bend in the road.
mother’s helper
May 11, 2012 § Leave a comment
Motherhood has been a journey of love and discovery I share with my husband. From the first days of clumsy uncertainty and sleepless nights I have been blessed with a genuine partnership in parenting. My husband and I speak a silent code of gestures and tones that reach across rooms of our home calling for a spontaneous celebration, quiet collaboration, or reprieve from a moment’s frustration. This Mother’s Day I am giving thanks for the strength and humor that balances my endless worries.
My favorite moments as a mother are greater for witnessing my children and my husband together. Playful and patient, my husband feeds their natural curiosity with the same ease I curl them into my company over a book or in the event an unfortunate moment robs them of their smile.
An oversized adolescent he startles our children out of slumber with play while I run through an invisible checklist each morning. Where my responses are often measured, my husband laughs sincerely and heartily with a boisterousness that invites humor in moments weighted with worry. Quite often he is the raucous force inside the picture frame while I hold the camera to capture the image.
At the end of the day I look forward to unraveling our experiences into stories, drawing him into our timeline from the mundane to the miraculous. I could measure our life in the expressions my husband and I exchange over the tops of our children’s heads as we give thanks for a life well shared. It is a story of simple joys and unconditional love, sprinkled with humor and kindness.
relative lessons
January 2, 2012 § Leave a comment
The first day of the New Year was quiet, our children too tired to gather the energy required to antagonize one another. Until bedtime. In a moment of simple sibling dispute over territory, the day ended in sleepy tears. My husband and I stoically maintained a straight face and a stern presence despite our daughter’s precocious spirit and our son’s persistence.
Our son held tightly to his identity as a victim of longstanding torture at the hands of his little sister. He skirted his contributions to the exchange while our daughter willingly confessed to her crimes, passionately defending herself with a character portrait of her brother that left little room for innocence. My husband and I slowly unraveled the truth, veteran siblings ourselves, while hiding our humor behind carefully placed lessons.
The moments after our good nights were marked by appreciation and laughter for our children’s personalities. I like that our children argue because it lends them an occasion to work through conflict towards respectful resolution with someone they love. Relationships exist between imperfect people making conflict unavoidable. I admire both children for planting their feet in justice on their own behalf. So often in life there are times you must stand up for yourself and home is a safe place to practice. Finally, forgiveness is something they must find for themselves, it cannot be forced by an authority figure. My children’s tearful hugs at the end of their evening lingered just long enough for me to know they were not lost to their own feelings, but mindful of one another’s.
Tiny lessons relative to life.
love lesson
December 19, 2011 § 2 Comments
My husband and I had a disagreement; an unpleasant exchange that spilled sloppily from our mouths to our children’s ears. Wide-eyed my daughter gauged the exchange, holding her questions and concerns beneath thin layers of surprise and uncertainty.
I gathered my little girl near and said what I needed to hear at an early age: adults can disagree without loving one another less. I reminded her that it is important to try your best to be respectful even when you are angry and to accept responsibility when you hurt another person’s feelings. I watched her measure my words considering their meaning.
My husband and I bring to our marriage unique individual heartaches. We unpack grief or anger in moments of exhaustion or anxiety. Rather than stuff our dirty laundry into the corners of our mind, I try to unfold it; smoothing out wrinkles and carefully claiming each piece of ourselves. It is uncomfortable and challenging, but owning our worst helps us nurture our best.
Tonight my husband echoed my message to our daughter with his own. He apologized for speaking unkindly. The moment had passed, but he stretched his accountability into the present creating an occasion to share a lesson. He reaffirmed my worth by apologizing and his own strength by modeling humility.
I hope my children fall in love and know kindness and compassion, but I also wish them partners that challenge them to grow and a safe place to make mistakes.
to my husband
November 6, 2011 § Leave a comment
Lately I am reminded of our earliest days with our son. My heart recalls the impossible goodbyes in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, immediately lonely for our son’s company and worried about his well-being in our absence. Logically I understood the hospital was trained to care for our son’s needs, but my heart could not fathom leaving him each day. With all my doubts of late, an old question haunts me: Will he be okay?
I carry a special memory of you that I call on when uncertain or overwhelmed by a new challenge with our son. It was the first time we were allowed to hold our son. He was impossibly tiny and covered in a tangle of tubes, you were standing closest while I absorbed the sight of him. In a gesture filled with limitless love, you stepped aside and let me hold our son first. It would have been easy for you to gather him to you for a moment and then deposit him in my arms, but instead you let me hold him and I gathered him close like a salve to a tender ache. In that moment I was whole and at peace with the world, joyful. You stood patently nearby, proud and eager without complaint.
Your quiet strength and generosity allow me the unique experience of mothering from a place of authenticity. Thank you for giving me so much without asking. As I struggle to process my feelings and thoughts, be patient still. I know you are nearby, waiting without complaint.
accountability and humility
October 19, 2011 § Leave a comment
Recently I wrote about my son’s experience with a peer. In said instance my son was treated poorly by the peer at school, we addressed the incident with the school directly, and the school was both supportive and efficient in their efforts to control the situation. I was impressed, but quietly ill at ease. A part of me could not let go, feelings of discontent lingered. I questioned how the other child’s behavior was addressed and challenged his telling of the events with sarcastic disbelief in unspoken sentiments. To my son, I spoke only words of reassurance. I weighed my thoughts falsely projecting fairness, keeping my own negative emotions tucked away. The contradictory undercurrent left me feeling unkind and judgmental.
I forced myself to commit to repeating a mantra of positive posturing until the negative chorus was a quiet murmur. Over and over I said to myself: the other child made a mistake, mistakes are part of childhood, my son will endure this and learn from this moment. Be strong, but be forgiving. I was almost serene when my son came home and created a new ripple on calm waters.
My son made his own mistake. He did not harm another child, but he took something from a classroom. As the teacher’s telling unfolded, I felt my son’s mistake and stepped aside to make room for him to exercise accountability while I absorbed a moment of humility. My son moved beyond words and embraced accountability with action, owning his error and demonstrating remorse. A new thread of concern wrapped itself around my thoughts. Would others struggle to move past his error as I had struggled to let go of another child’s error?
I quickly realized these are moments in my son’s experiences outside of my control. Opportunities for him to grow, find his way, build character, and create new choices. As I was learning lessons in humility, accepting my son as imperfect and fallible; he was learning accountability in a safe and nurturing setting to be recalled at later moments in his life. I can no more undo his error than I can forge others’ opinions. The shoe on the other foot, we walked forward aware of the choices behind us and mindfully stepping into the future.
scribblechic 