“Patience is also a form of action.” Auguste Rodin
Yesterday, I was trying to get Mr. D’s pants on so that he could go to preschool. He was busy sitting on the floor playing with a truck and didn’t want to assist in any way.
When I consider the difference for me being a parent of young kids while I’m in my 50’s versus in my 20’s or 30’s, it’s this scenario with my kids that comes to mind. It’s like a silly sitcom – the same story line that happens every day but with slightly different entrances, exits, and accessories. And the thing that I bring to it as an older parent – a lot more patience. My egoic insistence that I am in charge, have to do it my way, with a rigid order has changed from my younger self.
This reminds me of playing tennis with my dad. When I was in my 20’s, I had loads of energy to run everything down and my tennis skills had got better. I thought I would have no problem beating my dad in his 50’s. But he had patience. He could steadily get all the balls back and not go for the risky winner. Instead, he had the friendliest form of banter/trash talk and he’d wait for the easy winner when I had run myself silly or was out of position.
If Mr. D doesn’t want to put his pants on at that particular moment, I let it go, do something else to get ready. When I circle back in one minute, he’ll usually cooperate with little to no problem. I can easily imagine what I would have done twenty years ago – worn myself ragged trying to either put pants on an uncooperative kid or talked myself blue in the face trying to convince him to cooperate.
Because on the flip side of this is that I don’t have the same high energy that I had 20 years ago so I have to give up the struggles that aren’t worth it. Worrying about what others think or sweating the small stuff like having a tidy house and matching socks has by necessity gone by the wayside because I simply don’t have the capacity to care about it. At the end of these days with young children, I am flat out exhausted. But with a little crafty patience, at least most days, I don’t end up as a sweaty mess.
If patience is my most useful tool as an older parent because I lack the energy of a younger one, then I’d name flexibility as the most predominant skill that parenting has taught me.
My guess is that this applies not only to tennis and parenting but also to most things we apply perspective to as we age. We learn to use a little patience to figure out which battles are worth fighting and which are avoidable skirmishes that our egos and inflexibility set us up for. Then, like my dad playing tennis, we can participate in some friendly banter and even sometimes get an easy winner in when we don’t overreach.
Still reading? I have another post today on creativity and the tools we can use to change our minds on Wise & Shine – Writing In The Dark
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