Parenting, Real and Raw

Hey there, just wanted to share a link from Ann Voskamp.  She's an authoress and has been wildly successful in encouraging others to be thankful.  It is hard to say just what is so compelling about her work, but I believe it is how real she is and how true her words are.

Today, I found this post that she had written about parenting.  I couldn't believe how perfectly she described my rage when I get my "kid buttons" pushed, clear down to the chewing of the lip.  She did leave out the yelling, I do plenty of that along with all the rest.  But as the tears flowed, I felt there was help, even for me in saving my children from myself.

Here's her article with the photos and italics included:

http://www.incourage.me/2014/02/why-the-battle-for-joy-is-really-worth-it.html

And here's the plain version:

Why the Battle for Joy is Worth It

Ann Voskamp

Back then I said I’d never be like him.

I slammed doors to punctuate the point and to make sure my dad knew it.

You can be tall and 15 and think you know a lot of things.

And you don’t think about growing old and looking squishy around the middle and telling teenagers to just turn out the lights.

You don’t think about how you can open your mouth and let the sharp side of your tongue tear the innards out of a soul —- and there’s no way you can stuff the whole bloody mess back.

I don’t know how it happened exactly.

Or maybe the truth rightly stated is — I really don’t want to remember.

How we were late, 35 minutes late, and when I got in the van they were all waiting, all seven of them, waiting and squashed close in a mini-van that’s far too mini for lanky Dutch teenagers and late summer heat and one late mother who can flare into this wide-eyed, wild agoraphobia when facing hours of finger food and paper plates and BBQ small talk with absolute strangers.

It got ugly.

A kid hadn’t ironed his shirt.

Over the course of a whole hour and ten minutes of hunting down socks and doing up hair and scouring for one battered Croc — and telling my jangled it’s-time-to-go-nerves a dozen times that all fear is fraud and nowhere on earth is beyond the reach of God — I had told the boy at least five times that he really did have to iron that shirt.

And then, 35 minutes late, he’s in the van looking like he’s rolled with a bunch of wombats to Timbuktu and back.

Maybe I should have shrugged the shoulders?

Maybe I should have said it didn’t matter, let’s just go? But I had asked him – five times. More like 5.8975 times and in this insistent, your-mama-she-means-business-voice.

So, to a van full of the waiting and the hot and the frustrated, I say no ma’am. No ma’am, we are not going like that. Back into the house and you have. to. iron. that. shirt.

And the kid starts wailing. At mock pitch levels. Like I’d just announced an imminent amputation of a necessary limb or the banning of birthdays.

And every nerve ending in this highly sensitive body is already feeling unraveled and gory and I don’t even want to go to this thing and I feel the iron weight of time and kids and expectations all pressing down on the lung and his howl is jet thunder in the frayed veins.

And I turn hard toward the bawling kid.

“Out.” I’m not proud that I can hiss.

Here’s where it’d be convenient to claim I wasn’t thinking straight, that some tightening screw had somewhere loosened and the side of the thing had fractured and fissured in the loud sound.

But it’s been said and I’ve laid up nights, thinking about it, and it’s true and I say it like this:

No matter the jarring, a jar of fresh water can’t spill filthy water.

When you’re upset, you upset what’s really in you. 

I grab the boy’s arm and lean in close to his face. His wracking sobs are hot and hard in my face.

And I’m gnawing. Gnawing on the side of lip, pulling on my mouth like I’m trying to hold something back, like I’m trying to chew through to something better than this – better than him.

How can you have held the child that came from you as an ember of very heaven and then glare blind angry and stomp him right out? Who can look into a child and forget miracle?

Me — the amnesiac mother who forgets holy all the time.

I lean in and over, gnaw like a wild thing, and the kid pulls back and wracks it out like this haunt — like this high and holy haunt.

“When … you… do… that…” His shoulders heave, chocking back all this heart water right undammed. “When… you… chew… your lip like that?” He wipes his face with the back of his arm. “You … look… just… like… Grandpa Morton.”

And there’s no air in my lungs.

I’ve caved, in a moment everything’s caved.

Like him?

It’s like a flashing supernova, the look in a child’s eyes and there’s a flaring mirror and you see you are everything you’d said you’d never become.

You can become everything that once undid you. I’m right tipped, upset and know who I really am and what really spills, and here is why I’ll never stop being a grace beggar, a wild Cross-clinger.

“Please… Don’t… Do… That…” He can’t stop the heaving of his shoulders, his heart.

I’m undone now — undammed.

How can grace get a hold of you when the past won’t let go of you? How do you leave a legacy different than the one you’ve been left? That’s what I’ve got to gnaw through to. How do [you] mangle the ones you love most?

“Sor…ry… Mama… didn’t… mean… to make you… cry.” And he’s the one who can’t stop.

And I kneel down and let go of his arm. And I hold his face. That’s what I should have done, done right at the beginning. What would happen in a world where anger was your flag to reach out and cup a face?

He looks so scared and wrung and thin — every child’s a thin place.  I see God.

And that’s what comes:

If you don’t fight for joy, it’s your children who lose.

What do I want my children to remember — my joy in clean floors, made beds and ironed shirts — or my joy of the Lord?

You will be most remembered — by what brought you most joy.

The joy of the Lord is your strength and the person of Christ is your unassailable joy – and the battle for joy is nothing less than fighting the good fight of faith.

His cheeks in my palms, they’re so white, so wet.

It’s his eyes — if you’ve put the fear of yourself into a child, how is there room for the joy of the Lord? Joy isn’t an optional feature to the Christian life — it’s the vital feature of the Christian life.

Battle for joy or lose your life. Or other’s lose theirs.

And I whisper sorry. I tell the boy I know nothing yet, nothing.

Every ungracious moment means someone doesn’t understand grace.

And the boy crumbles into me and I hold onto him and a forgiveness I’ll never deserve and there’s a grace that can hold us, that can mold us, the way joy can bend you soft at all the joints.

And I murmur it into the thick of his hair, that even now He can still make us like Him.

The boy touches my cheek like a flag waving yes.

The New Toothless

Our third child experienced a first: losing his first tooth.  Sometimes, when a first happens for the third time, it isn't as new or exciting, and I have to pep up the enthusiasm for it.

Not so losing teeth!

We have been enjoying the cute evenness of Aidan's baby teeth, as we are surrounded by huge honkers and big gaps on the other two.  But true to our weird family, his bottom two adult teeth showed up behind the babies.  And not too long after, the babies started to come loose.  We quickly prepped by sewing him a "tooth pillow" and it was none too soon.  It came out the next day.

Aidan's story is a little... odd.  The routine runs thiswise:  The tooth fairy grants your wish on the fist tooth, then gives a dollar for all teeth following.  In the past, I have suggested that the kiddo write a private note to the tooth fairy with their wish on it.  True to form, we forgot to take care of it and Aidan woke up the next morning without a visit from the tooth fairy.  Luckily, it was Saturday morning and he was more interested in his computer time and forgot about it too.  So Shane snuck in his room and retrieved the note.  And this is what he showed me:

What do you DO with THIS????  No biggie, Mom, just a simple request to make all my dreams come true.  HA!  Shane reaches for his wallet and says, how about a $5?  In the end, Shane used a trip to town to snag a nano bug (look it up) and we stuck that in Aidan's tooth pillow pocket.  Later, after the booty had been found, we hear this conversation between Aidan and Julia where she gives him an education.

Julia: What did you wish, Aidan?

Aidan: I wanted the tooth fairy to make the things I dream about at night to happen in real life!  I have really cool dreams and I want them to come true!

Julia:  Oh, that's too big of a wish for the tooth fairy! (She had wished for a horse on her first tooth.)  You have to wish a tooth-sized wish!

So, Aidan was happy with his nano, and he played with it for awhile.  Later in the day, they got their allowance.  It was kind of a lot, since I had skipped a few weeks.  With his wad of cash in hand, he ran into his room, and ran out again telling me: I gave the tooth fairy two dollars, Mom!  She is so nice that I wanted to tell her thank-you and I hope she will accept it! (italics, mine)

What in the WORLD am I to do with this kid?  With a kicker line like that, how can I not take that money out of the pocket?  So I did, but I think I'll just smuggle it back into his wallet.  I certainly don't want it!  =)  Any ideas?  Maybe a note from the tooth fairy?  

I should have just stuck to a simple quarter per tooth.  I could have made sure it was a state or national park quarter, since they are collecting those.  KISS!  (keep it simple, stupid)

Adoption

I recently found out about some friends of ours beginning the journey of adoption.  And it's made me think about the subject once again, in all it's sweetness.  Be warned, I'm not well versed in adoption and the common faux pas that people say on the topic.  I'm a little worried about ignorantly saying something stupid.  So if you read on, please read with a measure of grace in your heart for me.

Growing up, we knew a few families that adopted children.  It was always a positive experience as an on-looker, although never easy because child-rearing simply isn't easy.  With one family, I got to meet each little girl the day they came to their new home, watch them become part of their new family and even attend their adoption ceremony at the courthouse with family, friends and workers present.  For those of you who know Paul Boyd, it was special to see him shed tears of joy at the ceremony and then speak often of adoption in gospel meeting.  Those little girls would just beam with joy, tapping their parents and whispering, "I'm adopted!"  It was a good kind of special, with good associations.

We have some dear friends that adopted their first child from Korea.  It was beautiful to watch them all take to each other so naturally and lovingly.  Both sides of the extended families were so eager to welcome the little guy and shower him with "grandparent-ly" enthusiasm and love.

I have some neighbors, with two boys biologically, that are doing "foster-to-adopt" and it's been a difficult road for them.  It's clear to me that they feel guided by a larger Will than their own in the step of adoption.  It's a daily act fraught with pain and heartache because of the uncertainty and children coming and going, but they are so motivated by the needs of children and their desire to share a loving family.  It's inspiring!

I had wished to adopt, but in the early married years, it wasn't a shared dream.  Now that we exceeded our capacity of two children, adopting is something that I have to wrap up and put on the shelf.  But I have little dreams of foster care that I'm saving for future days, if possible!  And someday, maybe I can be a Grandma to children born in the heart, as well as under it.

And now, more dear friends from back in the "single days"  have decided to adopt.  They have two bio daughters who are ready to open their hearts and home to make more family.   I can think of three other families I know who have adopted, one started with adoption, the other finished with adoption and the third only adopted.  I love how each adoption story, each journey is so unique yet motivated by the similar things: the desire to share in a family, and the needs of the children themselves.

Although I realize adoption is not exclusively a spiritual decision, I do enjoy thinking of it in that light.  That God wanted a family, so He adopted us.  That God loves us in our need, and gives us gifts beyond compare.  That He even sees us as worthy of adoption, we who are so much less than He.  Like marriage can be a type of Christ and the church, natural adoption is a type of us being spiritually adopted in the family of God.  I'm thankful God adopted me, and I'm thankful for those who show this great gift to children in this world.

An Accidental Parenting Technique

A few weeks ago, I stumbled upon a way to handle sibling fights that seems to work!  I've been talking to my sisters about it, and now I keep hearing what a great idea it is.  And I think to myself, "Oh yeah! I need to remember to keep doing this!"

One weekend, two kids came up to me crying and talking over each other about how they had been wronged.  I turned and looked at them, and decided to just keep listening to them until they had nothing left to say.  After a few minutes of talking, they both fell silent, waiting to see what I would do.  I felt calm.  I had decided ahead of time that because of all the screaming and yelling, they would both hang the wet laundry.  So I made a remark like "Thank-you for telling me."  Then I told them that because of the yelling and upset in the house, they needed to go hang the laundry.  And off they went!

Not a tear, not a complaint, they just headed out and hung up the laundry.  I was flummoxed, I can tell you!  I expected at least some little complaint about doing a chore.  But they just went and did it.  So I've talked to sisters and thought about why this happened because I'd like to understand what is at work here.  One sister suggested that it felt good to the kids to be "heard".  And that just being heard can alleviate frustration.  Another sisters suggested that it felt fair to the kids not to have me make a judgement "against" one or the other.  And I wonder if me being calm and not getting angry and trying to sort it all out keeps them from feeling so angry.

Whatever it is, I'm glad I told my sisters about it.  Now they can help keep me accountable by asking how that technique continues to work for me. =)

This may be somewhat "love and logic-y" although I haven't been a devoted scholar so can't claim to be using their methods exactly.  But I have read one of the books and like the idea of separating oneself from parents giving out consequences to more of empathizing with the kid as they experience negative repercussions of their choices.  And I do like the love and logic method very much, just haven't been terribly conscientious about following it.

Parental Button-Pushing Technique

"Now my dears," said old Mrs. Rabbit.  "...(inhales to speak, children moan and groan)

I have been using this Peter Rabbit phrase often, and my kids are sick of it.  I say everything with this phrase at the beginning, including the "said old Mrs. Rabbit" part.

"'Now my dears,' said old Mrs. Rabbit":
"It is time to fold the laundry."
"I want you to pick up your room."
"Put on your shoes and get in the car."
"Please pass the hot cereal."
Et cetera.  You get the drift, so do they and it drives them crazy!

I love having a way to irritate my kids if need be.  =)

I will leave you with a little poem that I am not sure whom to credit.  But it fits well with this great post about rearing children with love, patience and respect.

Speak roughly to your little boy,

And beat him when he sneezes.

He only does it to annoy,

Because he knows it teases!