Category: Parenthood

The Measure of My Love

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“A heart that loves is always young.” – Greek Proverb

Last Monday my five-year-old daughter handed me a dollar bill, a nickel and a dime and told me she was giving it to me because that’s how much she loves me. I was completely unprepared with a response other than “thank you” and “wow, that’s so kind!” Not to suggest that a response other than “thank you” in that moment was appropriate but it did make me think of telling her that my love doesn’t cost anything and that she should save her money.

At the time, she had $20 so it was about 5% of her liquid assets. Since I was going down that rabbit hole, I wondered if I give her 5% of my liquid assets. (What liquid assets? I don’t have any because I have children!) Isn’t it interesting how tempting it is to quantify? And once quantifying, the next question becomes “Do I have enough love?” When it comes to both love and money when asked any question with the word “enough” in it, the only thing my mind does is look for what it lacks.

When I check in with my heart though, it feels full. And I know because at the end of the day when both of the kids are in bed and I’m turning out the lights for the night, I have this feeling that my whole heart is in this house. And also in this year of having to operate in a pod, it has given me so much appreciation for the family and friends who are such a regular part of my life. And for the ones I haven’t gotten to see, I have gained the perspective of distance to cherish them and our shared history better.

So as my head is doing weights and measures, my heart is busy feeling the tender moments, like the one where my daughter is finding a way to express her love. How often do I let my head tell me what it thinks it knows without checking in with the key part that actually does know?

Once I work my way back to my heart, I find the quality of my life. And that is a feeling of wholeness and wealth which feels like the Truth of where I am and want to operate from. Which is good, because shortly after my daughter gave me $1.15 to show how much she loved me, my mom came over and my daughter gave her a dollar bill and two quarters to show her how much she loves her. 😊

The Advice We Give

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“A friend accepts us as we are yet helps us to be what we should.” – unknown

About five years ago when I was about 6 months into the parenting journey, a friend whose kids were high school aged casually threw out this line of advice, “Logic doesn’t work with kids between 2 ½ years old and 4 years old.” I had been around my nieces and my friends’ kids but hadn’t worked with kids well enough to know what that meant so I somehow internalized that line as if there would be a loss of logic when my daughter was 2 ½ years old. Like at age 2 I would be able to say to her “You can’t have that piece of candy because it has too much sugar and that’s not good for your body” but at age 2 ½, I’d no longer have that tool. I know all of you that have kids are laughing and now that I have lived through those years and have a 5 year old and a 1 ½ year old, I giggle too.  Who knows why my friend tacked on that lower age limit instead of saying “kids under 4” but it left me a small sense of loss at the time.

Isn’t that the interesting thing about the advice we give each other? We say something to convey our experience and wisdom and also to help and sometimes it causes panic. I loved this advice column post that Real Life of an MSW blogged about the other day. The person writing in was asking whether they should correct the grammar of a person that they wanted to help who was seeking a job advancement. The answer was brilliant because timing is everything.

It makes me wonder whether we offer advice more for ourselves or for the other person. I remember my very wise dad, who as a retired pastor who counselled and mentored many people, saying “Mostly, I listened” about times he’d get together for coffee with people seeking his advice. That resonates with the trail ethic I’ve learned from hiking — to greet other hikers when I see them but I don’t offer any advice about the path ahead unless I’m asked because I learned early on that my need to provide unsolicited commentary came directly from my ego wanting to prove experience or status.  

Yet we can offer such great comfort and direction to others when we do advice well. Sometime about a year ago when the pandemic was just shutting everything down, a woman who is now a grandmother many times over said to me, “It gets less busy.” I think about that piece of advice a lot in these days of shepherding my little ones back into in-person activities and it gives me the stamina to push through when I’m tired because I know I won’t always have to.

This morning when my 1 ½ year old didn’t want to get dressed, I didn’t even try logic. But I held him and told him that I understood that sometimes we don’t feel like going to work or preschool. Then I buckled him into the car seat with his pj’s on, we changed when we got there and he was fine with it. It felt as if I worked for him like it does me when I get good advice – a softening that comes from a compassionate ear and then an opening into a shift of perspective.

Healing the Divide

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“In the middle of every difficulty lies opportunity.” – Albert Einstein

There’s a divide that runs right down the middle of my family of origin – I call it tree people and forest people as inspired by the phrase “Can’t see the forest for the trees.” The tree people are so good at details that they are the ones you want to invite if you need help painting a room or weeding a patch of garden. The forest people are generally better at navigating the ups and downs of life and are the ones you want to invite when you need advice or help troubleshooting a systemic problem. Even with different perspectives, we managed okay until a tree person sued a forest person. Now it’s hard to see that we all stem from the same ground.

So I’ve thought a lot about the root cause (pun intended) about the pain in my family. And when I read the following passage about belonging in Brene Brown’s book Braving the Wilderness, it resonated as the real reason that my family is divided.  

“Even in the context of suffering – poverty, violence, human rights violations – not belong in our families is still one of the most dangerous hurts. That’s because it has the power to break our heart, our spirit, and our sense of self-worth. It broke all three for me. And when those things break, there are only three outcomes, something I’ve borne witness to in my life and in my work:

1. You live in constant pain and seek relief by numbing it and/or inflicting it on others;

2. You deny your pain, and your denial ensures that you pass it on to those around you and down to your children; or

3. You find the courage to own the pain and develop a level of empathy and compassion for yourself and others that allows you to spot hurt in the world in a unique way.

Brene Brown

My dad was a Presbyterian pastor and so the church defined our lives growing up. Amidst all the wonderful things that came with the church community – friendship, values, service and faith, came an unfortunate side effect of an expectation of conformity to an image of a good Christian kid. As the youngest kid, I think the inferred expectation of having to be a living example was much lower or it just didn’t phase me but I imagine that it was harder for my siblings. As such the feeling of not belonging because they didn’t fit the precise mold began early.

I think about this a lot with my kids. As a side effect of being at home together in this year of pandemic, although sometimes feeling cramped, we have enjoyed the luxury of more time building the base of belonging. Now with schools opening up and more activities available, I am both relieved to see my kids start to branch out and concerned with keeping that feeling of deep connection going. I saw some great advice posted by Tina Payne Bryson, co-author of The Yes Brain: How to Cultivate Courage, Curiosity and Resilience in Your Child: “If you are a parent of a baby or toddler, then I have two big tips for you: 1) Delight in your child. It doesn’t have to be all the time, but find time every day to truly delight in them. 2) Take care of yourself. You matter, too.” It’s great advice because when I delight in my kids, I’m present and celebrating who they are and it not only works for my toddler by also my 5-year-old.

I don’t yet know whether my kids are forest people or tree people. Seeing my family’s experience has taught me that I’m willing to work hard to ensure that my kids know that whichever they are, that we inhabit the same ground, stem from the same Earth and are fed from the same soil. We might not see things from the same perspective but I’m betting that if we know we belong together, we will be willing to share our experience, our lives and our delight. Here’s my hope – if I start with my kids then the goodness of healing will ripple out maybe to my family of origin and then beyond.

Bottomless Questions

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“Keep your feet on the ground and your thoughts at lofty heights.” – Peace Pilgrim

When I awaken every morning, I tiptoe past both the kids closed bedroom doors and walk downstairs with the cat winding her way around my ankles. After I feed her and do a little stretching or yoga, I meditate. I have three or four books that I keep next to my meditation cushion and I read these short meditations as I sip my tea. The thing I like best about this practice is that when I flip to the page for April 20th in the Book of Awakening by Mark Nepo for instance, what is written there is usually something different that whatever is on the top of my mind for the day. It takes me out of my life for a moment to ponder a bigger or deeper theme instead of the logistics of my day.

So today when I opened another of my books, A Year of Daily Joy by Jennifer Louden, I loved that what she proposed, “Try asking bottomless questions – the kind that tantalize and stretch you.” Her examples were “How can I love more?” and “What do I want to create today?”

I sat with this idea for a while, watching the sun start to play on the house across from me, the birds flitting in and out of my plum tree, the feeling of observation starting to warm up my engagement with life and came up with this question “How can I bring curiosity into what I see and do today?”

The feeling of that question matches with my mood when I awaken. Light and open — and curious. My morning routine helps me set the tone for the day so that even long after what I read gets forgotten in the bustle of the day, I am still sustained by the broader horizon that came with my morning moments. I love the idea of posing that bottomless question to intentionally lengthen that note throughout the busy-ness of the day.

Power Stance

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“When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.” – Lao Tzu

The other day I was texting with a friend who is buying a house and trying to work out the timing of when she can move in to the house. I offered her my help for whatever she needed to make the transition – my garage to store stuff, temporary housing for her dog and two cats, whatever and this was our exchange:

Her: If I think of anything that would be easy for a mother of 2 who barely has time to breathe, I will.

Me: Screw limiting what you ask of me to what is easy. That’s the wrong filter for the nature of our lives, friendship and power as humans. We have been friends for 25 years. I would do anything in my power to help and being asked would give me the extra capacity to go beyond my limitations. You are worth any amount of effort.

Her: Laughed out loud. Point taken, ‘And screw limiting what you ask of me to what is easy. That is the wrong filer…’ You are shifting to hella power stance. That entire text was astonishing in the best way. I love you, friend.

By the end of that exchange, we were both laughing – and I also felt the power. But it made me think about whether I see myself through the filter of not able to do much because I’m busy mom with two kids. I have to admit that I do – especially when I’m considering working out, dating or planning trips with my kids. The last one, limiting the trips with my kids might be sheer self-preservation though.

But looking at these things through the lens on my text, I know I’m dimming my possibilities when it comes to things that are hard. I know that I am downplaying my power to what seems rationally available. Partly because I’m a planner and partly because I’m human. But I know I can do more.

About a year and a half ago, when my son was 4 months old, a friend of a friend came to town because her college aged daughter had been hit by a car that had jumped the curb and struck her while she was running. I had never met the mom who came to care for her daughter but she was sleeping at the hospital or on the floor of her ex-husband’s place so I offered her to come stay in my guest room whenever she wanted. And over time she did and then the daughter came too as she was healing from having the top of her spinal cord fused to her skull, a brain injury as well as a shattered shoulder and arm. And then another son came for a bit as did the girl’s boyfriend. Pretty soon I had 4 people sleeping wherever I could make beds until the sweet girl was well enough to move on to what was next. And that beautiful young woman was a miracle to watch as she was so positive as she not only went to the myriad of doctor appointments and occupational therapy appointments but also processed the trauma of being hit from behind. It was such a wonderous miracle on so many levels! I didn’t know any of these delightful people until they came to live with me for about 3 months and yes, I had a newborn and I four-year-old, was working and also sleep deprived. But none of that matter because I had stepped up to help and God gave me the strength not only to do so but also enjoy it!!

So, I know first hand that there is a helping hand from a Higher Power when I step up. I know that when I stop limiting myself through my own filter of what’s humanly possible, great things can happen. I know there are miracles to be witnessed when I show up with my faith on. Now, I just have to do it!

Optimism in the Time of Covid

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“When you realize how perfect everything is, you will tilt your head back and laugh at the sky.” – Buddha

My toddler dropped a plate the other day and it broke. I thought, “Well, at least it didn’t shatter.” And had it shattered, I would have thought, “At least we’re wearing shoes.” Because I’m an optimist. If that sounds like bragging I don’t mean it to – after all, I did nothing to create this attitude, I came this way.

But I have had to find out that optimism doesn’t work for everything. Dating for instance. Let’s just say that optimism that it will all work out might not be the best philosophy for carefully evaluating whether or not one should get married. All I can say about that one, is thank goodness I realized that before we had kids.

Oh, and optimism often doesn’t work well for planning art projects with kids. For instance the time I thought we could use neon paint to leave cute footprints over the back patio. Uh oh, the paint didn’t stay just on the feet.

And it turns out, optimism isn’t so good in a pandemic. I thought surely schools would only be closed for 2 weeks when Covid hit last March 11th. Then accepting that, I thought for sure summer camps would still happen. Okay so there were no summer camps but certainly school would open in the fall of 2020. Whoops! I definitely will never have a job as a prognosticator!

Acknowledging my limitations that come with my congenital point of view has come with an upside (of course!). Faith. I’ve come to see how flawed my thinking can be so that I follow the small, insistent God-whisper in my heart instead. That’s how I came to be a single parent at age 46 (and again at 50). It was a pull from my heart that was insistent. It’s why I write even though I don’t have two free minutes to rub together. It’s way deeper than sunny, bubbliness of my head.

My faith leads me to know that it will all be great. It takes me out of the game of prognostication and helps me rest in the ease of knowing what I take on in any given day is exactly what I need. Which sounds optimistic but in a more rooted and less controlling way. I still find my optimism quite useful though. Once I’m right where I’m supposed to be, it helps me see the fun of it. Like the upside of parenting chores – a lot of messy diapers means we’re eating well! Oh and I’m very good at parking. That’s right – you guessed it, “I can totally fit in that space” has given me a lot of practice. And yes, now I am bragging.

Loving the Bad Cat

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“It never hurts to see the good in someone. They often act better because of it.” Nelson Mandela

I used to have this cat, Simon. He was a Siamese mix that I inherited from a neighbor when she went to study in Hawaii for two years. She moved back from Hawaii but never returned for the cat. I suspect it was because he was a bad boy. He’d break into other people’s houses, he’d fight with other cats, he’d get locked in places like neighbor’s garages that he should have never been in the first place. A classic Simon story was that I had a neighbor, Steve, who hated Simon because he was always getting into his stuff. Steve lived in a duplex and when someone new moved into the other apartment, he was showing them around the basement with the washer/dryer the two units shared. As he was saying to them, “The most important thing is that you can never leave this door open because there is a cat that likes to come in here.” The new people asked what he looked like and as Steve replied they interrupted, “Like that cat right there?” And right behind Steve’s shoulder was Simon sitting up on a shelf smugly looking at them all.

Simon was so smart with such a big attitude that he was very amusing. He’d walk with me and my dog for 12 blocks, always looking around like he was the secret service agent keeping us safe. He was a snuggler too. Whenever he bothered to come home, he’d climb right into my lap and collapse there. But when push came to shove around his bad behavior, I’d always distance myself from him, “Oh yeah, that’s a cat that I inherited.” Like I did at the very top of this story. His bad behavior was disrespectful and rude, two things that I don’t see myself as so I think I just couldn’t own up to him.

I’m thinking of this because my five-year-old daughter this morning told me that she got in trouble yesterday when she and her friend were at the park with her friend’s caregiver. They went to an area that they were told not to go in order to climb trees. I assume that this was a pretty mild incident given that I heard about it from my child a day later and not the caregiver or the other parents. But it was notice that I’m crossing the threshold of parenting where my child can make choices outside of my control and supervision. And it raises the question about how to manage the myriad of feelings that come with it, specifically the judgment that comes with it – my judgment of my child and my fear of judgment by others.

There are two examples that come to mind about parental reactions to bad behavior. The first is a notable case from when I was growing up about a prominent family in the town. The dad was the editor of the newspaper, the son, who was then in his 30’s, got arrested for serial rape and the mom tried to bribe the judge and have the prosecutor killed.

The second story is on the other end of the parental spectrum and is a video that I saw a dad had posted online of his daughter running to school. He had posted it to shame his daughter for lying about what had happened to her bike.

Between those two examples is probably where most parents operate, I hope. I am finding that I am at my best when I let go of my judgment and instead choose discernment. When I am judging my child’s behavior, I feel the constriction of my viewpoint into not only what have they done but also who that means they are. Even when I don’t say half of what I’m thinking because I’ve declared that there will be no name calling in my house because the research that shows shame does not work, my thoughts jump to judgment. But when I am able to move through that into discernment, I can feel myself open back into curiosity. Both about how to best teach the values that I think will be most helpful and also about what conclusions/lessons my child has already learned before I even say anything. Crossing between judgment and discernment requires at least one deep breath.

So I asked my daughter why she thought that area of the park was out of bounds and what she might do differently the next time she’s invited. She had pretty good answers and we talked through the gray areas. It was better than anything I could have lectured on my own.

Postscript: After many different types of behavioral intervention for Simon and one time when he died and had to be resuscitated on the operating table as he was getting another cat’s tooth extracted from his back after fighting, the vet finally prescribed some kitty Prozac for him. He stopped fighting and breaking into other’s houses and he lived to 19 years of age. He lived with me for 14 of those years so I guess he was my cat after all.

Always in My Boat

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“Smooth seas do not make skillful sailors.” – anonymous

This morning I was trying to put shoes on my toddler. I got one on before he starting running around the kitchen island. It started a game where we were chasing each other and hugging when we collided. My five-year-old daughter got in the mix and I stopped running just to watch them run, collide and hug. A moment of pure fun and joy.  

In my twenties I dated a man who had rowed crew for the University of Washington. His stories of teamwork and precision were beautiful. If I close my eyes, I can still see the images painted in my head. On a calm, still morning at the break of dawn, 8 rowers carrying a shell down to the water with the coxswain giving directions, they flip the boat and lower it in to Lake Washington. Once they are all in with the coxswain nestled in the front, they take up their oars and in perfect rhythm set off across the smooth surface as the morning mist swirls around them. The cox calls directions and timing. Stroke, feather, stroke.

I’ve been picturing my family as a rowing team. Each of my kids is a rower and I am the cox, at least for this phase in life. We get up every morning and do our best to row across the expanse of the day. Each of us has a part and some days we are in sync and glide smoothly.

And then on some days, one or both of my little rowers or I have a fit which I liken to catching a crab. That’s rower lingo for when the blade goes into the water at the wrong time for the momentum of the boat and results in the oar driving hard into the rower, perhaps even knocking them out. It’s a hard moment for everyone in the boat and we have to take stock as to whether we keep rowing until they can get back into the rhythm or stop to help them center themselves again. Because we are a team and no team gets good without practicing together.

We also have to take into consideration the conditions outside. Right now as we transition back to in-person activities, it feels like the lake is choppy and it’s hard to hold the boat steady. It’s also when we have to set our expectations that we won’t be going as far or as fast until conditions improve.

I like this analogy because it helps me see the long view of life and my family. For now they are in my boat but someday they’ll have their own boats and I’ll be a rower for them. And then of course, I’ll be gone and then they’ll have to close their eyes to see me pulling for them as I do with my dad and the feeling that he’s always in my boat.

Because what is the boat? I think of it as anything that keeps us above water. For me it is Faith and it makes it so much easier to stay afloat in the reassurance there is a Higher Power so much bigger than me. I step into the boat trusting that a master craftsman has constructed it to be sound and for the best rowing experience in both still and choppy water.

This morning as we ran around the island, my daughter caught my son and hugged him long enough for me to get that second shoe on. We took that instant to stop, hug each other and laugh. I felt the prayer in my heart, “Thank you for this beautiful and easy moment that gives us momentum to glide through all the others.”

A Comedy of Errors

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“We are here to live out loud.” – Balzac

Yesterday as I was loading the car for a special Palm Sunday drive-in show for kids at our church, I accidentally knocked my toddler down the two steps leading to the crawl space. We were going to the event with my mom and her friend, both over 80-years-old so I had gone in the crawl space to get camp chairs for them. I didn’t realize that my toddler had followed me up the little step stool and was just outside the door so that when I opened it to come out, it knocked him down. My five-year-old daughter went screaming into the house because she was sure he was dead, somehow the bike next to him also fell over (but I don’t think that was any significant source of pain) and fortunately when I went and gathered him in my arms, there was no obvious injury and he only cried for about 30 seconds.

But I still needed to get some pillows out of the crawl space so to make sure we didn’t repeat the same thing, I let the kids play in the car so that he wouldn’t follow me. After I got the pillows I got in the car with them, my daughter in the driver’s seat, son in passenger seat, me in the back. My son locked the doors and then pulled the door handle which set off the security alarm. I didn’t have my keys on me so I couldn’t turn it off and every time we tried to unlock the doors, it would automatically relock them. The horn was honking, the lights were blinking, the kids were crying – it was a fiasco! But I managed to get a door open, get them out of there and the horn stopped blaring.

It’s no wonder that I’m exhausted at the end of the day. I’m so busy taking care of everyone else’s moods that I don’t care of my own. Until after they go to bed and then I watch TV I don’t even care about, drink a glass of wine or spend too much time surfing the Internet. Those feelings – the horror that I knocked my child over, the frustration that I can’t do something as simple as getting things out of my crawl space without unleashing a whole chain reaction of undesired events, the relief that no one was hurt – they just sit in my gut and bubble all day long. Instead of being able to exercise, go for a walk or meditate, I just put them aside where they sap energy. And I know that I’m not alone. Everyone sitting at work with their boss and co-workers watching can’t exercise their emotions when they are frustrated. Any care giver or health care worker can’t show their emotions as they carry out their jobs. No one with any celebrity can make a parenting mistake without someone catching it on camera for everyone else to comment on.

But as someone who no one is watching, I wonder: Am I doing this right if I can’t take a moment to feel things through once I’ve taken care of making sure the kids are okay? Should I be parenting differently so that they see me take care of my mental and physical health? Because actually the most important audience of two is watching me after all.

I have a long history of being a caretaker, working very hard to be prepared so that things go smoothly and finding my inner sunshine and optimism. Which is to say that change will not come easily but I’m hoping awareness goes a long way to help get me started. Because I’m not sure that I knew how much I wasn’t expressing on the day before yesterday that wasn’t nearly as dramatic. That is the miracle of living out loud for me – that naming things has real power to shine light on doubt, wounds and habits and to start them healing. No doubt I will make plenty of other mistakes and the process will have to repeat but I hope to at least share the story along the way.

Postscript: We finally made it to the Palm Sunday event yesterday – it was cold and rainy. My daughter and my mom got out and danced while the rest of us huddled in the back of the car, enjoying both the warmth of being close and opportunity to be in a crowd, albeit a small, socially distanced, drive-in crowd. The chairs were not necessary because it was too cold and rainy to be sitting out in the open. But I had them just in case.

Finding My Stride

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“Song is not a luxury, but a necessary way of being in the world.” – Mark Nepo

This first mountain guide that I ever climbed with recited poetry. Not while we climbed but during breaks and when we were all gathered in the evening around the camp stove drinking hot drinks. I was not quite 30-years-old and eager to learn everything I could about climbing so the poetry stuck. And the rhythm of it while I climbed was so helpful when roped to others. Go too fast and the rope bunches up and makes it harder to avoid stepping on it. Go too slow and you tug on the person in front of you, throwing them off balance. High up on the mountain where the oxygen is thinner, the breath harder to catch, having a rhythm stuck in your head to move to works. The guide favored Robert Service poetry and I can still recite it, maybe even use it to find my internal rhythm in moments:

There’s a race of men who don’t fit in,

A race that can’t stand still.

So they break the hearts of kith and kin,

A roam the world at will.

I’ve been thinking about stride a lot lately because I’m having trouble finding mine. Three weeks into getting my toddler into the rhythm of preschool, there was a teacher in-service day and school was cancelled. Now my 5-year-old is going to go to in-person Kindergarten for the first time starting in April but they are cancelling all remote classes for 3 days to prepare. And changing the start time for everyone, even the kids that are staying remote. And once they’ve been back to school for one week, then we are taking a week off for Spring Break. I totally get that starting back up a big school district is a huge task and acknowledge that they need to take the time. I’m just trying to figure out how to get my work done amidst the turbulence. This moment of re-entry, obstacles and challenges feels like the upper reaches of a mountain. My little family is like a roped-up team. It’s hard work and I feel like I can’t find my stride and it’s hard to breathe.

I’ve had plenty of moments in the mountains when I couldn’t find my stride either. And like with what I’m feeling right now, one of the biggest reasons is low-level worry and complaints like I’m tired, it’s windy, what are the tough conditions we’ll face ahead? But my time on mountains has taught me that I can take one step at a time until I find my stride. If I can replace the worry and complaints with a song, a mantra or a poem, I start loosening up and flowing again.

So I’m channeling my inner mountain guide as I meditate in the morning of these weeks knowing that if I can find my rhythm, I make it easier for all those on my rope team. Because we are all tied together and we’ll get to where we are going and face our obstacles as a team. I’d rather do that singing than worrying, dancing through one step at a time.