Category: Parenthood

Things About Parenting I Think I’ve Learned So Far, Part 2

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“Children learn more from what you are than what you teach.” – W.E.B. Dubois

It’s been a couple of years since I originally compiled a list of what I thought I knew. As I sit down to write this update, I realize that the richness of parenting comes with a lot of doubt. What works one day with one kid doesn’t necessarily work the next with another.

So in the spirit of admitting that I don’t really know anything, but still keep trying, here’s what I think I’ve learned about parenting recently.

Don’t interrupt a child trying to tie their shoes.

Once they talk like adults, it’s harder to remember that they don’t have the brain development to go along with the vocabulary.
Remembering that BEFORE I speak is what comes with maturity

It takes a lot of food to support those growing brains. One trick is to teach them to cook.
Anything they participate in making tastes better.

Once they are out of car seats, it’s much easier to get IN the car.
But it’s harder to get TO the car.

Motivation is touchy – too much pressure and they zing out of control. Too little pressure and they don’t move. It’s like coaxing an element from solid to liquid form so be careful with the Bunson Burner.

Many clues about the internal state can be discerned by listening. As Lawrence Cohen said, “Children don’t say ‘I had a hard day, can we talk?’ They say, ‘Will you play with me?‘”

Growth is not a straight line.

Some issues will solve themselves without parental involvement. Learn to hang back.

Confidence and independence go hand-in-hand. But both start from the heart. When we believe they can, they do too.

Listening to what a child observes is one of the most rewarding parts of parenting. When they report on a purple house, the first star at night, or the sound of a bird as it taps on a wire, stop everything to take it in.

I still haven’t solved the sock problem. They get stuffed behind the pillow, under the couch, in my purse, and on the porch. Most mystifying, or maddening, is when they end up back with the clean socks.

There will be things that drive you crazy. Like the socks. Or the last half hour before bedtime.
Coping with parenting is like looking at an optical illusion where you can see the old lady with the big chin or the young lady with a hat.
Pick the perspective that fills you with joy.  

Be gentle. Be calm. Be kind. And that includes to yourself.

Riding bikes to the ice cream shop always improves the mood.

There are many different types of closeness. But one definition, proximity, helps to create a lot of the other types.
Being proximate and close means you’ll sometimes feel the sting of growing pains. Understanding that’s what it is will help to salve the sting.

Other people’s emotions can be hard to handle.
That circular relationship of handling my emotions about their emotions is instrumental to growing up… for me and for them.

Learning is almost always messy.

This is clearly a personal call but maybe clean less than you think you should and play more than you think you should.

The amount of time you spend playing with your kids when they are young and you are old and busy has a relationship to how much time they spend with you when you are old and they are grown and busy.

When kids are parked in their big spaces, proud and confident, they act better.
Being someone who helps move the mindset from small and whiny to big and empowered is tricky…and powerful!

Dreams are precious. Just listen.

(featured photo is my kids and me after biking in the rain. Thanks to Dave Williams for his edits to take the names off the helmets).

You can find me on Instagram @wynneleon and LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wynneleon/

I co-host a storytelling podcast featuring authors and artists with the amazing Vicki Atkinson. To tune in, search for Sharing the Heart of the Matter on Spotify, Apple, Amazon Music or Pocketcasts (and subscribe) or click here. Or the YouTube channel features videos of our interviews. Please subscribe!

My other projects include work as a CEO (Chief Encouragement Officer), speaking about creativity and AI through the Chicago Writer’s Association, and my book about my journey to find what fueled my dad’s indelible spark and twinkle can be found on Amazon: Finding My Father’s Faith.

The Choices We Make: My Mom the Spy

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“Nothing has a stronger influence on their children than the unlived lives of their parents.” – Carl Jung

The post was originally published on 5/10/2023. Heads up – you may have already read this.

There’s a family joke that my mom is a CIA agent. Even now at 83-years- old, when we mention it, she just smiles and shrugs her shoulders, or says there is no point in denying it because we wouldn’t believe her.

As with most jokes, there is a kernel of truth in it. My very smart and capable mom graduated from college in the early 60’s with a degree in Far Eastern Studies and fluency in Russian. The CIA was actively recruiting from college campuses at the time and offered her a job. Her story is that she turned down the job because she met and married my father instead.

But over all the years since, she’s maintained her fluency in Russian, she went back to school when I was in college to get another degree in Russian language and literature, and she’s traveled there – when it was the Soviet Union in the 1970’s and later when it was Russia, many times. Would there be a more perfect cover for an agent than being a pastor’s wife?

It took me becoming a parent myself to understand how ridiculous this story, as fun as it is, really is. Not only because I finally understood that she didn’t have the time while raising three kids, of which I’m the youngest, but also because there is no way her heartstrings could have been in both places.

She made her choice. Instead of translating documents, she took on the work of translating the patter of baby talk into something intelligible. And then developing the sources into people who could talk the language properly.

She gave up a life of intrigue and instead instilled intriguing thoughts and ideas into her children’s lives.

Instead of secret meetings at night, she was called to hold our hair when we threw up and calm our fears when the bad dreams came.

She traded briefings about the state of affairs for parent-teacher conferences and traveling to sports events. And instead of establishing confidence in sources and colleagues, she choose to do the work of instilling confidence from the ground up in three young people.

Instead of fighting the bureaucracy at a government agency, she taught her kids that we had agency and were capable of fighting our own battles for what we believed in.

Instead of patiently nurturing a career that would challenge her brilliant mind and sense of adventure, she choose to nurture her patience with three young people who challenged her peace and equanimity.

Instead of running agents with their own backstories and motivations, she choose to help build a solid and stable backstory for us, fully present to launch our own motivations.

Instead of changing the world balance as a spy, she was the world for us.

My mom has never framed it as a sacrifice, but now that I see how much it takes to lose oneself to take care of others, I know that it was. I understand now that she had to make all these choices, from what might have been interesting and rewarding to her mind to hopefully what was interesting and rewarding to her heart.

She made her choices in life so that I could make the choices in mine.

Thank you, Mom.  

(featured photo is mind: Mom and me in 1974)

Related post: Looking In Through The Sliding Glass Door.

Five Ways to Be a Happier Parent

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“Children are great imitators, so give them something great to imitate.” – unknown

A friend who is pregnant asked if I had any tips. There are so many parenting philosophies and opinions out there. I can’t imagine I have anything to add. Besides, each kid and each parent is so unique.

But I do know what has made me a happier parent.

  1. Finding a way to ground the central nervous system. I remember walking into a room where my kids had spent a happy day hanging out with my brother and his wife. Miss O was about five-years-old and Mr. D was about one-years-old. As soon as they saw me, they started crying and clamoring for my attention.
    It wasn’t that they were unhappy. It’s just that they had spent the longest time away from me so far. I was the lightning rod for the relief they felt after all the bravery and novelty they had experienced.
    Having a way to calm myself – meditation, breathing exercises, time spent in nature – has lessened the overwhelm I feel when my kids need that extra boost.
  2. Understanding that life is a science experiment. One morning when Miss O was about three-years-old, I was trying to get us ready to leave the house to meet my friend, Katie. I found Miss O at the art table where she’d made a huge mess cutting into a squishy into her scissors. I was incredulous, “Why would you do that?”
    When I saw Katie, whose kids are grown, she laughed and said, “Life is a science experiment.” Understanding that has made such a difference to my parenting attitude. We all try things to see what happens next. Sometimes the kids will do this and it messes with my sense of order. But it isn’t personal, just a part of learning.
  3. Following their lead. On a recent Saturday morning, Mr. D and I were out front as he drove a remote control car down the sidewalk. When we were in front of our favorite neighbors’ house, Mr. D said, “Let’s ask them to play.” I demurred, thinking we might bother them, but Mr. D said, “Follow my lead.” I did and my neighbors, a couple in their 70’s were delighted to see us and have a turn to drive the remote control car.
    Dr. Alison Gopnik, a research psychologist at UC Berkley says kids’ neural pathways look like the streets of Old Paris, many, windy paths where you don’t go very fast. They are wired to look for what can teach them the most. On the other hand, our adult brains have neural paths that look like boulevards. Not very many but you can go faster. We are wired for getting things done.
    When we follow kids’ leads, they get us out of our ruts and help us be creative.
  4. Being creative to connect. The early years of parenting can be so isolating. Spending time with other parents who are also overwhelmed, and conversations that are constantly interrupted by attention to little ones often isn’t satisfying. Working, blogging, pursuing one interest that puts you in the path of adults you can connect with has made such a difference.
  5. Accepting that a great and happy parent is perfectly imperfect. I remember walking my dog past a house where a kid was crying when I was pregnant with my first child and thinking, “I’ll never let my kids cry it out.” Hah!
    Giving up the idea that I would be a perfect parent – always calm, with a clean and orderly house, and full of ideas that would keep my kids entertained and screen free – is the best thing I’ve done for myself and them.
    Instead I have come to see that a perfect parent knows if they lose it and yell, they can also show kids how to own it and apologize. And laugh at themselves, and be okay with being flexible with any no screen, all organic, and any other high-minded ideals to do their best for that moment.  

Anything you would add to the list?

(featured photo from Pexels)

I pulled this list from other parenting story posts I’ve told:

The Most Important Work

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“Children are not a distraction from more important work. They are the most important work.” – C. S. Lewis

Sometimes I think Hallmark has it backwards. Take Mother’s Day for example. My kids didn’t do anything to choose me. I, on the other hand, took a very intentional path to become a mom.

From the realization that I wanted to have kids later in life because I cried whenever I saw Princess Kate pregnant with her oldest child nine years ago, to deciding to do it without a partner (for now), then through IVF three times (I had one miscarriage), I made very deliberate choices to parenthood. I couldn’t be more grateful that I’m a mom.

Here’s the top three reasons why:

I’m so much healthier

You didn’t know me before I had kids. I didn’t write in the period of life when I was numbing my feelings with wine every night. Meditation changed that pattern so that I had a different way to irrigate my irritations.

But having kids has given me so much more practice. That’s a funny sentence. I didn’t mean that they give me many more irritations to irrigate but on some days that’s true too.

Mostly I meant that these beautiful and honest beings have shown me what emotional honesty is. By helping them name their emotions, I’ve learned how to name and feel mine too.

Every day is an adventure

I’m a creature of habit. Without kids, I’d have likely continued my pattern – hike every Saturday, do a big trip every two years. Like my trips to Everest Base Camp, climbing the Via Ferrata routes in the Dolomites, or biking from Vermont to Canada to New York – great trips that totaled about two weeks out of every 104.

But with kids – every day is an adventure of curiosity and learning. We rescue bunnies, dig in the dirt, ride bikes, or sell lemonade. I’m learning to be flexible and adventurous on a daily basis instead of a bi-annual one.

Big messy love

Parenting is the messiest form of love I’ve known. Not just sticky hands and faces but so much laundry, picking up detritus, territorial incursions because of changing boundaries, and spilled over spats between siblings.

But it seems to me, that the messiness that makes it stick like Velcro instead of slide off like a glossy surface. It’s proof that nobody is perfect any we love each other anyway. The repetitiveness reminds me how many chances we have to get it right. Over and over we make a mess. And over and over we get to come together and make it right.

The news has all sorts of stories about what isn’t working in this world. But then a day like Mother’s Day comes around and I look at all the people who are trying their best to love wholeheartedly – with young kids, and old kids, and/or other people’s kids. For me it’s a celebration that love wins.

Steeping the Tea Leaves of Life

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“Above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.” – Roald Dahl

The other day the paper on the end of my tea bag string had just two words, “Live consciously.” As I sat and sipped my tea, I thought, “say more.”

Years ago, I read a passage in Mark Nepo’s Book of Awakening that heightened my appreciation for tea.

“If we stop to truly consider it, making tea is a miraculous process. First, small leaves are gathered from plants that grow from unseen roots. Then boiling water is drained through the dried leaves. Finally, allowing the mixture to steep creates an elixir that, when digested, can be healing.

The whole process is a model for how to make inner use of our daily experience. For isn’t making tea the way we cipher through the events of our lives? Isn’t the work of sincerity to pour our deepest attention over the dried bits of our days? Isn’t patience the need to let the mixture of inner and outer brew until the lessons are fragrant and soothing on the throat? Isn’t it the heat of our sincerity that steams the lessons out of living? Isn’t it the heat of those lessons that makes us sip them slowly.”

Steeping my “live consciously” tea bag made me think of three miraculous events that happened in the last 4 weeks.

The first leaf

A few weeks ago, on the last morning we were staying at an AirBnB on Whidbey Island, I took Cooper, the dog, out to go potty. It was 5:30 in the morning and still dark enough to notice that the dome light on my car was turned on. Ugh, it must have been on for almost 24 hours since the kids and I went to the grocery store. I got the keys and tried to start the engine and it wouldn’t turn over. But the dashboard lights came on so I knew it wasn’t entirely dead.

I turned off the light, locked the doors, and went back in to meditate. I tried to dial down the worry about what I’d do if the car wouldn’t start while on vacation and away from the usual people I’d lean on. Check out wasn’t until 11am so I told myself not to fret about it until 10:30am. Instead, the kids and I packed up and went to the beach one last time.

When 10:30am came, I unlocked the doors, put the key into the ignition, prayed, and turned the key. The car started.

The second leaf

Miss O had been asking for weeks to go to the new Boba tea shop in our neighborhood. We tried once and it wasn’t open. Other times we had too much going on. Finally, on a Sunday in mid-April, we got there. Miss O carefully scanned the menu. Her taste palates are pretty selective. After much consideration, she ordered a strawberry chocolate Boba. She took one drink and didn’t like it. She wondered if we could get our money back and looked absolutely miserable. I reminded her that it’s okay to try new things and to not like them.

Mr. D had a raspberry lemon rooibos and was blissfully sucking his down without noticing his sister’s unhappiness. I was standing there pondering. I wanted her to be open to trying new things. But I also didn’t want to signal we could buy $7 teas until she liked one.

Then there was a moment when the shop cleared out, no one was waiting for a drink and there was an extra raspberry lemon rooibos on the bar. I asked the barista if we could pay for it. She said to just take it. Pure magical rescue from our misery!

The third leaf

Mr. D said a few times that he wanted to learn to become a ninja. He repeated this again on a Monday afternoon about three weeks ago when I picked him up from school. Miss O was also in the car. On a whim, we all were up for popping in to the Aikido dojo in our neighborhood to see if it would work.

We showed up right at the time of the class for kids, the sensei told us this class is for training to be a samurai, not a ninja and Mr. D was okay with that. She invited Mr. D and Miss O to join the class starting right at that moment, and they both loved it.

It was one of those moments where everything lined up like dominos. The least planning I’ve ever had to do for a great fit.

Here’s the tea I made from this

Living consciously for me means finding the magic in moments. The light touch that I can sense sometimes when I’m scared, confused, or need an easy win. It doesn’t mean that the dog doesn’t throw up, or I won’t break and spill the glass of water right before I’m supposed to lead a webinar. But it gives me a glimpse of a wider view in which I can find the current to flow with.

Your Voice In My Head

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“The way we talk to our children becomes their inner voice.” – Peggy O’Mara

I have one child that says “sorry” too easily and another child for whom it’s an ongoing struggle. It makes me think of being neurotic versus character disordered ala Dr. Scott Peck.

“Most people who come to see a psychiatrist are suffering from what is called either a neurosis or a character disorder. Put most simply, these two conditions are disorders or responsibility, and as such they are opposite styles of relating to the worlds and its problems. The neurotic assumes too much responsibility; the person with a character disorder not enough.”

The Road Less Traveled by M. Scott Peck

The problem is that I land on the neurotic side, as I’ve discussed on this blog before, so I think it’s my responsibility. By saying that, I’m not denying that it’s my responsibility, I’m just allowing for the circular logic about responsibility this question creates. It makes it hard to sit back and just let life and my children bloom.

Here’s what I like about being neurotic. I can always find something that I can work on to fix. And the downside, somethings aren’t my things to fix. As Vicki wrote so brilliantly in her post yesterday, Creativity of Being,

“I’ve concluded that relationship navigation is a creative, soulful effort.  Abandoning familiar scripts and roles, avoiding the rear-view mirror and the allure of the horizon requires ingenuity and loads of it.”

Dr. Victoria Atkinson, Creativity of Being

So I’m trying to ride the wave between the neurotic voice in my head (that came in part from my perfectionist mom) that says that I could help my kids avoid all troubles in life if they’d just get their outlook right and my curious side that asks a lot of questions when my kids come into conflict in the world. What I’m finding is that how they see an incident is the most interesting thing. Will I change their propensities to say “sorry?” I don’t know but if I become the voice in their head, I want it to be curious, not judgmental.

[A wonderful note about this title for anyone looking for a great voice – Julia Preston has a delightful, uplifting, and inspiring blog called Voices In My Head and has written a book Voices: Who’s In Charge of the Committee in My Head?

The favorite voice in my head comes from my dad and I’ve written about it on the Heart of the Matter blog this morning, “It’s Going to Be Great, Kid!”

(featured photo from Pexels)

Healing the Micro Wounds

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“The wound is the place where the light enters you.” – Rumi

When my best friend, Katie, came over to hang out with us yesterday morning she asked three-year-old Mr. D how he slept on the night of the time change. He answered, “I slept in Mama’s bed. It was big and hot.”

I was aiming for familial warmth but it seems I’ve overshot the target. Ha, ha!

There’s a picture of me as a three-year-old sleeping with my blanket on the wood floor outside my parent’s bedroom in the Philippines. The way I heard the story is that my parents didn’t want me coming in so they locked the door. My mom said my dad was firm about no kids in their bed so he could get his sleep.

I’ve always considered that a cute little story in what I think of as a happy childhood until I had kids and then I wondered how that went down. Did I just encounter a locked door and then lie down quietly? Or was there some kicking and screaming before accepting the fate? Something tells me it wasn’t the first option.

So even though I’m not aware of as any sort of trauma, I have to consider that some things we do as adults are healing the little wounds we got as children. Maybe we all do that a little – even when it’s not conscious.

How I’ve come to choose to let my kids sleep in my bed is the subject of my Heart of the Matter post today: Beds, Boundaries and Beyond. Check it out!

(featured photo from Pexels)

Dear Mom

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“Life doesn’t come with a manual. It comes with a mother.” – unknown

It seems like when I see a headline on the news relating to something that happened to a mom, it starts with something like, “Mom of two is ____” (fill in the blank with missing, found guilty, bitten by a dog and so on). She also might be a real estate agent, banker, engineer or some other profession but it seems in my non-scientific survey, that they always lead with her parental status.

Which I take to be evidence of the importance of mother figures. This post is a both a celebration of moms and also a chance for me, as a somewhat new-ish mom, to learn what is the essential stuff of motherhood.

If you feel comfortable, please tell me in the comments what was the most important lesson your mom or a mother figure taught you and/or if you are a mom, what is the primary thing you want your kids to get or learn from you. I’ll compile a list and publish it.

Here’s my start for the list:

My mom taught me to speak and write. Her precision with language is extraordinary so just by listening to her and having her guidance, I learned a great deal about speaking English properly. It’s only in later years that I’ve realized that my mom only speaks what she believes to be true, which is another dimension of her gift to not only be precise in how she says something but also in what she says.  

As for being a mom: I observe my kids eat better, communicate more clearly and follow the rules more closely when they are with people other than me. I sometimes, just for an instant, wish they would want to step it up and impress me. Then I remember what an honor it is to hold their fragile conception of love like a baby chick in my hand. When they are grown and have learned to behave and handle themselves well, I hope I’ve created a space in each of them that knows you don’t have to perform to be loved.

(featured photo is of my mom, my son and me)

(quote comes from a post on Philosophy through Photographs blog)

Do One Thing Well

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“A year from now, what will I wish I had done today?” – unknown

Deep into the section on expectations in Brené Brown’s book Atlas of the Heart, I had a huge a-ha moment. She was talking about a conversation with her husband in which they both confessed to each other that they had an easier time parenting on the weekends they did it solo. Because they set aside their expectations to be able to do anything other than parent for that weekend.

This put a shape to the experience I have had as a single parent. Because I never expect that someone else will take the night shift or be there on the weekend, I have had to set really clear boundaries on the work and hobbies that I do because I know I won’t be able to duck out for a couple of hours.

That means that nights and weekends, I pretty much focus on hanging out with my kids. I do get a few chores around the house done with their “help.” The tradeoff for giving up Saturday morning hiking with my friends has been the gift of not believing I can try to do both things.

I know many of my parenting friends do an incredibly great job of splitting up the parental labor. One person will do the 9am-noon shift on Saturdays so that the other can go swimming and then they switch and the other gets “time off.” I have a pretty good inkling that if I was doing parenting with a partner that I would try for that approach and be a lot more confused about what I could handle.

I don’t know who said “Do one thing at a time and do it well.” My mom? Winnie-the-Pooh? Or maybe it’s not ascribed to a particular person because everyone who has learned the wisdom repeats it. When I wrote the post a couple of weeks ago about being invited to climb a mountain this summer, so many of my dear and wise blogging friends reminded me that parenting goes fast and there will likely be time to return to my hobbies later.

I believe that at some point I will have a partner again and more personal freedom. However, there isn’t anything I would trade for this uncomplicated time where I learned to really spend time with my children and enjoy it. Sometimes not having help forces us to distinctly draw boundaries we wouldn’t know to set otherwise.

(featured photo from Pexels)

Hot Mess

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“The good road and the road of difficulties, you have made me cross; and where they cross, the place is holy.” – Black Elk, Oglala Lakota Medicine Man

Yesterday morning I was feeling so optimistic about getting the kids out the door. It was a beautiful spring morning, I’d just had lovely quiet time meditating and writing. Then I got the kids up and I had my two-year-old son changed into his Superman costume for the day and breakfast on the table.

And then with 15 minutes to go we had a potty accident. Trying to recover from that, I didn’t give my 6-year-old daughter the 5 minute warning before she had to turn off her math game and get her shoes on. All of a sudden we were late, Mr. D was having a fit. I think it was mostly because he hadn’t eaten yet but probably a little because he had an accident and although I hadn’t said anything, he was attuned to my stress of being late. Miss O was upset because the pressure was on to get out the door. Our neighbor girl who carpools with us looked a little horrified as our hot mess unfolded.

I could find nothing to help my toddler calm down –  he didn’t want to sing or rock, he was resisting sitting in his car seat, screaming about going to school, there was no way to get him to eat and the pressure was on because we were going to make my daughter and her friend late to school if we didn’t leave NOW. All of a sudden, I went from my usual “it-will-all-work-out” state to being emotionally flooded.

I’ve seen different descriptions of the being flooded – but generally it seems to describe a feeling of strong emotions, release of adrenaline and cortisol in the body. For me it shows up as an inability to be creative and problem solve in the moment because the surge of emotion. I got the kids into the car – my daughter was fine after the initial grump that I was hurrying her – but I just couldn’t wait to drop my son at daycare because I was flummoxed.

After we dropped the girls at the elementary school, I still had no success in calming my son who was really upset. He didn’t want to listen to music or for me to talk. And while I still just wanted to drop him at daycare and make it someone else’s problem, this state was so unusual for my easy-going toddler I just couldn’t. In fact, I knew that not only he needed to calm down and heal from this moment – so did I.

I found myself driving to Home Depot which thankfully had small excavators and backhoes for rent sitting in their parking lot. I parked where he directed me to, scrambled into the back seat to be next to him and his curiosity for the construction equipment took over. Once he started doing something else, I could get him to eat and everything settled from there. We ended up having a lovely time at Home Depot. The great thing about kids is how quickly they heal and move on.

It reminded me how in the moment where we are flooded, doing something else until we can restore our balance is the only thing that works. I’ve heard Drs Julie and John Gottman suggest doing a crossword or going for a walk – anything but continuing a conversation that can’t go anywhere.

I’d say 90+% of the time, my little family operates according to plan and we all do great. But it’s in messy 10% that we find our resilience and healing, figuring it out one Home Depot parking lot at a time.