Parenthood – Page 5 – Surprised By Joy

My Mother the Spy

October 14, 2021Posted in ParenthoodTagged family, humor, story-telling4 Comments

“Who in the world am I? Ah, that’s the great puzzle.” – Lewis Carroll

My 6-year-old daughter and her friend have a particular camper van that is regularly in the school parking lot. They are so fascinated by its story – it has a license plate that says VANLIFE and they wonder if anyone lives in it or if it belongs to a teacher. Playing along, I suggested that if we were spies, we’d put a tracking device under the bumper and see where it goes. They thought this was a great idea so I suggested my daughter should ask my mom for practical advice because we’ve always suspected she’s a spy.

My mom learned Russian in college while getting her major in Far Eastern Studies. When she graduated in the early 1960’s, the CIA offered her a job. She’s always said that she turned the job down and instead chose to get married.

But would there be a cover any better than being a pastor’s wife? In the 1970’s we lived in the Philippines and my mom took private Russian tutoring lessons. She and my dad visited the Soviet Union in that time when very few Americans ever did. I believe they even smuggled jeans in to give to their hosts.

When I was in college, my mom returned to college as well to get another degree in Russian Language and Literature.

After the wall came down, my mom lived in Moscow for five weeks to teach English. She developed such strong bonds that she and my dad led “work trips” there for most of the 90’s for people who were interested in supporting some soup kitchens and religious studies programs that were non-profits that she supported.

When I went to Russia almost 20 years ago to attempt to climb Mt. Elbrus, she sent cash with me to give to her contacts. They gave me the most vibrant walking night tour of Moscow in August I could have imagined.

And the last piece of “evidence” – she’s smart enough, adventurous enough and driven enough to pull it off. When you ask her if she’s a spy, she just smiles.

So it was my mom’s “professional” advice to my daughter NOT to track that van. She said she wouldn’t want anyone knowing where she goes so it’s best not to know that about others. 🙂

The funny thing about family lore like this is that the secrets are so much fun to speculate about because don’t we all have mysterious sides? And by that I mean avenues we could have pursued and alter egos we might have been had the Fates come down just a little differently. I’m guessing that now that my mom is in her 80’s, it’s safe enough to hit publish on this – or so I hope.

(photo by Pexels)

Effective Redirection

October 13, 2021Posted in ParenthoodTagged family, inspiration, intention, parenting, self-improvement2 Comments

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

The other day I quietly came into my still dark room and to put my toothbrush away before waking my daughter for school. She had migrated into my bed in the middle of the night as she often does so I brushed my teeth in a different bathroom so as not to wake her prematurely.

After setting my toothbrush down, I went to kiss her on the cheek. As soon as I did, she barked out “You are ignoring me and you’re late!” And I was taken aback that the quiet had turned to this and started to retort, “Now wait a minute, you are in my room and I’m just trying to get to my bathroom…”

It made me think of a dog-training article I read the other day. One of the tips was that when telling a dog not to do something, it’s too vague for the dog because in essence we are saying “don’t chew my shoe” but then then dog has to both process that and also think of what it should be doing. The article, and I can’t think of where I read it or why I read since I don’t presently have a dog, suggested instead to tell the dog what to do. That in essence solves both problems – getting the dog to stop chewing the shoe and redirecting it to a new behavior – in one command.

This seems to be the work of relationships as well. I don’t think it’s just me that often responds that I don’t like what someone has said or done without ever saying what I’d prefer to happen. In fact, I often just hope the other person can intuit that! Because thinking and naming what I want comes from a different place than a retort, an intentional place that takes some work to access. It’s a subtle shift from defense to bridge-making.

When my sister-in-law nannied for me she was great at saying to my kids, “A better way to say that is…” and it worked great at helping them know how to express their feelings but in a way that is more likely to be heard. My sister-in-law both was telling my kids what not to do and redirecting the behavior but in one efficient suggestion.

My 6-year-old daughter is so verbally adept so it’s really easy to forget that communication is still incredibly new to her. It may not be obvious how to express irritation and ask for what she needs. And more than that, it requires her to practice accessing her intentional space as well.

Even though I’m an old dog (or middle-aged one), I’m trainable too. So I stopped my retort and started again. “Hey darling girl, a better way to say it might be, ‘Morning, Mom. I’m frustrated you are taking so long because I’m dying to have your attention.’ ”

(photo by Pexels)

Comparative Suffering

October 6, 2021Posted in ParenthoodTagged Brene Brown, comparison, friendship, inspiration, parenting, relationships, wisdom6 Comments

“Comparison is the thief of joy.” – Theodore Roosevelt

I’m old for a parent of a 2-year-old and a 6-year old. I had my son when I was 50 years old. Most of my long-time friends have kids in college which is great when I need babysitters. So part of my parenting journey has been to make new friends with people that have young children and have met many delightful ones.

But the other parents don’t complain to me. That isn’t to say that they don’t like me or include me, it’s just that generally they refrain from sharing their parenting woes. Every once in a while I’ll get a hint of why they don’t when a mom friend will say to me, “My husband was out of town for this week and wow, it’s so hard to get two kids to bed!” And they will often then add, “But I shouldn’t complain about that because you have to do it all the time.”

While I reassure them that it is totally fine to say that to me, I completely understand. More than that, I don’t feel bad that I do it by myself because I chose to. In fact, I often think about what would have happened if I’d had children when I was married and shake my head in relief that it’s only two kids that I have to get ready in the morning and not three if I was still married to my ex. 😊

But I finally have a term for why parents don’t complain to me because of a great Brené Brown Unlocking Us podcast episode with Esther Perel that I heard this week. Comparative suffering. When we start to complain about something and then cut ourselves off because others have it so much worse. I was recently talking with my friend Mindy about my dad’s death when I was 45-years-old and then stopped because her mom died when Mindy was only 23-years-old. I felt insensitive because I’d been able to have him in my life so much longer.

But I heard a heart-changing quote from Brené Brown on that podcast: “I had very little empathy for other people because I wasn’t open to my own pain.” When we stop to acknowledge that something hurts, sucks, is difficult — without comparing it to anyone else’s journey — we land ourselves back in reality. And from there, we can reach other people.

I frequently use “Comparison is the thief of joy” with my 6-year-old when she resorts to comparison with her friends. But now that I heard that wisdom I’m thinking of expanding it to “comparison is the thief of relationship.” We don’t have to compare any of our experience – good or bad. And when we do, we just have to acknowledge our own experience and theirs, and then continue to be real because that’s the glue of friendships, old and new.

(photo from Pexels)

Feedback Loops

October 4, 2021Posted in meditation, ParenthoodTagged family, inspiration, kindness, meditation, parenting2 Comments

“Life is an echo. What you send out — comes back.” – unknown

My son and I were reading before bedtime. He climbed up on my bed with the pile of board books, snuggled in and then said, “Come up.” After I did, he said with a clap, “Good boy, Mama!”

When I put my daughter to bed, after we say our prayers and I snuggle her up so only her little face is showing above the comforter, I say “Good night, beautiful girl.” And she replies “Good night, beautiful mama.”

I studied feedback and control systems in college when getting my Electrical Engineering degree. But nothing has been more effective and more immediate than parenting in reminding me that life is an echo. My kids show me every day that what I send out comes right back to me, usually in the same tone.

Taking Off the Hats

October 1, 2021Posted in ParenthoodTagged adaptation, change, family, parenting4 Comments

“Don’t go through life, grow through life.” – Eric Butterworth

In my daughter’s first grade class they fill in a mood meter for each day that tells how they feel and why. For example, last Tuesday she marked sleepy and proud and said she was proud because she made it in without being scared. Which is huge for my 6-year-old.

School has been in session for a month now. A month of adjustment to early mornings, pickups and drop-offs, new faces and routines for my kids, a quiet house during the day for me. It’s a lot and it’s taken the entire month to adapt.

The thing I’ve noticed most for me is the slow unwinding of some of the pandemic trauma that came from the necessity of being involved in everything in my kids’ lives. It’s like relaxing a spine that I had to hold stiff or I’d crumble. I was wearing so many hats – teaching assistant, school janitor, lunch lady, principal entertainer, class clown, mom, chief encouragement officer – that I’ve gotten to take off some of them and ease the strain. There is an intentionality to this restarting of activity that feels rich and treasured in a way that I took for granted before.

What I’ve uncovered is that I’m a way better parent when I don’t have to do it all. Which sounds so obvious but in crisis mode, I couldn’t gage the impact. Now when my 2-year-old son comes home and doesn’t want to have his diaper changed, I have the energy to fly him around the room pretending he’s an airplane on the way to the changing table. I’m listening better and I’m more playful when not having to run my engine all out to get everything done.

The uncertainty is still with us but I feel like I have a fuller tank to deal with it.

And the most delicious thing is that I miss my kids. I gather them up on Friday afternoon and can’t wait to spend a whole weekend playing together. I’m so incredibly impressed by how they’ve handled this transition. It hasn’t been without tears but we’ve faced these big moments talking to and understanding each other.

My mood meter is proud and grateful!

Betrayal and Forgiveness

September 29, 2021Posted in meditation, ParenthoodTagged betrayal, confidence, faith, family, forgiveness, inspiration11 Comments

“True forgiveness is when you can say, ‘Thank you for that experience.‘” – Oprah Winfrey

My daughter’s 7-year-old friend came over the other day with the news that their former au pair had betrayed them (her words). The gist of the story was that au pair had agreed to stay with the kids for a weekend and then backed out. Our young friend said that her parents had found someone else to stay with the kids while they travel leaving only the feeling of betrayal to somehow process.

That word, betrayal, always reminds me of my ex-husband. Because when his friend and my business partner told me of my husband’s infidelities, my husband at the time felt so betrayed because his friend told me. And the more he declaimed it, the more embedded I felt in his betrayal of me and our wedding vows.

In this circular pattern of pain and distrust, there seemed to be no way out. I couldn’t get any resolution of what had happened because every time we touched on it, even in counseling, it just triggered my ex-husband’s feeling of betrayal. He could bring more dramatic outrage to the table so I always ended up bottling it up in a misguided effort to make it stop. When we finally divorced, I was so relieved that cycle was over.

But it left me having to forgive my ex-husband without any satisfying resolution about what had happened. Which was even harder work. Our wisdom traditions talk about the power and necessity of forgiveness. Growing up as a pastor’s kid, it was like the bread and butter of our family. Knowing that and wanting it, I still had to find out my way of actually forgiving. I was like a goat tethered to a stake always covering the same ground until I did.

In the end, I discovered meditation as a way to lean in to the mess of it all and develop a bigger perspective. That is when I finally figured out how to forgive. The pain of betrayal led me to the life of meditation and perspective. Which has then gone on to give so many more gifts of faith, confidence and personal belonging that allowed me to choose to have kids on my own. Looking back, I have never been so glad for the gift of pain leading me to the richness of life.

I know forgiveness is extremely hard to do when we feel like keep the wound open provides evidence that we were the injured party. I recently read a quote by Henri Nouwen, “Your future depends on how you decide to remember your past.” In that passage, he was talking to himself but the Truth of it brought tears to my eyes.

Watching my daughter’s friend as she told me the story, I could see her rewriting her history of the 18 months the au pair lived with and cared for her based on this last interaction. If I could amend Henri Nouwen’s Truth slightly, I’d add that “Your kids future also depends on how you decide to remember your past.”

Receiving Pain

September 28, 2021Posted in meditation, ParenthoodTagged compassion, family, inspiration, meditation, pain, suffering, wisdom5 Comments

“Only love, with no thought of return, can soften the point of suffering.” – Mark Nepo

When I trimmed my 2-year-old son’s hair recently, he’s started saying “Ow” with each snip. I checked to make sure I wasn’t pulling his hair or in any way touching his head with the tip of the scissors and continued. And he kept saying, “Ow.” It was possible he was the first person I’ve ever heard of to have feeling in his hair but his body language and smile told me it was more likely he was saying something that got a reaction.

But it brought to mind for me all the different ways I’ve received other people’s pain. I’ve dismissed it as not as bad as they are reporting. I’ve wondered when they will get over it. I have compared it (both inwardly and outwardly) as not as bad as something I’ve experienced. And I can report that none of these methods are helpful. The only way that I’ve found to bear witness to pain and to help alleviate suffering is to believe that every word they say is true and to listen as they process their story.

This makes me think of a winter climb I once did on Mt. Whitney with a good friend about 3 months after her boyfriend died of cancer. He’d been cremated and she was climbing with him in a little urn attached to her pack. She kept on mentioning Rick to the other people in the group we were climbing with, none of whom knew us from before the trip. And because she was talking about Rick as if he was with us (and I suppose he was if you counted the urn), they would get a pretty confused look on their faces and eventually take me aside to ask me who Rick was. But it was a group of really nice people who let her talk and talk and talk about him. We were slogging in thigh deep snow up the side of the mountain and had days to listen. It was like an extreme walking meditation.

After a while, I thought we’d heard enough about Rick. I fortunately never said anything. Because it wasn’t until my dad died that I understood that the telling of the story of his sudden death in a bike accident and talking about what an amazing person he was were both such healing ways to help process the surprise of finding him gone.

So I’ve adopted some of my dad’s wisdom. As a retired pastor, he often was asked by friends, mentees and former parishioners to go to coffee for advice or to air the pain of living. And if you asked him how it went, he’d smile kindly and say, “Mostly I listened.”

My kids give me lots of opportunities to practice to listen to their pains and I do my best to calmly bear witness, not lecture about safety (at that moment at least) and just slather them with love. As I cut my son’s hair and he giggled and said “ow,” I started narrating that he was the bravest person on earth to get his hair cut. In that way, we made it through together!

Know Your Audience

September 27, 2021Posted in ParenthoodTagged family, integrity, parenting, principles, story-telling, values5 Comments

“Integrity is the ability to listen to a place inside oneself that doesn’t change, even though the life that carries it may change.” – Rabbi Jonathan Omer-Man

My 6-year-old daughter asked me yesterday if stealing was bad. I told her it was always wrong and then tried to illustrate it with the example of us going to the store to buy groceries and then coming out and finding our car was stolen. How would we feel? Would that be okay? She countered, “But then we could just walk home.”

I agreed with her resourcefulness and then tried another example. “What if someone stole our Halloween decorations we just put up this weekend?” “That”, she emphatically agreed, “would be so, so bad! You can’t just go around taking other people’s Halloween decorations!”

Which reminded me that while our values don’t change, stories need to be tailored to the audience. 😊

The Wall of Defense

September 25, 2021Posted in ParenthoodTagged family, openness, parenting, silence, vulnerability7 Comments

“Fear is the cheapest room in the house. I’d like to see you in better living conditions.” – Hafiz

Last week the most worrisome thing happened. My mom invited me out to lunch. Since I see her usually a couple of times a week at my house when my kids are there and we text every day, I immediately decided that I must be in trouble.

I spent the two days between when she invited me and our lunch date in the back of my mind trying to think of everything I could be doing wrong and my defense for each.

Giving my kids too much salt or sugar to eat?

Spend too much on toys?

Needing to reprioritize saving money?

Not working out enough?

It doesn’t seem like anything very serious but we have enough history over this handful of points so even if I don’t necessarily disagree with her, I can muster a strong defense along the lines of “I’ve got bigger things to worry about” and “I’m doing the best I can.”

Then I had lunch with my mom. She just wanted to know how I was doing. I spent the first half of the lunch just unwinding inside. And for what it was worth, taking stock of what I might be doing wrong wasn’t a bad exercise. It was building the defenses that was a waste of mental energy. It reminded me that any conversation that I prepared for like that would never be open or productive.

And I learned that sometimes the best trick of a parent is to say nothing. And that the power of a parent lasts forever.

Nice to Meet You

September 23, 2021Posted in ParenthoodTagged confidence, courage, hope, inspiration, love13 Comments

“A very small degree of hope is sufficient to cause the birth of love.” – Stendahl

My kids and I have had a dog staying with us this past week. Kelty is a delightful, well-trained Springer Spaniel who at 12 ½ is old enough to pretty much know what to do without direction and deaf enough to have momentary lapses when she wants to look for food and pretend she can’t hear us. My kids have been so excited to take care of a dog so they’ve split up the responsibilities. My 6-year-old daughter scoops the food for her and gives the cup to my 2-year-old son so he can put it in the dish. Or my son goes around the yard looking for poop so that my daughter can pick it up. Hilarious!

The only creature that isn’t happy is our cat who refuses to even meet the dog. She has spent the week lying mostly on the front porch glider occasionally coming in for food or to run upstairs where the dog doesn’t go to have a nap. She’s young, strong and confident enough to roam the entire neighborhood, catch mice and take care of herself but none of that translates until a willingness to meet this nice older dog, She even follows us when we take the dog out walking like she wants to join but darts away if the dog looks at her.

Somehow this has reminded me of me. Specifically about my willingness to meet men. Not that I dart into bushes 😊 but more figuratively that if I am ever to find love again, I’m going to have to start with at least intending to meet men. I’ve had the confidence to walk this path of having kids on my own, I’ve managed to figure out how to juggle most everything – work, house maintenance, kids but the idea of falling in love again unsettles me.

I was playing a catching game with my kids the other day and my daughter said to me, “When we get a dad, we can play boys against girls.” Right! I know it’s the next part of the path I need to walk but like the cat, it’s never going to happen unless I need to try. Maybe at my age, I can find one a little like the dog – old enough to pretty much know what to do and selectively deaf enough to create some mischief from time to time. 😊