Tag: parenting

Cracked Open

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“Never get so busy making a living that you forget to make a life.” – unknown

Yesterday I canceled all my work meetings and stayed home with my toddler who needed one more day of recovery from a cold. It was a hard thing to do. Like generations of parents before me, I found it difficult to put aside all the urgency my own life to support someone else when needed and not according to plan.

It was also the right thing to do. As my dad often said, “If it’s the hard thing to do, it’s probably the right thing to do.”

Sometime in the middle of the day, pinned down with a sleeping kid on my lap, frustrated the illusion of predictability in life being shattered yet again, time slowed enough for me to notice his heart beat. Once I felt that, then tuned in to his breathing and the weight and warmth of him, I was overcome with the sensation of the deepest meditation. That feeling that there is no doubt there is a Universal center that we all belong to and can reach. A sacred place of timelessness and love. The Divine heartbeat.

It never fails to surprise me that beneath my narrative is a rich and deep experience. Like a nut, when I crack open the hard exterior of my perspective, I am always rewarded but the meaty contents within. At the end of the day, my son felt better and I, surprisingly, found myself rested and restored even though not a single thing on my to-do list was done.

(featured image from Pexels)

Naming and Owning

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“The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.” – Ludwig Wittgenstein

I was driving in the car with my kids talking about envy. It oftens happens in our house when one of my kids discovers a toy long hidden and invents a new game for it and the other wants to grab it from their hand. Or, as I heard a child quoted in a sermon once, “Why do I always want what’s in my brother hands?”

In response my 6-year-old daughter asked me, “How do you know so much about feelings?”

The voice in my head, a little exasperated, wanted to reply, “Because you two have so many of them! And guiding you through this minefield of growing up emotionally intelligent has required me to come to terms with my own emotions when I’d prefer just to always to say I’m happy and call it good!”

Dr. Brené Brown, research professor and author, lays the groundwork for mapping human emotions in her book Atlas of the Heart by describing a survey she used in workshops for five years. It asked people to list all the emotions that they could recognize and name as they were experiencing them. The average number named was three: happy, sad and angry.

Many of the parenting books I’ve read about raising resilient children have advised to help children move through situations that we have to help them name their emotions.

 In trying to help my kids identify what it is they are experiencing, I’ve found that I’ve had to name and face my own emotions. In this way I have learned so much nuance about my own interior, sometimes grudgingly, but always resulting in better color and effect in my own life.

So instead of voicing the snappy retort in my head, I responded from that place in my heart that holds love, warmth and awe for the lessons I continue to learn, “Because I love you two so very much that I want to help you grow up so healthy, inside and out.”

Open and Even

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“Be a fountain, not a drain.” – Rex Hurdler

My 6-year-old daughter recently came home from an extended play date and I had no idea who she was. I mean she looked like my daughter but one minute she was super confident and magnanimously sharing the candy sitting on the table with her little brother. But the next minute she was lying on the floor yelling that she couldn’t get ready for bed by herself, even though she’s been doing it for at least two years.

My take away from this episode is that the line between our big space where anything and everything seems possible and our small space where problems loom large is really thin. And the line seems to teeter on proper care and feeding.

If something feels off — as if one of us is in one of those tight parking spaces where we can’t open the doors, we are cursing those parked next to us and it feels like we have to use a can opener just to get out, I’ve learned to check the basics. Is anyone tired, cold, hungry or wet? And yes, I’m talking about my kids but I’m also talking about myself. Have I meditated, exercised and eaten well? If I have, then 90% of the time I’m operating from my big space.

Ten years ago when I started meditating, I had no idea that sitting in silence for ten to twenty minutes a day could change the experience for all the other minutes in a day. But for me it’s like a daily washing of the windows so that I let more light in and my perspective is brighter. It is a parking space I feel so lucky to have gotten, looks out to the most beautiful vista and I want to whoop with delight.

I assume with my daughter that she was exhausted by having the navigate the ground of relationship in an unstructured play with someone her own age. Grown-ups are pretty easy for her because for the most part in play, they generally will give her whatever they want because no one wants to be the jerk who won’t share a doll with a 6-year-old. But it’s a completely different ball game with other kids. And negotiation is exhausting.

It’s precisely because navigating relationships can be exhausting that I come back again and again to self-care. Because I want to be operating from my big space in case I meet someone temporarily parked in their small space.

(featured photo from Pexels)

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)

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!

Wounds or Scars

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“Suffering makes an instrument of each of us, so that standing naked, holes and all, the unseen vitalities can be heard through our simplified lives.” – Mark Nepo

The other day I shook out the blanket that I keep outside for lying on the grass in summer and my son immediately starting looking for the little farmhouse that we usually play with on it. I am fascinated by how quickly my kids make associations. Blanket = Little People farm. A particular cup = hot cocoa. Boots = puddles. Baths = lotion.

But that observation makes me realize how much I do it as well. Fall comes and I think of hot cider. I turn on Grey’s Anatomy and want a glass of wine. When I write I sit in one chair and when I work I sit in another.

It seems to be a way to winnow down our choices so that we don’t have to make as many decisions. But every once in a while a pattern crops up that reminds me of where I stuck. The other day my daughter was carpooling with friends and they asked if there was a particular car she didn’t like. She said BMW’s. And they asked why and she said it was because her mom didn’t like them.

I had to laugh when my carpooling friend told me this story. My daughter and I had been talking about cars and I’d offhandedly said that I didn’t like them because it seemed like the drivers bought them for image. Which is a very unfair broad generalization that I never thought would be repeated. The fact is, my ex-husband bought one to bolster his image and so I created the association. I’ve been over that relationship for some time so I shouldn’t punish BMW drivers forever.

Meditating on this, so many associations came up for me. Many of them are ones that make me smile – places that I walk that remind me of my beloved dog and phrases when I hear them that bring back my dad.

And one that I wasn’t expecting. I miscarried a baby four years ago. When I heard the news, I went to hike a beautiful trail that overlooks Puget Sound. This trail had been my go-to for any time I needed to think. The wind seems to whip whatever is inside me out into the open and the view puts it into perspective.

As I was thinking about associations, I realized that I’ve never been back to that trail since the day I heard the news about my miscarriage. Obviously I went on to have a beautiful son and so I filed the miscarriage away as old news. It isn’t something that I mourn or think of as painful. It just was. But every time I think of hiking that trail, I think “nah” without ever digging deep for the reason.

Life keeps teaching me I can carry around wounds or scars. If I choose wounds, they drain a lot more energy as they try to heal without ever been unpacked. But if I do the work to clean them out and then heal into scars, they just become part of the patchwork quilt that is me.

All of this introspection is a great reminder to me that I can pass things on based on my loves or my losses. And given how easily they clearly stick for my kids, I think it’s time to heal those wounds before any other misguided association gets repeated!

The Courage Not to Quit

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

When my daughter, her friend and I were biking back from school the other day she absolutely refused to walk her bike up a steep hill even though her friend and I were walking our bikes. She would run out of steam, stop and then start trying to ride again in the middle of the hill. I repeatedly coached her “walk your bike.”

Finally she explained she wanted to be a story. “What does that mean?” She replied, “I want to be a story we talk about at the dinner table.”

I assume this hearkens back to the time she bought an ice cream for her brother from the ice cream truck, all by herself, with her own money and without me telling, choose to get one for him too. I blogged about it in The Great Turnaround post. I was proud of her, she was proud of herself and I told many people the story when they came over for tea or dinner.

So I had to explain that for every epic journey, there is always a time that you want to quit. I’ve never climbed a mountain where there wasn’t a place where I totally wanted to quit. Just mentioning this brings back the time on the Mexican volcano, Mt. Ixtacchuatl right after we left high camp at about 14,000 feet.

It was dark, the middle of the night and we were walking on scree – that loose gravel that shifts every time you set your weight on it so that every step was a scramble and rebalancing effort too. We were on the way to the 17,600 foot summit so we had a long way to go and the only thing I could think was that I’d have to contend with this on the way back too. I totally wanted to quit.

And so I told her that’s where the stories come from – because you want to quit and yet you don’t. Whatever you do to get past that section where it’s hard and bleak doesn’t have to be pretty. The epic stories all have a middle section. Otherwise they aren’t very entertaining..

My daughter looked at me as if she wasn’t convinced. And since she’s 6-years-old and has had very little personal struggle in her life, I suspect that she doesn’t yet have a hook to hang that on.

So the next time she had to ride home from school, her friend’s dad ran behind them and pushed them up the hill as they stayed on their bikes and rode. She returned home to me triumphantly and said, “I have my story now!”