True Confessions of an Imperfect Parent

If you are a parent, or if you have ever been a child, then you know for certain that in a family of more than one kid, it's inherently wrong to pick favorites.  You are NEVER EVER allowed to say: "Billy, you're my favorite kid." - especially if your other child is standing next to Billy.

I know, I know, sometimes you have a child who is an absolute delight all the time, sickeningly sweet in demeanor, always being helpful and making you feel like you are the best parent in the world.  But you just don't pick favorites.  It's wrong.  It's cruel. 

However, I have an admission.  A confession.  I'm gonna say something that parents should never, ever say.

One of my children is my least favorite.  I even have moments (sometimes hours) where I feel like I don't even like this child.  (And I am rightfully embarrassed about this.)

It's awful, I know.  A mother's love should be unending and unquenchable.  We've all heard the phrase:  a face that only a mother could love...  So what does that mean?  Could it mean that I should be full of love, cuddles and syrupy-sweet goodwill towards my child even at the worst of times?

Sorry.  It just doesn't work that way.

Somehow, this child (whom I will not identify) has the ability to reduce me to tears with only a few words.  Their stubbornness and effluent attitude melts my patience like a snowflake melts when it lands on an open flame.  I have found myself at wit's end more often than not due to this child's amazing ability to push all of my buttons, excessively and repetitively until I feel literally broken and totally inadequate as a mother.  I am not exaggerating.

Yes, deep within my heart, and on the good days, I really love this child. 

But it is so stinkin' hard sometimes.

So what do we do with a close relationship that seems to be all bumps and jagged edges?

What do you do when someone you are supposed to love has an amazing ability to rub you the wrong way?

What do you do when you're supposed to be the grown-up, the example, the leader... and you keep on making mistakes, saying the wrong thing and over-reacting?

Pull them closer.

Yep... you heard me.  As much as you want to run away... instead, when you are in a difficult spot with a loved one and you feel like you just don't get it and you can't make it work... the best thing you can do is pull them into your embrace (figuratively and maybe even literally).

Now, I can't exactly take credit for this advice - I don't remember where I heard it though, and I've adapted it to my own situation.  So I'll paraphrase and try to explain what I mean and what I've experienced with this "special" child of mine.

When my child doesn't respond or react the way that I want, to the things I say, I feel threatened.  That's the bottom line.  I end up feeling a loss of control both of my emotions and of my child.  Unfortunately, when I'm losing control,  this child reacts to my emotions and has a way of escalating the situation. 

Certainly we are clashing due to personality differences, due to circumstances and personal stress (mine and theirs) but life will always provide reasons (excuses) for blame in a difficult relationship.  It doesn't mean that the end result should be frustration, hurt and separation.  Believe me, I WANT to run away.  I'd rather give myself a 'Mommy-time-out' and disengage myself from the conflict.  Yet, my child deserves more.  And I hope for so much more in our relationship.  Instead of leaving, instead of shutting the door to my heart emotionally, I'm learning to draw this child close - to seek out points of connection and closeness even though the conflict seems to trump a lot of our days.

So how do I cope?  Well, I'd like to say that I have learned to instantly recognize when I'm becoming too emotional and acting like a child and losing control.  However, I'm not there yet.

My strategy is three-fold. 

First, I stabilize the situation.  If that means that I have to stop the conversation... (even to the point of putting down the school book that only has half a question answered so far, despite all of my encouraging and prodding...) I will let it go - even if just for the moment, and sometimes for the rest of the day.

This is similar to the idea of "picking your battles".  Sometimes I know that I will not be able to handle the situation well, so we just end that situation while our emotions are heated.  We can always come back to it later.   The schoolwork can wait.  My child's heart is not worth being trampled upon because I don't know how to respond without being emotionally stirred.

The second part is the "pulling closer" part.  That could mean that once you've shut down the situation, you immediately connect physically with your child (or significant other, if that is the person with whom you're having conflict).  Or... if this doesn't seem feasable, then plan a way to connect later that day.  Do something special together.  Read a book, have a cup of tea, share a cookie.  Just find a place of loving connectedness.  Re-engage in a way that doesn't feel stressful.  (Now is not the time to bring up the issue of conflict!)

Lastly: try, try again.  Could you have approached the situation from a different angle?  Or, if it was clearly one-sided (and it rarely is....) then could you just get yourself to a place of peace where you don't react wrongly?  Obviously when it comes to dealing with kids, I can't just expect them to act like mature human beings all the time.  They are going to respond childishly.  I do have to be the "better man" and choose to be more patient, loving and kind than I feel that their actions deserve.  That is my responsibility as a parent.  And if I'm dealing with an adult - whether friend, spouse or stranger - that is being difficult, I want to learn to be gracious.  I desire to be a peacemaker - even when it is challenging.  It's not easy, though.

On easy days & hard days: Pull Them Close!

Okay, so I've admitted my weakness here.  I'm not the perfect parent who deals graciously with my kids at all times.  I screw up.  I get emotional.  At times I feel broken and sorely lacking in my relational skills.  But there is hope.  There is even forgiveness.  And I really believe that the key is connectedness.  Don't let the angry moments overshadow and quench the moments of kindness and closeness.  Fight for the connection.  Though I may feel wounded, I will push past my bruised ego that wrongly says "I'm the mom, so I always need to be seen as right". 

Life is a journey.  I'm set on learning, growth and change.  Even though there are the "bad days", and on those days, I may not feel as though I "like" my child(ren),  I will always love my children and I'll keep on trying.


Oh, and for the record, it isn't ALWAYS terrible with this child.  We have some great moments, too.  (But, I am looking forward to the season when we can relate better... probably when they and I have grown up a little more!)

A no-good-very-bad-horrible morning... and how I survived.

Splashing boiling oatmeal on myself at 11 AM this morning was a pivotal moment in my day.  As I frantically wiped the sticky goo off of my chest, I knew that something had to happen or I would be the one erupting and sending boiling blobs of angry words at my kids if they got too close.

If you rewind my day by a few hours, you can understand why I got up on the wrong side of the bed.  The reason, in fact, had much to do with the fact that my two little boys snuck into my room, well before our usual "wake-up" time, and began to climb on me - all knees and elbows - when I felt like I'd much rather hit the "snooze" button.  At first, I tried to cherish the moment - and enjoy their snuggles and stories, but the horror of my day became very obvious when the 3 year old began pushing the 5 year old away from his comfy spot next to Mommy, and the fighting and whining began. Clearly, they were both up too early and had not clocked enough hours of sleep to function without continual, incessant whining.

Onward to my day, I thought, as I opened a new package of coffee beans to grind them. "Drat!" I whispered out-loud to myself.  Going against my better instincts, I had bought that "new" brand of beans because of the attractive price tag on the grocery-store shelf.  They lacked the sheen and glimmer that I had grown used to with my gourmet coffee beans, and even the aroma told me that they were going to be a far cry from my usual brew.

Meanwhile, other children stirred, awoke and started to feed like hogs at a trough as they gobbled apples and homemade buns and begged for more and more food. 

I attempted to start my day right.  With the less-than-lovely coffee in my favorite mug, I sank onto the couch and wrapped myself in a blanket and opened up my Bible.  Even my designated passage for the day seemed to lack encouragement and the zest and inspiration that a mother needs to face half-a-dozen children, a sink full of dishes and multitudes of "to do's" on the homeschooling agenda.  I was still stuck in the Old Testament, reading about kings and their nation who had turned from God and were sunk deep in the clutches of sin - worshiping idols, living lives of harlotry and murdering people until you couldn't walk down the street without tripping across a rotting corpse.  May the Lord bless the reading of His Word...  (Disclaimer: I LOVE the Word of God.  I just found it ironic that my passage for today was almost entirely about the wicked deeds of those who had turned away from serving the Lord.)

Once breakfast was over, I instructed the children to take care of their daily scheduled chores, namely to clean up the disaster state that the kitchen was in, including that mess of their first feeding of the day.  I went into my room, intending to tackle some of the more neglected areas - my enormous bathroom mirror, counter top... the toilet!  I also stripped the cookie and banana soiled sheets off my bed (thanks to my youngest child) and I even vacuumed my floor!  Hooray! Progress!

Not so fast... of course the children needed step-by-step instruction and prodding to complete their own cleaning jobs!  I came into the kitchen to find it still looking like a complete disaster!  I barked out some orders and began to wipe down the kitchen counter and toss dirty dishes in the sink.  Then I remembered that I had been so busy, I hadn't yet eaten any breakfast.  I measured oatmeal and water into a small pot, turned on the stove and returned to my room to quickly finish my tidying.  Only... what did I find?  There was Ezra, a trail of crumbs leading to him all the way from the doorway to the place where he sat, crumbs spilling all over the mattress and even sprinkled in the basket of laundry that was sitting on the bed next to him!

"Ezzzrrraa!" I shrieked.  "No food in Mommy's room!"  I sent him to the kitchen to eat, and I turned the vacuum back on and proceeded to clean up the mess on my bed and previously clean carpet.

Then I went back to the kitchen, where I immediately smelled burning oatmeal!  "Ahhhh!! My oatmeal!" I grabbed the pot, splashing the molten goo upon myself (Remember?) while I poured what wasn't burnt into another pot, and dropped the scummy, burnt-on-oatmeal pot into the sink to soak.

It was just 11 am, but I felt like I had experienced entire week's worth of whining, fighting, mess-making and misbehaving. 

Somehow I slogged my way through a minimal amount of schoolwork for the day and made the kids some lunch.  I fired off a prayer to God, asking for patience, but I continued to feel horribly overwhelmed and ill-equipped to handle my kids.

With nap time on the horizon, I relinquished control and told the kids to either play downstairs or in their rooms, and I plopped my 3 year old on my bed in front of his favorite cartoon so I could hopefully procure just a few moments of peace.  I locked my door and shut myself into the bathroom.

I wish I could tell you that I had some sort of epiphany that suddenly changed my perspective and made sense of my day.

I felt like laying on the floor, covering my head with a towel and crying or swearing or maybe I would just close my eyes and try not to think anymore as everything within me wanted to give up.

Instead, I took a look in the mirror and realized that I should take a shower.  A long, steamy, potentially relaxing shower - ALONE.  So I did.  And miraculously, no-one was whining at me, and there were no messes being made inside that lovely-lonely shower stall.

Finally, I was feeling a little bit less stressed, and definitely a lot cleaner.  I shut off the water, and took my time - didn't rush out of the room to take care of the kids because, from what I could hear, they were just playing and no one was in a state of emergency.  I took the time to put on some yummy smelling lotion.  I trimmed my nails and brushed my hair. 

I spent time taking care of ME, and I began to feel a little bit better about life.

I'm not sharing this to belittle my children and my life as a VERY BUSY stay-at-home mom.  I'm also not trying to minimize the importance of my faith, and seeking the kind of peace that only God can give.  However, once in a while, you have to ask if you are treating yourself with care and kindness. 

Once in a while, a mom (or dad) needs a time-out.  Doing something as simple as showering, using lotion and ignoring my kids for all of 23 minutes didn't change my life or magically turn my children into little angels.  But, for a few moments I could breath, and because of that, I walked out a better (slightly less stressed-out) mom.  I was ready to take on a little more of what this day was dishing out... at least until nap-time.

The Calm in the Storm

The dishwasher is broken.
But I kind of find the hot, sudsy water soothing and my hands find joy in the simple task of scrubbing, swishing, and rinsing.

Later in the day, I'm relishing in the glory of a steamy, long shower (the only space that guarantees privacy) and I'm enjoying the fact that kids are cooperating and not banging on the door and disturbing my solitude.  The next minute, I find myself in the opened front doorway, dripping wet and wrapped in a towel, YELLING down the street at my children (namely my four year old) who headed out for an impromptu walk.

My life seems kind of bipolar... up and down; like a teeter totter.  Praises and joy on my lips one second, panic and frustration blurted out the very next moment.

And the greatest manifestation of peace comes in an unexpected place: waiting in the van for my little girls as they attend a monthly group piano lesson.  They told me that some of the other moms would be inside, drinking tea and socializing.  I told them I'd rather be alone... quiet, reading, thinking...

So I sat in the van, with absolutely no urge to turn on the radio or look at my smart-phone.  There was no need to fill the space with activity, information; noise.  Instead I sat, breathed deep and stared out a cracked windshield as the gentle rain blurred my view.

He comes in the calm.  He breathes life in the stillness.

The pitter patter of raindrops were a musical balm to my over-worked, stressed and over-stimulated emotions.  Not even the most poetic melody or stirring symphony could have been a sweeter sound to my ears.  He played His love song to me, a simple reminder: I AM.

No matter the busyness, trials or worries; if I'm up one moment and down the next - it really doesn't matter. 

He finds me when I hide from the rest of the world.

Drops of water for a thirsty, parched soul. 

The "Expert" That Made Me Mad

A couple days ago, I was quite angered by an article written in a local junk mail flyer/newspaper.  A father and motivational speaker/author, was writing an "expert" article on families.   Part of this article mentioned the importance of maintaining peace in the home and he stated that he had never once raised his voice at his now 8 year old son.  He claimed that it was completely unnecessary in the process of communication and would only serve to demean and belittle his child if he yelled.

"HA!" I scoffed angrily, in my head.  "ONE KID?  ONE MEASLY KID?  Try having six to contend with 24 hours a day, 7 days a week....!!!! Then we'll see who's yelling!"

For a while I thought about how freakishly hard it has been for me to control my anger lately, particularly when it comes to yelling and raising my voice.  It's not like I ever say "You stupid kid!  You are an idiot!"  Of course, I would never demean my children in such a hurtful way.  In fact, more often than not, I sound like some sort of coach or military captain, yelling "Let's go!!!" or "Stop right now!" or "Everyone, sit down and shut up!" (Except, I would never, ever say "shut up" to my kids... I actually say "Be quiet" or "Not a word" if I need their silence.)

The problem herein, lies in the volume.  Granted, my house is noisy.  I have a loud, talkative husband who passed down his noisy genes to my children.  So if I am to compete with six people making loud noise all at once, I practically need a megaphone - or some lessons in voice projection.

So back to the "expert" article - what on earth could this guy know about yelling?  He doesn't cope with what I have to handle, day in and day out.  Yet.... conviction pricked my heart.  Isn't this an issue that I have been frustrated with lately?  Isn't this exactly one of the things I want to change in my household?  I desire greatly to deal graciously with my children.  I want to love them with real love - God's kind of love that is patient, kind, self-controlled and abundant.

A spark of inspiration hit me this afternoon that may be a helping hand towards my issue of being a recovering yell-a-holic.  How bout a yell-jar?  Just like a swear-jar, I would have to throw in a quarter every time I yell at the kids.  Then, to be appropriate, I will have to use that cash to buy the kids ice cream or some sort of treat.

I don't want to minimize this issue, but I believe a lot my "problem" is simply an issue of a bad habit.  Also, I recognize that along with the consequences of "paying" for each time I break the rule and yell or raise my voice, I need to tune my heart to a different channel and work on the feelings that leave me feeling so out of control.  With each quarter that I toss into the jar, there will be a prayer lifted up; asking for wisdom, patience, peace and most of all love for my children.  

While this plan may appear to primarily be a "slap-on-the-wrist" sort of consequence, I know that the constant reminder of my actions, and becoming accountable for my faults will inevitably either cause me to change or harden my heart.  Frankly, I'm steering towards the former.  In the end, each quarter will represent a prayer, and an apology.  I don't want to make light of this - rather, I wish to use it as a tool to cultivate change, growth and true repentance in my house.  I want my kids to stop yelling and fighting, but I cannot expect them to change if I am giving a bad example.

"Yell-Jar    25 cents per offense"

Well... here goes...  I better get to the bank and get a roll of quarters.

Let the journey begin: