(I wrote this a few weeks ago … just now linking up here because I want you to hear me.)
PARENTING IDOLS
I have a confession to make.
I made an idol of my children. More accurately, the idea of my children, and my expectations of who they would be.
I just knew, thanks to my loving yet firm hand, that they would exhibit first time obedience and perfect church behavior. We would homeschool, of course, with charts, and they would be cheerful loving helpers with their younger siblings.
(I’ll pause while everyone dies from hysterical laughter at my arrogance and naivete).
First, I had to leave my firstborn for a year when she was one and a half. (Deployments and all that). That threw a wrinkle in this whole parenting business right out of the gate. I homeschooled her for kindergarten and we both cried the whole time. She’s been in public school since first grade. And babies? Not her thing (Which I am 100% okay with it, but was not expecting.)
My second? He screamed for two years. Didn’t cry, didn’t whimper. Screamed. His emotional volume is cranked up to earsplitting decibels. And while that makes for some difficult days, multiple screaming meltdowns, and long minutes in the calm down chair, it also equates to irrepressible joy. Thankfully.
I used to be the person in the grocery store secretly believing that it ultimately was a failure of parenting when the kid two aisles over was full on screaming. Now, I am that mom. And I can attest to how very hard I am parenting these four babes of mine.
Let me pause again and say how very, VERY sorry I am for that. I was so wrong, and so arrogant.
~M.