Busy

Busy.  The one-word answer to so many questions I get asked anymore.  

“How are you?”

“How are the kids?”

“How’s your hubby?”

“How was your weekend?”

“What does your week look like?”

The answer is always the same.  Busy.  How did we end up here?  Why are we always so busy?  I’ve made excuses for it for years, saying that it is because there are so many of us…of course we’re busy!  How could we not be as we try to juggle 7 different schedules?!?!?  And yet, something about that excuse doesn’t resonate well with me.  I think there is another answer.

We are busy because our world tells us we should be.  Everyone around us is busy doing this, running there…just busy.  Your kids will fall behind if they aren’t involved in activities by age five.  If they ever want to excel at an activity, they must do it, and do it big.  And early.  They should be on traveling teams, and they certainly should plan to play several sports in school, too.  They should go to camps, and clinics, and trainings.  They should go to organized workouts and they should have a trainer.  They should have private lessons and tutors and coaches for everything from piano to academics.  They should have voice coaches and acting coaches and music teachers.  They should have a staff, for crying out loud!  They are sure to miss out if they don’t.  

But, I have to wonder, have any of us stopped to ask the question, miss out on what?!?!?  What are our children going to miss out on if we buck this system and just say no?   What happens if we raise our children to believe there is more to life than being on the team, more to life than nailing the audition, more to life than being “the best?”  Because, have any of us ever stopped to think about the fact that we cannot ALL raise “the best?”  You see, the world of average has become a myth.  None of us want our child to be average, and so we have erased average.  We tell ALL our children they are the best, and if they aren’t, then they feel like the worst, but there is no middle.  No average.  We push our children’s teachers to award grades that they really didn’t earn because we ALL want 4.0 students.  We ALL want valedictorians and class presidents and all-star athletes.  We expect our children to be handed things, whether they deserve those things or not, because we just KNOW they will miss out if they are not.  But, still, the question remains, miss out on what?

The truth is, according to the NCAA, about 2% of high school athletes will be offered a college scholarship to play sports.  2%.  TWO percent.  That means, if a high school class of 250 has about 100 students playing high school sports across all possible sports, 2 will actually be offered a scholarship.  Two.  Is this what we think they will miss out on?  A 1 in 50 chance of being offered an athletic scholarship???  And, let’s just assume your child really IS the best, and they are 1 in 50 and are offered a college scholarship. What then?  They play college sports, risking injury that they will deal with for a lifetime, and when their four or five years are up, they have a college degree.  Just like many of their classmates who did not receive a scholarship offer.  Maybe or maybe not with less debt, but still…is this really the thing that we covet for our children?  Surely most of us don’t operate under an illusion that our children will end up being professional athletes, because those numbers are laughable, really.  Because of those two athletes that were offered a scholarship, less than one half of one of them have any chance of being drafted professionally.  I’m taking that one off the table as a possible reason for this insanity because I just have to believe we are all a little more realistic than that.

So, assuming our motivating factor is not an expectation that our child will become a professional athlete, or even that he/she will go to college on an athletic scholarship, what’s left?  What are we pushing so hard for?  Why do we think this rabid pace we push ourselves and our children at is a good thing?  What are we so afraid they will miss out on?

I have to wonder if it isn’t a combination of things really….some are wholly focused on recreating their own high school experience.  Many more are wholly focused on creating a DIFFERENT reality for their children than they themselves experienced, even if genetics suggest that if you were not a high school athlete, it is likely your child does not have the genetic makeup for that, either.  And still others are just caught up in the current.  Caught up in thinking that if everyone else is doing it, it must be the right thing to do, right?  I mean, that many people just can’t be wrong, can they?

And so it goes.  We continue to live our lives on this treadmill that seems to go faster and steeper and longer and higher every day.  We become obsessed with what we aren’t doing for our children that we should be doing.  What are we missing?  What more is there?  We obsess and we discuss and we plan.  We center our calendars, our schedules, our lives around our children’s activities and we think we are doing the right thing.  At the end of the day, though, I think we are wrong.  I think when we send the message to our children that their activities are worthy of centering our lives around, we elevate those activities to an importance that they should never have.  We tell our children, without any words, that their achievements hold more value than the substance of their character.  We place expectations on our children that they can never live up to and we leave them feeling incompetent, unworthy, and less than.  And when they don’t make the team, they don’t get the part, they don’t win the competition, they don’t get an A, they believe they have failed.  But really, it is we who have failed.  We have failed to do the one job that really should not be negotiable for any parent.  The job of raising our children to BE who God intended them to be.  The job of teaching our children that their value, their worth comes from the work they do to grow God’s kingdom.  The job of teaching our children that being given something you do not deserve simply because your parents travel in the right social circles or because it has been purchased for you through the right camp attendance or the private coach sessions does not make you a better person.  But standing up for what you know is right, standing up for those who cannot stand up for themselves, and being a shining light for Christ does.  That, my friends, is what we need to do…we need to BE that for our children.  Stand up for ourselves, stand up for our children, and BE a shining light for Christ as we make choices for our families and choices for our children that do not succumb to the pressures of this world, but that are driven by the direction of the One who knows what we really need.  It won’t be easy.  It won’t be something we can accomplish overnight, but I believe we can do it.  One family at a time, we can jump off the treadmill.  We can take back our lives.  And we can let our children know that being a winner does not matter.  Because it doesn’t.  But being a leader, a beacon, a light…that is everything.   In our house, we have worked hard to teach our children that the content of their character is what matters to us most, but we have fallen into many traps of over-scheduling and over-doing, and my prayer today is that those traps we have fallen into have not, and will not, overpower the message we have tried to send.  We believe in the worth of each of our children as a child of God above all else, and we need to work to mold our actions, our calendars, our priorities to match that belief.  Because at the end of the day, I have always said, and I truly believe, I am not raising Olympic athletes or Rhodes scholars.  I am raising human beings.  And if I do nothing else right in this world, I want to raise human beings who see ALL others as human beings worthy of love, respect, and honor.  That is all.

Love is Funny

Love is a funny thing.  We long for it from the moment we are born.  At first, our longing is a matter of survival.  Or so it seems.  However, according to the Early Childhood Department at the University of Washington, babies are born with a desire to feel “wanted, warm, and safe from harm”.  Well, duh!?!  Isn’t that what we all want??? 

So much of what we do is really based in this longing that each of us is born with.  We want to be wanted…what was that Cheap Trick song? 

                I want you to want me. 

                I need you to need me.

                 I’d love you to love me. 

                I’m begging you to beg me. 

                                Courtesy of LyricsFreak.com

And, so it goes.  We go through life looking for someone to love us.  First, our parents.  And hopefully our siblings.  And then some friends.  And maybe a boyfriend or girlfriend.  Someday a spouse.  We just want them to love us.  But what happens when they don’t?  What happens to us when we aren’t shown love?  Where does that leave us?

I’ve had several opportunities this week to ponder these questions as I’ve watched people react in various situations, watch their interactions, reflected on my own interactions with others, and I’ve wondered.  What makes some people find ways to cope and move forward and continue seeking love, and what causes some people to become withdrawn and bitter and choose instead to manipulate and attack others, still deep-down desiring to be loved, but choosing to spoil the possibility before it can be taken away from them?

If you know me well, you probably know that I didn’t have a Norman Rockwell childhood.  Oh, it appeared that way to outsiders, but that was by design.  What went on when no outsiders were around was unpleasant at best, and downright awful at times.  I have spent much of my adult life wondering what caused things to be the way that they were…what thing happened to individuals to cause them to react the way that they did.  To make the choices they made.  The truth is, it doesn’t truly matter what it is that happened at some point in history because we all have a choice to make.  We can choose to let our past color our future.  And if our past is good, that is a good thing.  Or, we can choose a new future.  We can choose to be different.  To blaze a new trail.  To do better.  Or at least the best we can.

I chose the latter…I chose to do the best I could.  I chose to love with all of me, hoping for that love to be returned, and I have been blessed by love.  I have a wonderful husband who loves me unconditionally.  Sometimes he’s not so nice.  But sometimes neither am I.  At the end of the day, though, we still love each other fiercely.  And that love has blessed us with these five pieces of our hearts that walk around living and breathing and being…loving our children and being loved by them in return is truly life’s greatest gift.   I may not have had a perfect model of love in my home as a child, but I was blessed with the knowledge that I DID have a perfect model of love in my God, and for that I will forever be grateful.

So, on to my crazy observations of those around me…I had the strangest, almost out-of-body experience this weekend when I met my father’s girlfriend.  It still seems crazy weird to even say those three words together.   But she was here.  In my house.  I met her.  I talked to her.  I hugged her.  I cried with her.  She is real, and so is this thing that is happening that is almost surreal to me.  My father has found love.  The kind of love we all long for.  The kind of love where when you see someone, your face lights up.  The kind of love where the second you leave each other, you start to miss one another.  The kind of love that causes you to seek out ways to take care of the other person because they truly are an extension of you.  And it is awesome.  My father had one of those challenging childhoods.  He reacted by becoming a caretaker.  He took care and he took care and he took care until I worried it would kill him.  He long ago gave up truly being loved and accepted that it wasn’t for him.  And then, God opened a door so wide for him that he would have had to run the other direction not to walk through it, and so here he is.  He is in love.  He is happy.   He is wanted, warm, and safe from harm.  And that safe from harm part is the one that chokes me up.  Because I have worried.   Oh, have I worried about him.  I have wanted him to be well, to be happy, to be content…but he hasn’t been. 

A few months ago, though, I saw a change in my dad.  I saw him light up when he talked about her.  I saw him want to tell me about her, and about her life and her home and what she said.  I saw peace, because he found the one who will love him.  So, even though this love will take him far from us as he makes a move to be closer to her, I feel such joy that I could do nothing more than thank her when I met her.  Thank her for loving my dad, for giving him his safe place, his place to be wanted.  Because when you have that yourself, you want nothing less than that for those you love.  I have prayed for that for him.  She truly was an answer to a prayer and so to God, I say, thank you, thank you, thank you because THIS is a very good thing.

University of Washington Department of Early Childhood, The first relationship: parent-infant attachment is key to child’s development,  http://www.washington.edu/earlychildhood/articles/the-first-relationship-parent-infant-attachment-is-key-to-child2019s-development

My Thanksgiving Resolution

As Thanksgiving Day winds down and I find myself a little bit comatose due to eating too much and sleeping too little for the past couple of days, I can’t help but think of all I have to be thankful for.  Sometimes I just have to stop and wonder how I can ever find anything at all to grumble about!?!?  I mean, seriously!?!?  How can someone with the amazing bounty of blessings I have been given ever take any of that for granted and instead choose to complain about some petty irritation I choose to focus on?

As a mom, I spend the majority of my energy focused on doing what I can to help my children grow into responsible, caring, compassionate young adults who go out into the world with a heart for serving others, for giving to others in return for the amazing blessings they have been given, and for experiencing this life God gave them to its fullest.  I have been blessed to watch them begin to learn to do just that, and it brings me joy I cannot begin to describe, but it doesn’t happen without a cost.

As I spent time this week preparing for Thanksgiving, and time today finalizing preparations and saying prayers of gratitude for all our family has been blessed with.  I kept thinking about how sad I am that my Megan isn’t here with us this year.  I kept feeling bad that our children would be spending their first Thanksgiving ever not all together, and feeling sorry for myself that I wouldn’t have them all under the same roof on this day of saying thank you.  And then, I realized how ridiculous that is and I straightened myself out right then and there!

You see, Megan is doing just what I prayed for her to be able to do…she is out there experiencing this life God has given her to its fullest.  She has taken the gifts God blessed her with and she has worked to develop them and grow them and use them to take her places she never would have gone otherwise.  She has used her gifts of caring and compassion and she has developed friendships with amazing kids from all over the world.  In fact, as I write this, she is celebrating Thanksgiving in Greenwich, CT with a friend she has made at college and I couldn’t be more thankful that she and Emma are such good friends or that Emma’s family has so warmly welcomed Megan to join their family to celebrate Thanksgiving.  I couldn’t be more thankful that my daughter is out there, living life, experiencing life, and sharing God’s love with people she never would have met if she hadn’t been so willing to trust God to lead her where He would have her go.

I also see these same wonderful qualities in my Kate.  She has grown into an amazing young woman who has embraced every challenge placed in front of her and has worked hard (harder than I can even believe sometimes) to grow stronger and develop her skills and abilities to the fullest so she can experience this life.  She is strong and confident and willing to put herself out there.  She is learning WHO she is and that she can stand firm in that, no matter what choices those around her make.  She feels outrage at social injustices and feels driven to try to make things better for others.  I have no doubt that she, too, will seek God’s will for her life and will follow the path He lays for her, wherever that may take her.

And Jake.  My Jake who has been so quiet and reserved for so long and has begun to find his voice.  My Jake who is becoming strong and confident, knowing who he is, and who God designed him to be.  I have loved watching him grow and mature and seeing him step out of his comfort zone and begin to follow his own dreams and seek out the path God has in store for him, as well.  My Jake who understands so much and sees so much and who has a seemingly unending compassion for others and who has a quiet determination to stand firm in who he is, regardless of who everyone else around him chooses to be.  There is no part of me that isn’t certain that Jake is going to do amazing things, wherever his blessings take him in life.

My Nick and Emma are still so young, but I have begun to see these qualities in them, too.  I have begun to see them grow and mature and be more certain of what they believe and who they are.  I see them making quality choices in friends and finding groups and activities to join that match their talents, and learning how to be quality teammates who support the group as a whole and work for the good of all, regardless of what might be best for them personally and I am so grateful for this. 

 

As I stop to think about the amazing blessings I have been given as a result of the great gift of being a mother to these wonderful children, and the amazing life I have been blessed to share with my husband, who is also my friend (and who could ask for a better blessing than that…spending your life with your best friend?  With someone you can talk to about anything and who is your greatest cheerleader and supporter?  With someone who believes in you, even when you don’t believe in you?), I can’t imagine that there could ever be ANYTHING to complain about! 

 

And so, I am about to begin a NEW tradition for me…rather than making New Year’s resolutions, I am going to make just ONE Thanksgiving resolution.  I resolve to focus my energy and attention on noticing all I have to be thankful for, not just today and not just a year from now when Thanksgiving rolls around again, but EVERY day that I am blessed to wake up and begin a new day.  And I don’t mean a Facebook post every day in November that finds something new to say thank you for.  I mean a REAL choice to focus on having a thankful heart.  I mean waking up every day and making time to set my mind on all I have been blessed with, in hopes that by choosing to pay attention to that, I can choose to let the petty complaints of day-to-day life go, to know that sometimes these blessings of mine will also bring me heartache as their desire to embrace God’s plan for their life may take them far from home for a season or more.  Maybe instead I can choose to see this life through the eyes I hope my children see it through…something to be grateful for and to experience fully.  It’s worth a try, right? :)

What’s Your Plan?

This is a question I ask as a teacher every day.  I ask my preschoolers to tell me what they are planning to do, how they plan to do it, what they will need in order to do it, and then to let me know if they change their plan so we can talk through their NEW plan.  Why do I do this, you ask?  Because, in my opinion, this is a skill that will be invaluable to them in their lives.  In order to find joy in life, they will need to have a goal and the ability to think through the process to determine what they will need to accomplish that goal.  They will also need to have the ability to make a new plan when things don’t work out the way they thought they would.  And they need to know that is okay.  In fact, they need to know that is more than okay!  They need to know that we all try and fail sometimes.  And when we do, we need to pick ourselves up and make a new plan.

I observed several things this week that made me wonder if this is a skill we could all use some work on.  As we go through life as a parent, do we have a plan?  What do we envision as the goal?  What are our hopes, our dreams, for our children?  And I don’t mean what college we hope they get into, what degree we hope they attain, what profession we hope they enter.  Those should not be our dreams…those dreams are for them.  Our hopes and dreams for our children should focus on WHO they will be.  What qualities do we hope they develop, what values, what traits?  Do we have a plan for that?  Do we know what our goal is?  Do we know what we need to do to get there?  Because if we don’t, then we can’t ever hope to reach that goal.

The good news is we don’t have to come up with the plan all by ourselves.  God laid it all out so clearly for us.  We know WHO God wants us to be, who God wants our children to be.  We read in Galatians 5:22-23 “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.”  There it is.  That is what we want.  We want our children to love (and be loved), to feel joy (and bring joy to others), to feel peace (and be peaceful), to be tolerant (and tolerable), to show kindness (and be shown kindness in return), to do good to others, to be faithful (to their God and to those around them), to be gentle, and to show self-control.  What more is there?  Those qualities are the hallmarks of a full life, and I can’t imagine anything better for my children.  So, how do we get there?  We embody those qualities in our own lives.  We show our children love (and show them how we love others).  We bring joy to others and we find joy in our lives.  Every day.  Because it’s there, I promise!   We live our lives peacefully, not searching for conflict and dissent, but seeking peace for ourselves and those around us.  We exhibit tolerance.  For those who are not like us, for those who are, for strangers, and for those we love.  We choose NOT to judge others.  We are kind.  Just kind.  Every day.  We do good…not just when we feel like it, but ALL the time.  We seek ways to be GOOD to others.  We are faithful followers of God, faithful wives to our husbands, husbands to our wives (and I mean so much more than fidelity…I mean are we FAITHFUL???  Do we put our faith in them?), faithful moms and dads (do we BELIEVE in our children’s potential?  Not their potential to perform, but their potential to BE?), faithful friends, faithful stewards of the gifts we have been given???  We are gentle, always.  And we show self-control.  When we do these things, we will have everything we need to make our plan work right there in our hands.

You see, I believe that parenting isn’t a reactive sport.  We can’t go through our days simply reacting to what is thrown at us.  We can’t make decisions based on the circumstances of the moment.  When we do, our destination is clouded.  It would be like doing a dot-to-dot with no numbers.  The random decisions connect, but the picture at the end looks nothing like we had hoped.  We must be INTENTIONAL in our decisions as parents.  We must keep our eyes on the prize, so to speak, so we know where we are headed and we must make decisions that move us along that path.  Doing that in the moment is daunting.  It can even be overwhelming.  But that is where the plan comes into play.  If we HAVE a plan, we can make our decisions, make our choices, we can PARENT according to that plan, and that takes the burden of having to make those day-to-day decisions away.  We can relax, and just do it.

And sometimes, we will fail.  Sometimes we will get it wrong.  We will mess it up, we will make a bad choice, use words we shouldn’t have used.  But it will be okay.  Because we will pick ourselves up, and we will find a new way to reach our goal.  And we will remember that the choices we make as we parent, the things we say to our kids matter, but they matter so much less than WHO we are.  Whatever else we try to do as parents, our children will be influenced a million times more by who they see us being in our day-to-day lives.  If we are the mean girls, they will be the mean girls.  If we are the bullies, they will be the bullies.  If we are negative and critical, they will be negative and critical.  So the first and most important part of our plan must be to BE who we hope our children will become.  If we get that part right, then the rest is all gravy.  And that is a very, very good thing.