Please, for the love of all that’s holy, tell me I’m not the only one that has a consistently difficult child. I suppose I should feel grateful that I have this little thing called parenting perspective, so I’m not a jerk to other moms, but the truth is that I just mostly feel like crap about it. We’re supposed to shower our kids with love and care, not count the days until they move out. This is the sentiment that started this blog and it is definitively #notpinterestworthy.
I’ve made a lot of progress in dealing with my challenging, 6-foot-tall teen, and I still just mostly want to stab my eyeballs with an ice pick most days. I honestly don’t see a lot of options beyond riding out raising him and hoping for the best. Parenting is this really (sometimes) crappy conundrum where you’re solely responsible for the actions of another person when the truth is that you have zero control over their choices. I can lecture myself hoarse, and he will still, ultimately, do what he wants.
This is crap for me. Torture, really. I am probably one of the most reasonable people you could ever meet, but it makes zero difference when you’re a mom. If I had a “real job” as a manager, I would never be expected to sit and smile and be constantly patient while the people around me treated my attempts to accomplish things with all the respect of a talking Charlie Brown head spouting utter nonsense. The logical part of me knows that parenting really is an other-worldly environment full of unrealistic expectations. There is no other place in the world that an adult interacts in that is held to a higher standard, and I live in this space all. the. time. I don’t have a “day job.” I don’t send my kids off to school for most of the day. I’m with them, 24-7.
I’ve always been told that we’re all the “perfect parent for our kids – just what they need,” and I truly hope this is the truth. In reality, I wonder every single day if it is. Did I coddle him too much as a toddler? (He was the baby of the family for almost five years before his brother was born.) Did I not hug him enough? Is he difficult because I have come to expect it from him, and he just lives up to that? Would he be insufferable if I didn’t try so hard to teach him respect for others, boundaries, responsibility? I have no clue. I have no way of knowing, but I still torture myself with the questions and sometimes feel utterly sunk in self hatred of my inability to be the Perfect Mom for him.
I think the hardest part of this is that I know he’s a good person. There is so much potential there, and I can just taste how amazing that would be if he would point things in a more healthy direction. I have no way of seeing the future. I have no way of knowing if any of my minute adjustments to my approach or my creative attempts to reach him will hit the mark. I won’t know until he’s grown and gone and it’s much too late to fix any of it. This fact is so, so hard.
If you know anything about me, it’s that I like to be good at what I do to probably a ridiculous extent. It took my therapist about three sessions to peg this as an inherent quality of mine. This is probably the number one reason I’m crafty. I can’t throw in the towel and “change hobbies” when it comes to what I actually spend the majority of my day doing. Parenting is a labor of love, and it twists my heart and turns me inside out with the sheer hard work of it. So, when you see me pouring gallons of soap or sewing new wardrobes in a month, it’s not because I’m superhuman. It’s because I need to feel a sense of accomplishment. I need something in my life where there is a method and a process and a consistency that I can count on. In this long-term game of blind man’s bluff, little successes along the way remind me that I may, just maybe, have what it takes.
Today is a bit nuts. I have a million balls in the air. I had to send (and resend) a few invoices for our family business, there is some loan paperwork that I need to upload (we’re refinancing), my kids are all on homeschooling protest today, and I can’t figure out how to get some tech stuff for both the blog and my Facebook business page to work properly. (Check me out at The Essay Assistant on Facebook! I’ll make your writing sing, too!) Truthfully, I’m doing way too many things right now, and it’s all just frustrating me.
I’m not even going to lie. I like instant gratification. Raising kids and building businesses is anything but. Some days everything that flows from my fingers is gold, and sometimes I painstakingly wrench the words from my keyboard. I remember being sick as a kid and drifting in and out of feverish, twilight sleep. My brain would register the experience like I was swimming through jello. I could see and hear and remember everything, but it was sluggish and in slow motion. To be fair, I think I had a vivid imagination as a child because I also remember jerking awake from the brink of sleep and having it scare me – I somehow convinced myself that the devil was touching me. (This may be a sign that you’ve been raised in extremism. Just maybe.) While I have outgrown the latter feeling that was largely a product of superstition, I still have days where I recognize the sensation of swimming through jello.
Having kids is one of the most surreal experiences in life. I guess it’s all I know, so I can’t say how it would be different it were, well, different. I can imagine, however. When my day goes south, it’s like I’m mommy Edward Scissorhands – don’t get too close because I’m likely to accidentally-on-purpose (figuratively – calm down) cut you on my sharp edges. It’s disconcerting when this happens, but it’s also motivating. I’m not perfect. Some days I’m not even close to adequate, but I have a built-in motivation to get up, dust off and try harder.
I am well past the boot camp years of parenting, as one of my friends describes those endless, long years where your kids really don’t pull any weight themselves. I’m lucky to have older kids, even a few adults. This is amazing not only because I get a break and some freedom and some help (and access to their cars because mine is iffy), but because I get to see the product of my many long years of work. All my adult kids, well, like me. I like them. They’re good, responsible people and don’t hate me. They see the bigger picture now and can grant me grace for days where I was barely keeping my head up. I think (I really hope) that they even admire me and want to be like me in my best ways. (Please just get rid of the less admirable stuff. Ha!) They know ALL my weaknesses (do they ever!) and still love me. This is one of the most amazing gifts of motherhood, but it doesn’t come from picture-perfect moments that make good Instagram and Pinterest posts. It comes from swimming-through-jello days.
I just put my youngest kids to bed, and the words are flowing a bit easier than they did earlier. My husband is home which usually means the kids are magically angels, and I’m about to close my computer, relax for probably the first time today and snuggle under a warm blanket. This day is already fading into a memory, and I am so relieved. Tomorrow will better because days that hit bottom can, after all, only go up. That may well be the greatest gift of a bad day.
I had a dream a few weeks ago that took my breath away and has made me thoughtful. It was one of those convoluted dreams where random things are jumping all over the place, for the most part. However, right before I woke up, I dreamed that some guy kissed me. (Don’t worry, it was a faceless, nobody man – nobody that I know or that actually exists.) I woke up with this lingering feeling of, I don’t know, being seen?
My husband and I dated for two years before we got married, and it was a passionate and intense courtship – even volatile at times. We’re still very much in love. He’s my best friend and a man of impeccable integrity. But, a romantic he is not. We’ve been married for going on 23 years. Things change over time, and it’s very natural and expected. Still, I have twinges occasionally where I long for what the past was. It’s an illogical feeling in a lot of ways because what was amazing about it came with a lot of uncertainty – things that I am so glad to see gone in our daily life. But, humans are sometimes ridiculous, aren’t we? We fail to see that the good comes with some bad, and the sometimes boring is infused with a softness, a quietness, a peace and a comfort that no amount of excitement can replace.
We went on a date this weekend. We haven’t been out for a bit. We don’t have a set schedule because, well, we’re having a rough year financially (ha!), and we tend to both hate that sort of structure anyway. He’ll just randomly text me with, “Where am I taking you tonight?” We didn’t do anything fancy, but I put on makeup and cute clothes and spent an evening away from our kids with the man I love. This morning, my husband got up and got in the bath. (He’s a bath guy; I’m all about showers, so we have both a big, soaker tub and a walk-in shower in our master bath.) Our water heater is on the fritz, and he hasn’t gotten around to replacing the element that’s out, so it runs at about half heat and is particularly bad first thing in the morning. After about 10 minutes, he called my name, and I walked in the bathroom.
As I opened the door, my husband looked very sheepish, and he was kind of laughing at himself. Raising my eyebrows, I asked him what was up. After a bit of hemming and hawing and berating himself for not fixing the water heater yet, he tentatively said that he thought he should just ask me to boil him some hot water so that he could get warm. He had no real expectations that I would get up and do this. I could have laughed as well at the thought and walked back to what I was doing. But, I didn’t. I graciously boiled him water and brought it in and dumped it in the tub. I didn’t have to. He knew it, and I knew it. With laughing eyes as he reveled in the luxury of the hot water, I commented that this little favor was better than buying him a gift, and he wholeheartedly agreed as he sunk into the water.
In the moments where I feel that twinge of longing for a relationship that is young and new and exciting and actively romantic, I could miss these moments. I could make the mistake of thinking that I have a lack because life ebbs and flows. We’re not young anymore. We have kids that are growing up and riding the edge of moving on with their lives. Our history runs incredibly deep. He has hurt me like no one else I’ve known and loved me to depths that I could never have imagined were possible when I was a young and naive 18-year-old bride. It is true that we don’t always see each other. He can walk in the room, and my brain doesn’t always register that my stomach should flutter. I know it’s the same for him. The reality is that my brain, my heart, just sees him as a part of me after almost a quarter-century of knowing him. There are times where I look deep in his eyes, and it all comes flooding back, but most moments are a quiet knowing that he’s my person, and I can’t imagine it being any other way.
Right now, he is putting on a tie and getting ready to go to church, and I am writing my blog and not getting ready at all. He knows this, and we don’t really talk about it. It’s not like it’s festering under the surface; it just is. This could be a major issue for us. But, see, I can smile and boil this man water for no other reason that I don’t want him to be cold. So, he can give me space and time and love in our unusual circumstances. Kisses that take your breath away are a moment, and they can be surrounded by a million things that aren’t healthy or beautiful or useful. I suppose this might sound sad to couples who are in younger relationships. It is not. (We still kiss.) It is quietly, peacefully and comfortingly beautiful, and I wouldn’t trade it for a hundred breathtaking first kisses. I’ve lived enough to know how very lucky I am.
I had an interesting experience the other day. It surprised me, and then I was surprised that I was surprised by it.
I was raised in a deeply conservative religious community that translated into a pretty isolated culture. There was no internet when I was a kid, so I saw only what was directly surrounding me. (I sound so old! Hey, I could still have babies if I wanted to/was nutty enough.) I got my first computer as a young, married, isolated mama starving for connection in the late 90s, and I’ve never looked back. I still have friends that I met in some of my first mom groups when my 19-year-old daughter was tiny. To say that having my world open like that was revolutionary would be an understatement. I still remember the first time I realized that someone I interacted with was a Wiccan and how that shocked me. I’m embarrassed to admit that I spent a good day actually wondering if it was morally okay to buy, sell and trade with someone who was pagan. I was that naive. (I did finally realize that it was dumb to care. It didn’t impact anyone’s honesty and certainly didn’t hurt me in any way to know someone so different than me. I know. Duh.)
I have come a long way since the me that was a 20-year-old mom. However, I am still quite conservative, despite how transformative this year has been for me. I have family and friends across all stripes of people. I’m looking at issues in new ways and trying to understand where people are coming from. Still, I find that my conservative opinions and Christian-leaning worldview are not always welcome in public commentary, despite how careful I try to be. This makes me sad. Not because I feel like I’m a super important person that everyone should listen to, but because I’ve lived in isolation myself, and I find so much value in seeing the spectrum of humanity as, well, human. I learn the most from those who are different than myself. I don’t always agree, but it challenges me to look deeper.
My quite liberal friend posed a somewhat controversial question on her Facebook feed the other day. First, I was genuinely surprised that our opinions were on the same page. (That may truly be a first. Ha ha!) What really struck me, though, was how respectful and productive the conversation was. The dialogue was kind. Open-minded. People really wanted to learn and understand. Even people who were directly affected by the issue conceded that it was difficult and that clear answers were hard to determine. Someone I don’t even know had a different perspective than what I (tentatively) expressed, and they pointed me to where I could study a bit more about the topic. And, then they left me to do what I might with that information and stepped back. I thanked them for sharing an alternative perspective in such a kind way. I meant it.
So much of the political dialogue that I see anymore is harsh, shrill and antagonistic. I can have strong opinions, and I have been punished for expressing them. I posted a arguably controversial opinion a few years ago about how I felt that a particular political/public figure maybe wasn’t promoting the best things. I was attacked, called a bigot and had more than a handful of liberal acquaintances unfriend me. I think I was most bothered by how much space I had made for their more left-leaning opinions over the years, and that so many of them couldn’t offer me the same courtesy. But, it is what it is.
My opinion and perspective on this particular issue has actually evolved a lot more over time, and I see it as much less black and white than I have in the past. However, not a single one of those people that virtually yelled at me had anything to do with me finding more balance. In fact, I think they probably hurt this process that has come about over time. I don’t think I’m a whole lot different than other people. I observe. I think. I really do care about other people. But, I also have a history. A background. A worldview. And, those things shift with painstaking slowness. Having people disregard your right to an opinion while they claim it for themselves does nothing but create divisions and draw lines in the sand. There is no growth in that. You go back to whatever vacuum allows that idea to live safely.
They cynic is me believes that splitting people in this way is the point – that powers-that-be like to see people in neat little rows where they can be moved and used easier. But, the truth is that we don’t have to participate in this. We don’t have to be shrill or harsh or antagonistic. Like my unknown internet companion the other day, we can offer a different perspective with kindness and gentleness, and then allow the other person the space to mull it over and decide whether they want to shift their opinion or whether they will stay put. I will probably always be conservative-leaning. However, I feel like my mind is a little more open after my exchange with my friend’s friend, and that maybe there is one more liberal-leaning person in the world that I consider my friend, regardless of our differences. I don’t care where your belief spectrum lies, that feels like a win-win to me.
For the first six months of this year, I ate, slept and breathed the drama that we were engaged in with my church and in my family. I don’t recall a single conversation I had with my husband at the time that didn’t involve the situation, and I thought about it all the time. Was I being fair? Were my motives pure? Was I certain that my memory was reliable? Was it even worth the turmoil it had caused to confront this trauma from my past? (I actually haven’t thought a lot about this lately until I stumbled across this blog post yesterday.)
When you are dealing with a church community, you end up in this strange dichotomy where you are surrounded by people that truly believe in a moral system that they adhere to – they genuinely care about getting it right. However, everything is wrapped in a dogma that doesn’t always have individuals’ best interests at heart, and collective priorities are often given precedence over those of people, families and even more firm moral codes. It’s bizarre, disorienting and eye-opening all at once.
Nothing more clearly illustrates this conundrum than the narrative around forgiveness. As someone who still has a Christian worldview, I think the teachings of Jesus Christ were not only admirable but downright radical when read in their cultural context. Jesus did things like care about children, give women an unprecedented voice in community and promote the interests of the less fortunate. So, please don’t misunderstand me for a complete and utter lost soul. However, the church (Mormon, Christian, Catholic…this seems pretty universal in extremely organized dogmatic structures.) has really missed the boat on this idea.
I would have mucho money if I was paid for every time I was (gently, usually, and often not directly) lectured about forgiveness. Can’t you just forgive? We should all forgive! What about forgiveness? I think what becomes clear when you’re on the receiving end of a situation that asks for serious forgiveness is that forgiveness as a process is my business. It’s personal. It’s a journey that belongs to me and to every other person who has experienced trauma at the hands of another person who should have known better. It is wholly inappropriate for anyone outside this situation to offer unsolicited advice or to lecture. The hard truth is that you don’t know anything about it. For most people, this is a philosophical discussion, but ignorance is a luxury that not everyone has. Regardless of what the circumstances are, it behooves every person to move on and live productive and healthy lives. Frankly, I think I do a pretty good job at that.
Still, I’ve had to come to terms with forgiveness and what it does and doesn’t mean. I’ve heard sermons my whole life about forgiving. What I’ve come to see is that this dialogue often has much more to do with the comfort of the speaker than with my own well-being. Though the words aren’t said, what I really hear is, “Forgiveness is important! You should forgive. It’s for your own good – can’t you see?? (Besides, this is making me VERY uncomfortable!)” See, forgiveness often becomes a way for other people to feel washed clean of a situation without actually having to do anything real or productive or helpful at all. When someone tells me to forgive, I’m pretty astute about discerning if it’s about my mental/spiritual health or if it’s about them. Rarely is it about me. (As an easy rule, if you have to remind someone that something is for their own good, it’s probably not.)
When we were in the middle of our fight, we found this article on dealing with sexual abuse in the church, and it became one of our best tools for advocacy and education. We sent it to dozens of people to help illustrate where we were coming from and what we felt would be appropriate. (If you’ve read my prior blogs, you’ll remember that we eventually succeeded in having my perpetrator removed from his church position.) Clearly, there is a need for this type of education because most people don’t understand this: how I feel about what happened to me on a personal level and what I feel should be done about it are two very separate issues. My emotions (hurt, unfairness, anger/revenge…) do not play into my decision making process. There is often a clear, right thing to do, and it should be done with neither guile nor bias if integrity is at all important.
I haven’t been to church since August. I would imagine people have all kinds of opinions about what this means and what’s going on in my life. (If you ask, I’ll just tell you. The Cliff’s Notes version is that I’m doing well.) Usually, high-demand religions create a dialogue around leaving or disconnecting. You’re offended. You’ve sinned or want to commit sins. You couldn’t hack it. YOU’RE the problem, somehow. It’s my fault. I can’t forgive. This doesn’t even come close to adequately describing why I’ve made this decision.
I posted this on my Facebook feed on August 12, just a few weeks before my last sacrament meeting:
“I’ve forgiven a lot of people for a lot of pretty horrible things, and I continue to do so. It’s a process. However, it’s frankly none on anyone else’s business what the status of that process is. People can make a conscious choice to disengage with toxic environments and people. The idea that stepping back equates to a lack of forgiveness is complete and utter hogwash. It’s nothing more than an attempt to deflect the consequences of others’ deplorable actions onto the innocent, while gaslighting them into feeling that it’s somehow their fault. Just my thoughts for the Sabbath.”
This is usually what I hear about forgiveness. It’s usually people protecting people who have done bad things that say these things. I get that it’s wicked hard to look ugly in the face when it lives on someone you love or, even worse, yourself. But, to speak of forgiveness as some sort of spiritual Jedi wave that disappears the facts is deeply insulting to people who have walked through the shadow of this valley. If you can’t offer genuine support, please leave me alone to get on with my life in whatever way is most healthy for me. But, please stop talking about things you don’t understand. If you can’t meet hurting people with compassion and support, your religion is hollow, and you need to sit down. (Most people truly are well-intentioned, but it’s a band-aid at best. To be clear, the person that prompted this Facebook post recognized that I was reacting to their statements and went out of their way to apologize. I greatly respect that.)
My husband is a big fan of several Christian apologists, including Professor John Lennox. I’ve been deeply impressed with his approach to Christianity and have listened to several of his very thought-provoking lectures. My husband sent me this one a month or so ago, and outside of Dr. Laura who takes a somewhat more secular approach, this is the best breakdown of forgiveness that I have ever heard. On the most simple level, forgiveness is multi-faceted. There is the part that you take care of for your own personal well-being; this consists of letting go, moving your focus to other things, finding wholeness in other parts of your life. The other half of forgiveness requires recognition, remorse and restitution from the other party – the repentance must be sincere for it to be efficacious. Professor Lennox does a much better job of outlining this. (If you start at about 48 minutes, the segment is less than ten minutes long and well worth the listen.)
As for me, I’m not making decisions out of anger, malice or bitterness. I am, however, finally giving myself permission to make decisions that are the most healthy for my situation, regardless of how unconventional that looks. I’m very much at peace with where I’m at.
Don’t go throwing tomatoes at me or anything, but that title is, admittedly, clickbait. I didn’t ACTUALLY forgot my kids. Not that I haven’t done that before. Once. It happened one time. We drove to church in two vehicles, and both my husband and myself thought my youngest daughter had gone home with the other. We realized when we got home that neither of us had her, and were on our way back to get her when she got dropped off at home by a friend from church. We live all of a block and a half away, and she was only mildly traumatized. That’s the only time!
Yesterday, I knew where my kids were. They were at home. With me. My husband was out of town the day before, and I’d gotten up to make my kids some breakfast, then lazily climbed back into bed with a cup of coffee and my Facebook feed. (It’s been drizzly, grey, rainy, fall weather here. It’s kind of a cross between full-on fall and lingering Indian summer considering that my tomato plants are still alive! What the hey?!) Until my sister-in-law texted me, “Are your kids coming today?” Crap! It’s 9:05 on Wednesday! They’re supposed to be at their reading class. Gah! So, I frantically instructed them to get dressed, get their shoes on, find their coats and I did the world’s fastest (worst) hair brush on my daughter before we ran to the car and dropped them off 20 minutes late. (She also lives just two blocks away.)
THIS has happened before. More than once. Heh. Luckily, I work with other moms who also have real lives and understand that some days just go off. To be fair, I don’t have a set schedule that is the same for all my kids on every day of the week. I’m not getting all my kids up every morning and getting them on the bus before I get on with my day. (Though, I have longingly realized more than once this year that ALL my kids would be in school at this point if that was our life.) We go in all different directions with a different schedule all through the week. Normally, I keep track of the littles pretty well, and my older kids just manage themselves. But, when what I can only loosely call a routine gets thrown off, I drop balls. There was probably a time that I would have been bothered by that, but it’s kind of par for the course now.
One of the points of this blog, I think, is to communicate that you’re not alone. Life is complicated. At the risk of being cliche, we compare our own outtakes to other people’s highlights, and that’s not real life. While Pinterest-worthy moments look warm and fuzzy on social media, my life is really full of flubs, mess-ups and dropped balls. I’m more likely to forgot to bring my kids to class than to painstakingly document our afternoon baking adventure. (Just kidding. At best, my kids would be watching my daughters make something. Ha ha!) The good news is that when my children grow up, they will also likely live real, imperfect lives. At least they’ll be prepared. There’s that.
At the risk of being flippant, I feel like I should announce to everyone that I will NOT be taking a hiatus from social media this week. Not that there’s anything wrong with taking a little break, but I’m at a point in my life where it’s pretty important for me to make my own decisions. You know, like a grownup. When you end up in a position where you’re a bit on the outs, it becomes glaringly apparent how much people like to be on “the ins.” While it is disconcerting to find myself bumping around life largely on my own, it is incredibly instructive. Mormon culture (I know. Sorry, not sorry.) prides itself on being “in the world, but not of the world,” but the truth is that it’s incredibly homogeneous, at least here in the Mormon corridor. People do or don’t do the things they are expected to do to conform to their culture, often for no other reason than that it’s expected. This can be a good thing (firm values), but this can also be pretty dangerous. (Bishop interviews, anyone?) (Lest you think this is dogging on religion, I’ll expand this in a minute. If you’re going to offend, spread it around, I guess. Ha.)
It’s strange to look back on how my life has unfolded and how much my perspective has changed. There was a time that this sense of belonging, this blending in with my tribe was pretty important to me. I’m a coffee drinker; I’ve always liked it. While that can be a pretty big deal in the mainstream LDS church, it’s kind of overlooked a bit in fundamentalism. You might get a few jabs about it, but it won’t “hold you back” from callings, etc. There were many, many years where I didn’t really disclose the exact nature of my religious background to people. It’s complicated to talk about and for other people to understand. (Yo, I’m not FLDS!) When you’re raised in towns/schools/communities that pretty much shun you, it leaves a mark, and it was just easier to say I was a normal Mormon to people who didn’t need to know more. I went on a sewing retreat when I was pregnant with my now 11-year-old. These were ladies I’d been virtually hanging with for a decade. I had a great time, despite being pretty knocked over by morning sickness, but I didn’t drink a drop of coffee the entire weekend, even though several of the ladies were quite the connoisseurs, and I’m sure it was phenomenal. None of these ladies cared at all what I did or didn’t drink – they were an eclectic mix of atheists, committed Christians and even a Muslim – but, it would have messed up my image – what they knew to mean “Mormon,” and I would have had to get out of my box and explain. While I know that this was my experience, it’s hard for me to remember or recognize that girl.
I’ve spent a lot of time mulling this idea over the last week or two – how easy it is to follow the crowd. The political climate in our country is nuts right now. Being that I’m someone “with a story,” I suppose I’m expected to join the chorus chanting “Believe women!” But, somehow, that doesn’t seem to be ingenuous to me. I personally understand how difficult it is to come forward and take a stand against abuse and assault. You pay a price, no matter what. It’s hard. You have to be strong and committed and have nerves of steel. I know. However, I also have a husband, brothers, a father and male friends that I deeply love and respect. They aren’t the enemy. It’s not us against them. I would never throw my victim status in front of someone as a way to deflect from due diligence in sussing out the facts. Despite my personal emotions about these issues, I can put myself in someone else’s shoes and see that evidence and fairness is paramount in these matters because I would want that same courtesy for my own brothers/friends/sons. I would never want anyone to just believe me. Instead, I would hope that people would believe the truth as it was presented, witnessed and corroborated. As a society, we should have zero tolerance for unacceptable and deviant behavior – full stop. However, we can’t run our collective lives on emotional outbursts and tantrums without ever stepping back to examine a situation critically. The truth is the top priority precisely because these issues are so, so important. And, lest you think I’m heartless, I’m not commenting on the specifics of this case so much as on the disappointment I feel in the public politics of it.
There is a freedom in owning your right to make adult decisions all on your own. However, stepping away from the crowd also means that you’re left on your own. There’s few people around you to check with for a thumb’s up that what you have and haven’t done is acceptable. I have mixed emotions about this – I’ve spend my life tucked up under the wings of high-demand ideology. Now, if I screw up and offend, these words are all my own. I can’t point to my church or my community or my political leanings to make excuses for myself. However, I also have the opportunity to really look inside and see who I really am and what I want to stand for. It’s liberating. You should try it. In the meantime, if you want to catch me for coffee or dinner, you’ll find me on Facebook, like usual.
I’ve been sewing for 21 years, and it’s something that I can almost do in my sleep it comes so naturally to me. Still, we all have days, and not everything works out every time. I had a little hair-pulling moment today when I was “whipping up” a hoodie for myself, and it made me a little introspective.
First, I was watching my friend’s kiddos today because she took a much-deserved day out with her husband for her birthday. (If I’ll watch your kids, you know that’s true love. Mwah!) For some dumb reason, “babysitting” is different in my head than having the exact same kids just “playing over” for the exact amount of time. I have no idea why that is. Maybe because I know that I can’t send them home at any moment if they all start to bounce off walls. Which they inevitably do. My kids still had to do school, and it’s never a good time trying to convince them that schoolwork is a valid use of their time when friends are around. We got through it with minimal whining, though, and I sent them all downstairs to watch TV while I finished sewing. Because, OBVIOUSLY, the perfect time to NEED to get a project done is when you’re juggling 3 children’s school books along with 3 spares. Go big or go home! (My craftiness seriously takes on a life of its own. I either haven’t sewn for months or YEARS, or I’m eating/sleeping/dreaming/breathing it compulsively. It’s just how I roll. I do this with my other crafts as well. My husband is incredibly tolerant of and used to that side of me after 22 years. Heh.)
After I got the kids settled down doing something other than vegetating in front of a movie like I’d planned because they couldn’t find the remote, I started putting my hoodie together. This is a pretty quick process, generally. There was a little more detail work because there’s both a hood and a front pocket, but I was plugging along. After pinning the hood on, I basted everything together (because unpicking is the devil. Ahem.) and checked. to. make. sure. it. was. right. before proceeding. And, OF COURSE, it was FINE. So, I jumped over to my serger and went on to firmly attach the hood on BACKWARDS. Yes, indeed. Upon turning my hoodie right side out and moving onto ironing the hem, what would my wondering eyes behold but the back of the hood nodding at the front pocket. Wah, wah, wah! (Did I mention unpicking is the devil?) But, I did unpick it. Because this was nice fabric that I had a vision for. So, I painstakingly spent about as long as it took me to actually sew it picking out stitches so I could turn around that stupid hood.
I have no idea why our brain does things like this. I’ve spent a lot of time exploring cognitive dissonance in the last while, and it’s amazing how we see things exactly how we want or expect to. It’s nuts, really, but we get used to things and start filtering out everything that doesn’t match that vision – like hoods that are looking backward despite the fact that there was A POCKET to mark the front. I rarely make mistakes like this period and almost never when I’m working with something new or different because all the possibilities are open. I’m not going to wax eloquent about the deep meaning there – I’ll leave those conclusions to you. But, it did make me stop and think, and maybe you’ll find some aha-moment in it yourself. I find those in the oddest and most assorted places when I just notice.
P.S. After all that trouble, I don’t love the hoodie. Waaaahhhhhhhh! I think I should have broken up the floral, it seems slightly short and because I hemmed instead of doing a bottom band, the kangaroo pocket is sitting too low. Jerk. Maybe I’ll throw it in the corner of the closet and reassess next month when I’m less mad at it in general. You know, with fresh eyes, it might seem okay after all.
I seriously HATE doing school with my 11-year-old. I think people have the mistaken idea that homeschooling moms have extra patience; what I really have is PTSD. Don’t get me wrong – he’s a smart kid, but he just hates school, especially language/phonics. He’s been doing similar stuff for years, but he still acts like putting things in alphabetical order is akin to college-level calculus. Some days I just roll with this, but other days it makes me want to stab something with an ice pick. With my first four kids, I participated in a private/co-op school, and I wasn’t exclusively responsible for teaching any of them to read, and I have that same advantage with my kids now. My oldest was reading chapter books at 6, and my other kids were pretty much on-track as well, though some (my adult daughter) aren’t much for reading for fun. We had moved when my 11–year-old was in kindy, so it was up to me at that point. And, I suck at teaching reading, apparently. It is tedious, brain-melting work when a kid isn’t particularly cooperative. While he’s pretty much caught up in his reading skills now, it was slow going, and he’s still a really bad speller.
I am not a good teacher. Not even close. I have both a sister and two sisters-in-law that are unbelievable early elementary teachers – as good as any that I’ve met with a degree. They are creative, committed, enthusiastic and come to their class prepared every single time. That’s not me. I show up and get it done, but it’s pretty utilitarian. That works fine for my kids that don’t mind school. (My 7-year-old daughter has always been completely into learning, and we get everything done and out of the way in record time.) If all my kids were like that, I’d probably be one of those self-righteous moms that thinks that parents with kids that struggle are just slackers. I mean, I am a bit of a homeschool slacker, but it’s not an issue with most of my kids. Luckily for me, kids are pretty dang resilient, despite our failings. My kids do fine, in spite of me, really, rather than because of me. My oldest son is studying for a degree in computer science, my adult daughter works at an office job for an engineer, and my 17-year-old works part-time around her class schedule and teaches piano, so I’ve done okay so far.
I think (at least, I really hope so) that all moms have things like this – things that we have to do, that are important to us even, but that we really aren’t that great at. I consider myself extremely lucky to have other moms around me that are also passionate about creating a healthy learning environment for kids and are willing to spread that love around. While I’m sure that more of you public school than not, the idea of having a tribe in your corner is pretty universal. My co-op tribe inspires my kids and brings out the best in them in a way that I just can’t. (For example, I have never heard my 11-year-old whine at a co-op teacher. Ever. He just does his best and gets on with it.) They tell me that they appreciate what I bring to the table, though I can’t help but feel that I get the better end of the deal. Sometimes, just knowing that someone else knows what you’re dealing with makes it so you can get up and fight (hopefully not with your kid – Ha!) another day. That, in my opinion, is priceless, indeed.
Not Pinterest Worthy 