The Struggle is Real

The other day, I had my worst parenting moment ever. I thought I had a few bad moments before, but they all paled in comparison to what happened last week.

I lost my temper. At my child.

Completely lost it.

It was not my finest parenting moment.

And I'm not even sure what made it the final tipping point. It wasn't during his 45-minute (yes, 45 very long minutes) temper tantrum, after he lost computer time because he hit me. It wasn't when my kid, who normally eats anything, threw his food. It wasn't when he clung to my clothes as I tried to move through the house, literally hanging on to my leg, my arm, anything he could latch on to.

It was the plastic hammer. He threw the plastic hammer, hitting me not very hard on my left arm, and I lost it.

I screamed and yelled and made him cry. And then I cried.

I couldn't believe that I, the grown-up, had lost it on my very own child. And I sat on the kitchen floor and said I was sorry a hundred times, and then said, more to myself than to him, "I can't do this. I can't be a mother. I. cannot. do. this."

And he stood, in front of me, eye to eye, very solemn and serious, and said, "But I want you to be my Mommy."

The gift of grace.

So I put on his pajamas and brushed his teeth and read him a story and tucked him in, snuggling close for an extra minute. And then I called my friend Beth and ugly-cried into the phone at what a failure I was as a parent.

She assured me that I wasn't, and that every single parent has those moments that I had, and that Reagan wasn't, in fact, scarred for life, and he -- and I -- would be fine in the end. By the time my husband got home, I was sniffling on the couch, a mixture of contrition and the humble awareness that this job was really, really bigger than me.

I went back upstairs to check on Reagan, who I assumed was already asleep. But he wasn't, and he sat up when I walked in and said, "What are you doing, Mommy?" I told him I was just checking on him, and he laid back down and scooted over so I could fit beside him. I nestled in, and he put his hand on my face and said, "Is your heart still sad, Mommy?"

I said, "Yes, a little."

"I love you, Mommy."

The gift of grace.

I've said all along that this job is hard. This job is a million times harder than I expected it to be. The struggle is real.

"I’ve been the one who has had hollering mother meltdowns and wept on bathroom floors and I’ve been the one who has come to be held up by the tender grace of it."*

This is not an excuse. At all. But I have been realizing for some time that something in my life has to give. We are beyond fortunate that we both get to work, without having to pay for child care, thanks to a flexible schedule, fantastic in-laws, and an amazing editor. Blessed beyond blessed beyond blessed.

But ... what that has meant for three years is that my life has been a never-ending cycle of Reagan/work/Reagan/work/Reagan/work. I stopped taking care of me. There wasn't time for me.

 And slowly, over the past three years, what started as a low simmer started to turn into a full boil.

No one told me that it would all happen at the same hallowed time: Mothering is at once the hardest and the holiest and the happiest.*
 
But, as I say all of that, I am fully aware of people who have it so much harder than I do. Single moms or dads, without any help or support from the other parent. Families who have one parent deployed. Families who take care of an elderly parent while juggling the demands of a household. I don't know how they do it. I really, really don't.

But, this was my reality, and it began to wear away at me. Maybe the incident with Reagan would have happened anyway. Maybe it wouldn't have. I don't know. But what I do know is that no one -- and I mean no one -- can prepare you for how never-ending and all-consuming this job really is.

So why am I sharing all of this? Certainly not because I enjoy sharing my parenting failures. But because I think it's time we admit that life, and parenting, isn't the perfect picture we like to portray. Social media, like Facebook, allows us to show our lives the way we want to be perceived. Look at my perfect, well-dressed family! Look at my son and I blowing bubbles together outside! Look at this gourmet meal my family is eating! Look at our perfect day at the beach, right before the toddler tantrum!

The struggle is real.

In an unscientific survey I did following my parental meltdown, 100% of those surveyed (Beth, Alice, Joyce, Heather and Denise) all said that they too had had those moments. We aren't proud of them, of course. But they happen because we are imperfect people trying to raise imperfect children in an imperfect world.

I'm not excusing what I did. I never, ever, ever should have yelled at my child the way I did. It was beyond a reprimand, and beyond me raising my voice so he knows I'm serious. It was a true meltdown because I had reached my limit.

Anger is contagious. And so is grace.*

I'm not proud of it. I hope and pray that I never, ever do that again -- although I'm an imperfect parent trying to raise an imperfect child in an imperfect world, so I realize that my expectation might be too high.

But I do hope that we can start having the dialogue that, despite the image we try to portray, this job is hard. Really, really, really, really hard. Whether we work full-time outside the home or spend our days hosting tea parties for stuffed animals and making homemade play-doh and organic gluten-free oatmeal cookies, parents all struggle to do our best each day with the children we're given. And sometimes we do a really, really, really good job. And sometimes we lose it because we are imperfect people trying to raise imperfect children in an imperfect world.

We've started to accept the lie that busy is better. We fill every second of every minute of every day with things to do. We've adopted the rushed rat race as the best way. We work, we go to that meeting, we take our children to a variety of classes, we rush through dinner, brush teeth, go to bed and start all over again.

It's not working.

I'm a better person when I take some time for myself. It's not wrong to read a book, watch a mindless sitcom or spend 30 minutes chatting with a friend. I don't have to multi-task all the time.

Until we (and by we, I mean me) start taking time for ourselves and tell ourselves we matter, the ones we love the most will continue to get the worst of us. We have to put on our own oxygen masks first. We can't care for others until we care for ourselves.

So. I'm going to work on me, and start taking time for me, so I can be a better parent and wife and person. I cannot give what I don't have. If I'm not rested and taken care of, what happened with Reagan will happen again. And again. And again.

And maybe I could spend a week at an all-inclusive resort in the Caribbean, where I do nothing but eat, sleep and read books, and still snap at my child, because I'm still an imperfect person trying to raise an imperfect child in an imperfect world. I don't know. But I know I owe it to my family to take care of me so I can take care of them.

I never expected that a mother’s labor and delivery never ends — and you never stop having to remember to breathe.*

The struggle is real.

*from A Holy Experience

Raising a Hands-On Child in a Hands-Free World

When my husband and I found out we were pregnant with our sweet little Reagan, who is now two years old, we sought out advice from almost everyone we knew who had children. We wanted to know what worked, what didn't work, and what mistakes other people had made, so we could learn from them. Part of being parents later in life, I think, makes us much more intentional in how we are raising our son, and eventually, our daughter.

One thing we have decided to do is make the conscious choice to stay away from a lot of the electronics and gadgets that fill so many homes. Truthfully, I've been contemplating a blog about this for some time, and then I read one by Renee Robinson, A Letter To My Boys (The Real Reason I Say No to Electronics), and she said everything I wanted to say so well, instead I'm just going to expound on a few of her well-articulated points.

We went out to eat for breakfast a few weeks ago, and Reagan and one other little girl, maybe a bit younger than Reagan, were the only two children in the small cafe. While her parents chatted, she was buried in an iPad, occupying her time.

I get it. I really, really get it. Believe me, I do. It is not an easy task keeping a toddler happy at a restaurant, or anywhere where there is a wait involved. But we choose to let him wait, and run the risk of him getting upset or bored or throwing a toddler-sized tantrum, because the truth is, life is full of waiting, and he might as well get used to it now.

Renee writes, "I want to talk to you when we are out to eat. I want to listen to your questions. I want to have training opportunities. I want to allow space for conversation that can take us deeper. And if you are always distracted with electronics, well… I might miss those moments."

Yep.

We've also made the decision to not bring electronics with us when we travel. So far, in Reagan's short little life, we have made four trips to PA and back (1600 miles round trip), and one trip to Florida, and he's done very well. Yes, we've had to make more stops when he gets bored and restless, and yes, it gets tiresome to find ways to keep him happy and content while strapped to a car seat, but we do it anyway. We do it because we both have such fond memories of road trips with our families, and I want Reagan to have those same memories. And, like Renee says, I don't want to miss a moment with him. If we had a car that played DVDs (which we don't), we would have missed so much, even on our 40-minute drive home the other night. We would have missed him making the animal sounds in the 'Barnyard Dance' book, which we have read so. many. times we can all recite it by memory. We would have missed him trying to make us laugh by making a series of funny noises, and then cracking himself up. We would have missed watching him read through some of his books on his own, looking very serious as he turned the pages (even though one was held upside down).

So much we would have missed if his eyes were glued to a screen.

"Yes, when we are waiting at a doctor’s office for an hour, it would be easier to quiet you with my phone. But if I did that, I fear I would send you a message that says I’d rather hush you than hear those precious words falling from your lips.

I can’t bear the thought of allowing you to miss out on the wonders and mysteries of this world. When you are transfixed on a screen, the beauty of this world will be lost to you. In every moment beauty is waiting to be discovered. I don’t want you to miss it."

My husband works for Brentwood Driver Training, and he says so many teenagers don't know how to get to their house, even when they are in their own neighborhood, because they've spent their lives looking down, instead of looking out. They've missed so much, because their eyes were transfixed on the small screen in front of them.

When I was growing up, my least favorite time of the week was Sunday afternoon. There was nothing worth watching on the three channels we could get on our TV, and my parents actually rested and took naps, and Lord only knows how many times I said, "I'm bored."

I'm so grateful for those times I was bored. I am almost positive if my parents hadn't given me the opportunity to be truly bored, I wouldn't have developed such a strong love of reading. Because there was literally nothing else to do, I buried myself in books ... and I still bury myself in books today. Had there been the option of an afternoon of video games and electronic devices, that would have become my world. Instead, I immersed myself in whatever book I brought home from the church library, sometimes reading them twice in a row, and my love of other worlds, other cultures, other possibilities, was born.

I'm not delving into the increase of ADHD with the increase of electronic devices, because frankly I don't know enough about it. I do know, though, from information a teacher friend of mine shared with me, that a video screen changes so fast, it's hard for children these days to keep focused on things that aren't rapidly changing.They are used to a screen changing every three to four seconds, so they are becoming bored when forced to sit in a classroom or focus on a text book.

But that's not why we say no to a lot of what has become common place in our society. It would be so much easier to appease him with a game, or stick him in front of a TV so we can get stuff done. But, we say no because this parenting journey isn't about us. It isn't about doing what's best, or easiest, for us. It's about giving our children the best tools possible to equip them for the world in front of them.

Lest people think we shut off the TV and have returned to the Dark Ages, we haven't. At all. Reagan is allowed two short shows or one long one (i.e: two Thomas the Tank Engines or one Calilou) when he wakes up in the morning and gets up from his naps. And, we have unashamedly used a TV show occasionally when we needed to occupy him for a few minutes. I did it last week when my husband had to leave for work, and I still had some work to finish for my job. My husband did it the other day when he was home alone with Reagan, making dinner, and Reagan kept trying to get too close to the stove. And, we plan on taking Reagan with us when we travel to India to bring his sister home, and I am absolutely positive we will take along plenty of electronic help. 20 hours in a plane is a long, long time for anyone, let alone an active little boy.

But, for day to day, we're going to continue to encourage him to play outside, to explore the world, and to even be bored at times.

"I want to watch your face illuminated by the majesty of life – not the glow of a screen. I want all of you. Because I only have you for a short while. When you pack up and leave for college, I want to look back with no regrets over the time I spent with you. I want to look back and remember how your eyes sparkled when we talked. I want to look back and remember how I actually knew those little quirky details of your life because we had time enough to be bored together."

 Our time with our son, and soon our children is so short. Too short. While I have him, I want all of him. I want to watch him draw pictures. I want to go for walks with him. I want to read to him and with him. I want to watch him build things with his blocks, when he's unaware I'm watching him, and he gets so serious he sticks his tongue out just a little bit while he's concentrating. I want to listen to him talk in the car about his day, or make funny noises. I want to watch him read books upside down and sing songs with him.

As he gets older, we understand it will become more difficult, and we will have to keep readjusting and re-evaluating to find what works for us -- and what works for us is not the template for what will work for everyone. At all. We all struggle and get bumps and bruises while we raise our families. There isn't one formula for everyone, and I get that. But I look to several of my friends who have remained largely technologically free as they raise their families, and I look at how their children have grown into such articulate, sensitive, caring, intelligent people, and I want that for our children. So, like everyone else, we soldier on, and hope that we make the best decisions for our sons and daughters in the process.