Category: Parenthood

Difficult Compassion

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“It’s not how much we give but how much love we put into giving.” – Mother Teresa

Recently my kids and I have had a couple of encounters with apparently homeless people that along with the proliferation of tents in the parks that came with COVID have my almost 6-year-old daughter asking a lot of questions. In one encounter, a man with a belt still tying off his arm for shooting up was hollering and trying to take off his pants and another man was threatening him with a baseball bat to emphasize that he should keep his pants on. In another, a man was crawling down the busy street near where we live with a look of sheer agony on his face and one arm outstretched.

I often am confused about how to talk with my daughter about these matters. She may only be going in to first grade but she talks like she is a 9-year-old, is very observant and asks a lot of good questions. To top it off, the homeless problem is so apparent and pervasive that I certainly don’t have any great ideas about how we are going to fix it. But we came up with an idea that she could draw something and we could make some care packages for people that we see.

Yesterday she wrote this note without any help from me:

We nowe you are homeless but we care. Sorry you are homles.

Do not smoc. Do not take drugs becus they make you feel bedder for a few minets but wen it goes a way it makes you feel wurs.

My daughter – age 5.9 years

She then started taping on extra pieces of paper so that she could continue. In addition to being fascinated about what content she’s taken in from our many discussions, I noticed how hard it is to stay in empathy before moving to advice or judgment.

The other day my friend, Doug, asked if I could remember the name of a guy we used to work with. He said something like, “You know, the guy who’s wife left him, house burned down and his dog died?” “Oh my goodness,” that’s terrible I thought and still had no idea who he was talking about. But it wasn’t long before the thought crossed my mind that this poor man really must have pissed off God.

So I know first-hand how hard it is to stay in empathy. I start moving to judgment or advice because it feels like having an explanation of why bad things happen makes me feel safer that they won’t happen to me. Understanding that tendency has helped me practice a better kind of compassion, one that tries not to presume to know the journey another person has walked but is willing to help. It haven’t gotten any less confused about how to talk about these huge problems with my kids but I think it has helped me to have more open-ended conversations with them where we can recognize the humanity of others and be curious about how we can help.

In that spirit, my daughter and I settled on just drawing hearts that say “we care” on the back. I don’t think they will solve homelessness but I do hope that they bring a moment of being seen.

Good Grief

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“I am becoming water; I let everything rinse its grief in me and reflect as much light as I can.” – Mark Nepo

We had to say good-bye to our beloved nanny yesterday. She is moving on to the next phase of her education and experience as it should be for 21 year-olds. But we shed a lot of tears and by we, I mean primarily me and the nanny. My toddler wasn’t dialed in to the import of the moment and my 5 year-old seemed to be distracted by the cards and posters we’d made for the nanny until the very last minute when the dam burst and all the tears came spilling out and she clung to us.

As I held my daughter in our tears, I had an instant of insight about grief that this pure grief that wasn’t tainted with any anger or regret allowed me to see. In that instant I saw how beautiful grief can be as a recognition that we all move on every day and there is something freeing about allowing that growth. It felt as if it was an act of letting go of who we all were yesterday so that we can be wholly we are today.

For me it held another aspect of grief. For almost 5 ½ years I’ve had people coming in to my house to help take care of my kids and now that they are returning to in-person school and full-time preschool, I don’t need that. But this beautiful collection of wonderful people that have cared for my kids have been my partners in parenting in so many ways – in observing my kids’ growth, in laughing about their antics, in ooh-ing and aah-ing about what they learn. I feel as if I’m grieving that community that has helped me grow as a parent. But that insight about grief holds for this too – I’m simply letting go of that so that I can lean in to the new communities we are entering.

My nanny is the daughter of my best friend from growing up. One of the bonuses of having kids when you are 50 years-old is that you have a built-in babysitting pool of college-aged kids from your beloved friends. While she isn’t going to nanny for me any longer, she isn’t going far. And that was the other thing about this grief from yesterday that I noticed. It included a recognition that this beautiful relationship that my kids have with this amazing young woman will outlast me. In the way that grieving my father has allowed me to grow into a person that inhabits him more on the inside, this relationship my kids have with my friends’ kids will carry forward without us but will always hold us near.

Let the Magic Begin

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“She quietly expected great things to happen to her, and no doubt that’s one of the reasons why they did.” – Zelda Fitzgerald

My 5-year-old lost her second tooth last night. I had no idea of the celebrity of the tooth fairy until this one came out. Because of course the first one is going to be a big deal but the second one? Every bit as big of a deal.

She sat down right away to write the tooth fairy a note, front pictured above. Here’s the translation:

To the Tooth Fairy: How do you make sure that kids brush their teeth? How many dollars are you going to give me? You are the best!  Can you give me 2 toys and money too? 20 dollars please. One toy is for my brother.

I found myself trying to talk her down from the expectations of the note. Our neighbor got $20 for a tooth, I assume because she didn’t lose her first one until she was 7 ½ years-old or at least that’s the explanation I give to that extraordinary sum. The Delta Dental website says the average for our area is $5.46 which I still think is high. And the toys – my daughter heard a rumor from another kid that some kid somewhere asked for toys from the tooth fairy…and got them!

In the midst of trying to talk her into realistic expectations, I decided to stop. Who says we are supposed to be realistic? And while her asking for gifts from the tooth fairy kinda put me off, I think it’s a little bit of a bias in me that girls aren’t supposed to ask for what they want.

For me this speaks to the heart of magic, praying and belief. Is it supposed to be limited by what we think is achievable? Or do we go all out and all in and ask away like Agnes Sanford said in the post I wrote about writing that has inspired me? Is there a heart of a 5-year-old in me that believes, really believes that magic can happen if I completely commit to setting my dreams BIG?

Yes, there is. So the Tooth Fairy is keeping that note. And decided to give $5 for the tooth and $5 so she can buy a toy for her brother. Let the magic begin….

Keeping it Light

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“The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter.” – Mark Twain

As I was walking through the kitchen during a break from work yesterday, I overheard this conversation between my nanny and my 5-year-old:

Nanny: “Would you like some carrots with your lunch?”

Kid: “Yuck”

Nanny: “I think you said that wrong. It’s pronounced ‘Yum’ as in short for scr-yum-deli-i-tious.”

All: <giggling>

She is a master of making my kids laugh – and getting them to do things. It’s such an effective tool but one I found hard to deploy at times. Like the other day when my 5-year-old daughter was screaming like crazy because she’d put popcorn up her nose. I managed to get her calm enough so that she could lie down on the floor, plug the other nostril and I blew into her mouth. It must have looked so fun because my toddler lay down next to her to wait his turn. I thought we were dealing with a kernel, turns out that it was a small popped piece of corn and whether it came out the nostril or worked its way into the throat, it’s still unclear but either way it was fine.

I was telling this story to my friend Katie later and we were crying we were laughing so hard. How long has it been since we were of the age that putting things up our nose seemed like a good idea? And how the scene must have looked – the kids lined up on the floor plugging their nostrils!

I think it takes practice to deploy humor in the moment. It’s one of the reason that I like the Parenting is Funny blog which is delightful – and inspirational! I also read a tip in a magazine the other day that suggested to smile when giving directions because it changes how you say things. Like you can’t say, “Oh good grief, I have asked you a 100 times to put your shoes away” with a smile on your face so it’s apt to come out more like “Oh, is the middle of the kitchen where we are keeping our shoes now? Let me add mine to the pile!”

I left the kitchen before I found out whether or not my daughter ate the carrots with her lunch. I wasn’t worried either way because I knew that the nanny was winning this war of sound bites!

Kiss the Pain Goodbye

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“Have a heart that never hardens, a temper that never tires, and a touch that never hurts.” – Charles Dickens

We’ve had a seemingly unending string of clear, sunny days here in Seattle so I trundled my kids off to the park yesterday morning. My toddler was on his strider bike, my 1st grader on her bike and I was pushing the stroller in case of any breakdowns, mechanical or otherwise. Because my son is new at the strider bike it took us so long to make it to the park four blocks away that the first thing we did when we arrived is to have snacks. We found a perfectly shady bench on this perfectly sunny morning and I started to unzip the cooler bag. My daughter, wanting to be the first to crack open the bread sticks with cheese dip, pushed off to run around the bikes, slipped and fell, crying out as she hit the ground.

I wasn’t very sympathetic. The thoughts that crossed my mind were that she was being careless and greedy to have the first go at the snacks and this might have been the fourth fall already on a Monday morning, fortunately none of them serious enough to even warrant a mark. But I knew that adding hurt feelings to a hurt knee wasn’t going to help so I didn’t say anything and bundled her up and gave it a kiss.

That’s when the grace of the moment dropped in. I had a split second of understanding that the cry and the wanting to be first was not really from the fall but from holding it together as her brother celebrated his second birthday and got all the presents. And that my reaction was from being tired from hosting the second birthday party the night before so that my impatience and judgment were the side effects of pretending that I wasn’t.

I have no idea why humans are such complicated creatures so that what seems to be happening rarely is. But I suspect it is so that we are lured to look deeper. It brings to mind the Buddhist tonglen meditation where you breathe in the pain of those around you and breathe out relief. I find that even when I don’t yet know the true cry of the hurt, it still works. I’m starting to think that maybe that’s why mamas have kissed skinned knees for generations upon generations – so they have a moment to breathe out relief and keep their mouths shut. I found that it works because things are as rarely as perfectly sunny as they seem.

You Have to be Present to Win

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“I am seeking. I am striving. I am in it with all my heart.” – Vincent Van Gough

When my nieces were in middle school, they went to a charter school that had a lot of fundraising events. At one auction event they invited me to, the older of my two niece’s was selling raffle tickets that were $50 each. That was really expensive but I didn’t have kids at the time, it was for a school and of course, it was my niece selling them so I bought two. The clincher was that, as if often the case with raffles, you had to be present to win.

I think of that phrase a lot in parenting – you have to be present to win. When I bought the raffle tickets I knew I’d never make it to when the raffle was announced, I wasn’t the type of person to stay long enough even before I had kids. Now I don’t have any choice but to see to the end of each day with my kids but I can choose whether or not to be present.

I know that I must not the only parent that takes an extra long time to roll the garbage can to the curb because I’m pausing in the quiet and looking up at the sky. My central nervous system gets overloaded from the activity, amplitude of emotion and state of vigilance so it feels like I can’t stay present one more moment. I just want to check out because I’m spent. My daughter is a master of asking open-ended questions right before bedtime like “What mistakes have you made, Mama?” so my strategy is to just keep things simple with one or two word sentences so I can get to the finish line. But the other night, while I was racing to the end of the day so I could have some grown-up time where I could check out by having a glass of wine or mindlessly scroll through Instagram, something reminded me of “you have to be present to win.”

My daughter was snuggled next to me in bed as I was reading Harry Potter and it was a section where Hagrid was saying that his dad taught him not to be ashamed of who he was and she asked what ashamed was. I explained it’s that feeling of not wanting to talk about something because it makes you feel yucky inside. And she said, “Like Ahti [her aunt that used to nanny for us] taking a job and not being with us any more?”

[Wow, wow, wow] I told her that I was so proud of her for telling me that she felt that way. Then she asked why Ahti had to do it and I explained that it was because she found a perfect job. And she said, “It isn’t because we were too bad and she didn’t want to be with us?”

There are moments when I absolutely need to check out and breathe and I’m trying to learn to give myself grace when I do. But I’m also trying to practice staying present so that when I’m with my kids, I’m truly with my kids. Because unlike when I bought a raffle ticket for my niece’s school, I do care about winning the prize. Not two hours with a lawyer to do estate planning or a wine tasting with five friends, but to be the person my kids trust to help them unpack the burdens they don’t need to carry.

Life at the Lake

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“When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace.” – Jimi Hendrix

Going to the lake as a kid and going to the lake with your kids are two different things. I’ve been lucky enough to do both with a family I’ve known since I was 7 years-old. Their lake place has been for all these years the perfect place for kids to adventure, swim, inner tube, find treasure in its many forms until like my son did the other night, you can’t even keep your eyes open to read books and just want to dive into bed.

What is most remarkable to me was the way this family has made their lake place work. The parents bought it in 1973. They come back every summer as do their three daughters in my generation and their families for as much time as they can. I’m invited too as an honorary member of the family because I lived with them my senior year in high school when my dad took a sr. pastor job at a church on the other side of the state. They have created a compound where everyone can chip in according to their strengths and politely ignore each other’s weaknesses and all the members of the family have chosen to so because life at the lake is more fun together.

Every morning we were at the lake I got up early and went down to sit by the water. The scene holds so much more than just liquid. It’s all the dreams I had of what life would be when I came there as a kid. It’s all the hope that I have for my kids to grow up in a beautiful world. And it’s all the love of the family that owns this lake place – both in caring for it and for each other. It’s also a hub of connection for grandparents, parents, cousins, sisters and extended family like me. Just sitting by a body of water that holds so much filled me with the peace that comes with all that perspective and love.

I get so choked up thinking of the lifetime of friendship I have had with my dear friend and her family. And now her incredibly delightful and talented daughters have both nannied for my kids so the love spreads through the generations. Nothing better than going to the lake with my kids and discovering that it holds them as it did me, in complete awe of the way one place can hold delight for so many!

An Act of Bravery

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“It always seems impossible until it is done.” – Nelson Mandela

This week my almost 6-year-old daughter suggested that we ride bikes to pick up my son from daycare. So last night we did. It’s only about a mile by bike and she is pretty steady on hers. We left with me in the lead and she was following. The first part is slightly downhill in a bike lane on a busy road and we had only gone five blocks when all of a sudden I couldn’t see her behind me. The road curved so I could only see a half block back but she didn’t appear. Then a man in a truck said, “Are you looking for a little girl? She’s way back there.” My heart in my chest, I looped around to find my daughter a block back, up on the sidewalk silently crying. A car had come, maybe turning, it spooked her so she got herself up on the curb and resolved to wait for me.

The rest of the way we changed it so she led and I followed talking to her the whole way. When we got to the daycare, it’s a half a block of steep uphill so I told her we’d walk our bikes but she said, “I can do it, Mama!” and zoomed herself up the hill and right up to the door. On the way back, she started to relax into it so much that she was weaving between cones on a closed section of road.

The whole adventure reminded me how brave we are to live a day of this life. We get up, set our sights on something we are going to do, people we are going to meet or work we have to finish. Then we start on our way only to discover we are scared or confused and need a minute. Whether we continue or not probably depends on the voice we hear in our head. And for us adults, this all happens without us thinking about it. We have forgotten how brave it is to meet the day because we’ve done it so many times before. But it doesn’t make us any less brave.

Watching my daughter when we finally pulled back into the garage with my toddler, she stripped off her top and cheered. She did it! She transported her 45 pounds of bones, muscle and grit a mile and back on a two-wheeled vehicle and moved through time, space and her own doubts. By God, she did it. May we all remember to cheer our bravery as we tackle things today.

Dinner for Two

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“Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize that they were the big things.” – Robert Brault

Last night was a perfect evening out on my back patio. It was sunny, not too hot with a delightful little breeze. So I decided to BBQ myself a steak and eat outside. This was an unusual amount of effort to cook for myself. Usually I prepare something for my kids and if I haven’t invited another adult to come over and eat with us, I eat what I’ve prepared for them or leftover. I enjoy cooking but since my almost 6-year-old daughter has a particular palate and my almost 2-year-old son still prefers eating those pouches that contain pureed fruits, vegetables and grains that he can suck down himself, cooking for myself doesn’t usually seem worth it. But last night I thought I’d make an exception and BBQ.

I went out to check the steak halfway through and the BBQ was no longer on. I assumed it had run out of propane until I noticed that all the dials were off. My littlest assistant chef must have come by to adjust the temperature.

Eventually I managed to cook the steak, so I set the table with a place for my son and myself (my daughter was busy inside) and sat down in the perfect evening to eat. I had just finished making the first cut when my son hopped out of his chair and came to sit on my lap. We proceeded to tussle over who could hold the knife and since I won, he decided that he’d control dragging my perfectly grilled piece of bread through my plate. In this way, we made it through dinner, talking about the flavors and the weather, finding a place for the halfway eaten food that came back out of his mouth and stretching now and again to reach the off-limits-to-him knife.

I can’t tell whether this means I’m doing parenting right or wrong. After going through the special effort to cook something for myself, am I supposed to maintain my dignity of being able to eat it without dealing with someone else’s regurgitated food? On the other hand, it was an intimate dining experience, one that he’ll soon outgrow and then I assume that I’ll still share with him at a distance but we won’t be literally eating the same food.

As with much of parenting, I suspect that there isn’t a clear line to draw here. So I fall back to what I know in the moment. There will be plenty of steaks in my future so what I need to savor is the feeling of dinner with a handsome young man who can’t get enough of me.

The Practice

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“One filled with joy preaches without preaching.” – Mother Teresa

My mom’s church has been doing these Wednesday night park programs for kids. It’s a little like Sunday School where there’s singing, a short message, some games and then Otter Pops at the end. You come with your family and can picnic there and then all participate in this hour of fun. It’s been lovely and my kids have loved it – it’s a fun way to return to being together. One of the songs we’ve been singing has gotten stuck in my head:

I’m inright, outright, upright, downright
Happy all the time
I’m inright, outright, upright, downright
Happy all the time
Since Jesus Christ came in, and saved my soul from sin
I’m inright, outright, upright, downright
Happy all the time

So as it’s been running that circular loop, I’ve realized that as a Presbyterian minister’s kid, this was exactly the messaging I grew up with. Jesus Christ = happy. And there’s a lot more of those kid songs with a similar message (like When You’re Happy and You Know It). I’m a pretty naturally happy person so there was no inherent conflict there as I grew up. But now, as I’ve pondered why I can’t just be a traditional church-going person, I wonder if I just outgrew that message as life got more complex and had to find my own practice. For me that has become listening to the quiet within every day on a meditation cushion. I also love a great sermon in church or fun in the park finding community but it’s the personal practice I always come back to.

It reminds me of the dance of falling in love. We lead with the message that we think is going to make us most attractive – that we are happy, successful, strong or sexy. But any relationship that goes the distance exposes all the facets of who we are. In that same way, religion (in my experience) uses happy, fun songs to get kids to listen and then for it to take root, they need to incorporate the message into the depth of what they believe. In this way both love and faith are a practice, not just a belief.

This ear worm of a song is leading me to realize that I want to support my kids in the incorporation of what we believe. To practice seeing that in the beautiful mystery of life and time as humans, we get to celebrate being here every day. And that God, in whatever way we conceive of him, is in each part of this experience whether we label it as happy or not.