Category: Parenthood

Moral of the Story

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“Follow your inner moonlight; don’t hide the madness.” – Allen Ginsberg

My 6-year-old daughter told me a story she heard from her Parkour coach, Lewis.

Lewis and his brother were at a water park. On one slide, there was a man and his daughter in front of them. The man, who was really big, put his daughter on his lap and pushed off when it was his turn.

When it was Lewis’ turn, he found that the man had gotten stuck and he had to push him all the way down the slide. At the bottom the man said, “That was fun!”

My daughter then turned to me and said, “Do you know what the moral of the story is?” I waited with baited breath until she revealed, “When you go to a water park, you’ve got to have fun!”

Ha, ha, ha. Not the moral I was expecting. But we all get to have different takeaways on this thing called life!

Exceptions

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“The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.” – Alice Walker

My mom doesn’t get hot meals often these days. In her senior living residence that is so concerned about COVID, meals either come in boxes delivered to her door and then she can microwave them or on the rare evenings she can go to the dining room, the kitchen is so short-staffed the food comes out lukewarm.

So I worked hard to make a great, hot meal for my mom when she came over for dinner last night. Not that she complains about the food at her place but I know she is tired of cold meals in boxes after two years of this protocol.

My rule at our house is that no devices are allowed during meals. My son, tired after his first day back to daycare, protested that rule but it was short-lived and we got everyone to the table.

Mid-way through the meal, my daughter was done, left the table and was playing around while the rest of us ate. My mom was telling me a story and went to pull out her phone to find a meme that was in her story. My son was distracted by what my daughter was doing and might not have noticed but I put my hand over my moms and quietly reminded her of the rule.

I felt a twinge of embarrassment enforcing my own rule with my mother who I was trying hard to please. It’s not like my mom is always on her phone. It’s also quite possible that the kids wouldn’t have noticed. And, I had the power to make the exception.

But it struck me that’s the thing with leadership that’s important – to live by the rules that you set even when you have the power not to have to. And although I rarely feel like I have any power, I do have the responsibility of living up to the standards that I set, which is a power in and of itself.

It was fine – my mom just told me the meme. It was about Barack Obama writing Betty White a birthday card when she turned 90 years old. In it he said he couldn’t believe she was 90. In fact, he was so skeptical that he thought she should send him a copy of her birth certificate. 😊

(featured photo by Pexels)

Together In Sickness

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

This week of my family coming down with a cold has made me think of attitudes about getting sick. Rina, my best friend in college, was the first person I learned from that being sick could be fun. From her stories, I gathered that her mother made the days she had to be home sick to be like spa days with lots of good food, sympathy and glossy magazines. Rina is Finnish and I’ve wondered if this particular way to embrace sick time is cultural.

By contrast in my family when you were sick, you stayed in bed, had no special privileges and if you were sick in the morning, you had to be sick all day so you couldn’t go play with your friends in the afternoon, even if you felt better. It was an experience designed to make sure there was no psychological advantage to being sick. In our house of Protestant productivity, being sick and the resulting impact on our usefulness was to be avoided at all costs.

So I find myself torn when my kids have to stay home from school because they are sick. On one hand I want to enjoy the break from routine and sympathetically help them feel better. On the other hand, it usually represents a stress to my work productivity that I have a hard time setting aside. But more than that, it goes against the grain of the self-worth as measured by productivity that was ingrained in me from the early days.

When I heard of the word hygge (pronounced hooga) it made me think of Rina and her mom. Hygge is a Danish word without any direct translation to English but according to this article on Quartz, has a meaning that encompasses both coziness and togetherness. It makes me think of that warmth that comes from deep companionship through better and worse.

The warmth of that word and idea, combined with my sense that being together should be celebrated in a family plus the lack of compassion I have for myself when I’m sick has spurred me to try to forge a new path for my little family when we are sick. I’ll probably never be able to reform so much that I drop everything, buy glossy magazines and bath bombs but I think a little fun and great food to help make it through when we feel crummy is worth aiming for. May it bring a sense of hygge to us, especially when we aren’t feeling well.

(featured photo from Pexels)

Shared Activities

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“Things are always in transition. Nothing ever sums itself up the way we dream about.” – Pema Chodron

On weekdays, my toddler and I have a precious half hour alone together between when I drop his sister at school and when I take him to daycare. What we do in that time is continually changing. First it was going to Starbucks and then sitting outside to eat popcorn. Next it was touring parking garages and then we had a short time where we went to a shopping plaza and rode the outdoor escalators. Currently, we go on the freeway a short distance to check on diggers and construction sites. My mom asked me how I know what a 2-year-old wants to do.

That question makes me think about how we negotiate shared activities with any friend, partner or family member. Generally speaking, don’t we watch what they like to do, check to see if it’s something we’d be willing to do and then ask? It’s why I do yard work with my mom, lunch with my friend Melinda, bike with Eric and hike with Sue.

And what might be more interesting is how we change what we do with people when it no longer suits us. Do we say it directly? Or just make what feels old impossible? Or do we listen to all that isn’t said and somehow negotiate a different pattern?

I answered my mom that I’ve changed up what I do with my son based on the clues he gives me. Sometimes it’s a word, he points at something, gives me a “no” or expresses curiosity. And it’s filtered through what I feel is reasonable and doable.

Every once in a while I feel a shudder of fear for what I’ll do when the thing we are doing doesn’t work any longer. But I get over it when I realize that we are infinitely creative and will work something else out. Once I accept that it will change, I’m much more open to listening to the clues of what we should transition to.

It feels to me like the fertile ground we negotiate with everyone in our lives. It works best when we create a space that interests and engages both parties and that leaves some space for change.

The Conditions for Change

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“A careful inventory of all your past experiences may disclose the startling fact that everything has happened for the best.” – unknown

I heard a story about a woman complaining about her ex-husband. When they were married he drank heavily but once divorced, he stopped drinking, remarried and turned his life around. His ex-wife said, “Why couldn’t he quit when he was married to ME?” and the punch line of the story was “People change, but not when and how we want them to.”

When I was married, I refused to have children. I had an instinct based on raising a dog with my now ex-husband. It was difficult enough that I didn’t want to extend that experience to kids. My husband would ask and I would say, “I don’t want to have kids.” But in my head, I knew the whole sentence was “I don’t want to have kids with you.”

My ex was not a bad guy. But he had a difficult childhood where he was both beaten and neglected. Before we were together, he’d raised a puppy with a previous partner. He told me he’d hit it with a newspaper if it peed on the floor. Only by experience did he find out that made the dog afraid of him and he stopped hitting it. To his credit, he then learned so that when we got a puppy together, he didn’t hit it.

But every step of the way was my husband having to learn a lesson directly before it sank in. He wouldn’t take my suggestion for how something needed to be done, he couldn’t trust an experts work for what might be best, he had to do the cause and effect himself. I didn’t want to raise kids with someone who had to experiment with them to find out what did, or more painfully, didn’t work.

I imagine that it’s pretty obvious now that I’ve had two kids on my own, that the whole sentence was “I don’t want to have kids with you.” But fortunately I’ve never had to say that sentence directly to him. We are on fine terms with each other but he’s moved away and gotten remarried to someone who has grown children so we rarely interact.

More than that, I am grateful for that divorce because it turned me to meditation, strengthened my faith and set me on the path that I’m on. The bigger issues of my marriage such as his infidelities and the things we valued created a relationship that was not meant to survive. But it still gives me rich ground to learn from.

People change, but not when and how we want them to. I think of that now that my life is so different than when I was married. We can’t control how others change but as I watch my children change every day, I see that we can control the conditions that help change to happen. Curiosity, openness and support work like the seed, soil and sunshine with which people grow.

I see as I create the conditions for my kids to change, I also create the curiosity, openness and support for myself to change. As I grow, I realize that even I don’t know when and how I’ll change but in these rich conditions, I trust it’ll be towards something good.

Building Trust

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“Kindness in words creates confidence. Kindness in thinking creates profoundness. Kindness in giving creates love.” – Lao Tzu

I come by conflict avoidance honestly. By that I mean it’s deeply steeped in my family history. I never heard my parents argue when I was growing up. Assuming that they did instead of just avoid all conflict, they must have done it entirely behind closed doors. As a Presbyterian pastor, my dear dad was so good being with people suffering crisis and loss but when it came to conflict, he also had a gift for just not responding.

I remember when I was in college, I took the car I had to him because it was overheating. He was refilling the radiator from the garden hose as I trailed around behind him. At one point I said, “Dad, I think there is a better way to do that.” He didn’t respond. He didn’t argue that he had been around cars a lot longer than I had or point out that I brought the car to him, he just simply didn’t say anything until it was refilled. Then he looked up with a big, bright smile and said, “There, it’s done!”

Read the rest of this post that I posted here at the Pointless Overthinking blog

Uncertainty

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“Life was not meant to be easy…but take courage: it can be delightful.” – George Bernard Shaw

Often when I drop my daughter and our neighbor to school in the mornings, I see a man standing at the fence watching his child. He’s dropped his child off, they’ve run into the playground to stand in line before the teachers bring the kids in and the man stands there, sometimes watching, sometimes waving.

It’s an image that affects me deeply. Is he worried about the child being bullied? Or just sending him his love? Is he struggling with the separation? Whatever it is, it feels like the man is sending out his personal bubble of protection to encompass the child from afar.

And I understand it because sending my daughter to first grade in these pandemic conditions meant I had to send her off to a building that I’d never been inside of and to a teacher that I’ve met in-person once. It’s a little like sending her off to a black hole every day and then just being so thankful that she comes back out.

But that all changed last week when they finally processed my volunteer application and called me last minute because they needed help with lunch. The school has set up lunch tables outside and rotations so they can eat sufficiently spread out all facing one direction. They have hand sanitizer protocols and wipe down procedures and the kids seem to handle all these rules with such aplomb.

It felt like such a luxury to be with my child as she was playing in the playground, eating lunch and also to be able to chat with her friends. I met Will, the boy I wrote about in the COVID crush post. [He also lines up on heart number 15 next to my daughter and told her a few weeks ago that he has a crush on her.] He came up to me during the lunch service and also told me he had a crush on her. He was adorable!

In the middle of the seating our 3rd rotation out of 4, the loud speaker went off with a huge clang and announced that everyone needed to “shelter in place.” Kids had to pack up their lunches and evacuate the playground. Without any clear understanding of why, we helped these 2nd and 3rd graders return to their classrooms in a hurry.

[Eventually it was explained there was a tornado warning which is beyond rare in Seattle. Then the news came in that was intended for an area about 30 miles west of us. It was too late to get the kids back out to the lunch area so we just supported them eating in their classrooms.]

The man at the fence has come to symbolize uncertainty for me. The uncertainty that has been so acute in this pandemic era when we haven’t had access to check on our loved ones – whether they be elderly, sick, kids or even our pets as we sit outside the vet clinic. All that worry about how we can keep them safe when we can’t be involved in their care.

Finally getting to see the inside of the school helped resolve some of my uncertainty. Strangely it was the emergency that made me feel better most of all. I worked arm in arm with much of the school staff and got to see the people that make school happen every day. It was an honor and wonder to see their dedication, resourcefulness and care. I hope one day I can tell that to the man at the fence.

(featured image photo from Pexels)

Photo of the week: Nov 13

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Covid has brought us closer together with our neighbors. There are 10 kids on the block under age 8, median age 4-years-old and they’ve found a rhythm of playing in each others yards or in this case, when it was raining, in my garage. I know that the lasting effects of this pandemic have yet to be seen in full but locally, I love how these kids have bonded. When everything shut down, they all become less “scheduled” and have learned the art of old-fashioned play.

The Detailed Answer

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“Love is the beauty of the soul.” – St. Augustine

I was driving in the car with my kids when my 6-year-old asked me, “Mama, do you like being a parent?” I replied that I did and that I especially did because I was proud to be a parent of the two of them. Which is true but also a really broad answer that encapsulates all the specific things that go into parenting.

Yesterday was a great example of all the reasons why I love being a parent.

Since it was a holiday morning, I snuggled in my bed with my two kids and we watched a video that my daughter made. She was explaining grown-up teeth and it came out like this, “You know what grown-ups are, right? And well, they have teeth. And when you are little, you lose all of your teeth. EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM.” [insert expression where she gets really close to the camera and tries to show every one of her teeth] We watched that video over and over and laughed!

I can’t think of a day as a parent where I haven’t belly-laughed.

Then my daughter was asking me why we have Veterans Day. I explained it as if it originated as a celebration of the end of World War II. Later in the day I found out it was marking the end of World War I. Oops.

Every day I have to explain something that isn’t in my wheelhouse. I make mistakes and I learn.

Yesterday morning my daughter’s best friend, who is brown, came over and they were making art on the dining room table. My daughter said she didn’t like brown as a color. It offended her friend because she is brown. They had a conversation trying to solve both individual expression and systemic hurt.

There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t get some insight into all that comes with being human.

I had to take my 2-year-old son to the doctor for his flu shot. He flinched when he got it but didn’t cry. But 10 minutes later he pinched his finger when we sat down on a bench and started sobbing.

I’m reminded every day that being a safe place for others to express their hurts is a sacred job.

The three of us went over to visit my mom. We played the piano, explored all her toys, read books, fiddled with the water in her sink, found tiny places that only little people could hide in and laughed. We had the snacks in a routine that my kids associate with my mom and it’s easy to see how traditions are born.

There is some reminder every day that my kids and I are part of a loving, bigger family that holds us, helps us and hears us.

Tired after all the excitement and hurts of the day, my son didn’t want to eat the dinner I’d made for him and tipped it onto the floor. I too was tired and frustrated and said so. My son said for the very first time, “I lorry.” (I’m sorry) We picked it up together.

Each day comes with the need to forgive and be forgiven.

As I got ready for bed, I went into my kids room to check on them. The sound of their breathing and the precious shapes they make while they sleep renews every fiber of love of safety in my body.

Every day I am overwhelmed with my love for these beautiful miracles.

When my daughter asked me if I liked being a parent, I asked her if it seems like I do. She said “Yes. I mean you get tired and frustrated sometimes but, yes.” That about sums it up.

Dispelling Shame

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“What you cannot turn to good, you must make as little bad as you can.” – Thomas More

We bumped up against shame a couple times this past weekend. As always, it left a mark.

The first time was when a group of young kids, including my 6-year-old daughter and her friend were looking into a stream that’s on the way to the salmon spawning grounds. They weren’t doing anything wrong and I believe the grown-up that was with them was making sure they weren’t going to but an activist yelled at them in case they were thinking of stepping into the water.

The second was when my daughter dropped an old iPhone that I’d given her to play with. It’s so outdated that it doesn’t have any value to a grown-up and can’t connect to the Internet but it does turn on and take pictures. She’s old enough now to understand the cachet of a phone and was so excited that she even put on jeans so that she’d have a pocket to carry it in.

But when she discovered that after dropping it a few times the screen had cracked, she followed suit and cracked. Her melt down was in part because she accurately assessed that I wouldn’t replace it. But more than that, she was ashamed that people would know she was a person who couldn’t take care of a phone.

Shame reminds me of an incident when I was 18-years-old. I was with a group of guys in a bar in Idaho. We were too young to buy drinks so we were just standing around when someone who we’d helped tow his boat earlier in the day offered to buy us a pitcher of beer. I was the closest and because I didn’t drink, I said, “no thank you” even though I meant “not for me.” The guys I was with could have killed me. But no one said anything.

This incident still marks me more than 30-years-later because I’ve never talked about it. I felt like a goodie-two-shoes even though I didn’t care – I just misspoke. Even typing it makes me feel that burn all over again. It’s because it’s so trivial and yet I still remember that I know how powerful shame can be.

After the incident at the stream this weekend, my daughter and her friend bumped into each other and they got into a kerfuffle about space. As an observer, it was clear it had nothing to do with who bumped whom and everything to do with discharging the shame of being yelled at by a stranger when they very much like to follow the rules.

The night the phone cracked I sat with my daughter at bedtime and we talked about shame. About how silence and secrecy are the things that shame feeds on and if we want to stop the shame spiral, we have to talk about it lest we give it the power to make us feel unworthy.

As we talked, I realized that I was confused as a parent about which message to emphasize because I think taking care of the things we own is important. But making the distinction between it was bad to drop the phone and being a bad person because she couldn’t take care of the phone was more important to me. Because shame leaves a mark. But how deeply etched the mark is depends on how quickly we can pull out of the shame spiral.  

As a postscript, when my mom came over last night, my daughter pulled out the phone she had hidden when she was ashamed and talked about what was on the phone, how it got cracked and what we need to do to take care of our stuff. It was like getting immediate feedback on a test and we passed. Phew!