Archive for May, 2010
Spoken Like the First-Born
“Mommy, I’m so good at working out problems between people, maybe I should be a lawyer when I grow up.”
She’s right, she’s the official peacemaker of the siblings.
One Heart at a Time
I’m thankful for the order of our children.
I’ll always remember the drive away from the hospital with our first newborn. Me sitting in the back to protect Mookie from imminent danger, reminding my husband to turn the music down(off) to protect her from going deaf permanently before we reached the interstate. Why were all of the certifiably-expert hospital staff allowing us to leave? We were still the same kids who came in three days ago minus the sculpted stomach and screams of pain. We were still the same newlyweds who had been playing house for the last year and half and who had spent the last several months alternating between absolute petrification over the idea of parenthood and ignoring all of those fears and focusing on collecting the right gear and making pretty colors for the nursery.
The next two years found us in all of the expected trials-breastfeeding, sleepless nights, cry or not to cry, spank or not to spank, and daily phone calls to my at-work husband to make sure he understood what insanity was happening in my life minute by minute while his was still clocking along like it did before, no big surprises.
But, really, Mookie did exactly what the books that we clung to told us she should do. She thrived under a perfect little schedule, slept through the night while my friends were still greeting their babies multiple times, and responded to our chosen modes of training by the textbook. Our confidence(and pride) grew as she was the one toddler in the play group who stayed away from the stairs when told to, kept her food on the tray, and kept her fits to a minimum. Don’t get me wrong, I had weekly and bi-weekly phone calls to my friend for advice, and I questioned what I was doing all the time and but it seemed like with enough perseverance we were good at this parenting thing. I’ll always remember those first few years when I could pull back my shoulders and look proudly at the pleasant and well-disciplined daughter created strictly by our hands and not related at all to her personality. Thank goodness for the wisdom of books, I thought to myself.
I’ll also always remember how quickly all of the confidence ended, for it was only a year and half later that the Lord allowed that rug to be pulled right from under our prideful parenting shoes.
From the beginning of life with our second child, she didn’t seem to plug into the formula. First, with four surgeries in the first year and half, our “cry yourself to sleep” and train early methods didn’t exactly fit our new scenario. But we tried really hard, because we had a living 3 year old proof of our past success right next to her baby sister.
It was only after a few years of parenting Jellybean that we realized that, yes, our consistency with Mookie had certainly been effective, but she was also, by nature, a rule-following, parent pleasing child. She had her share of rebellion and attitudes, but generally once she was pointed in the right direction, she followed with almost a relief at being shown the right way.
On the other hand, when Jellybean was three and I tried to talk to her about a choice she made, the common response from her was to turn from me and refuse to speak or acknowledge me-at all. Silence. This isn’t the way it was with Mookie, I thought to myself. When she was spanked, she responded with(exact words), “When you spank me it makes me want to do more bad things.”
And by the time she was 4 or 5 she would say, “I wish good was bad and bad was good and then it would be so much easier.”
More recently she tried this one on.
And just the other day she asked, “Why do children have to respect older adults?” She truly wanted an explanation in order to accept this expectation of her. Judging from the challenges this week, she must still be asking why.
She’s never just accepted rules, she’s wanted to understand the why. And it took me years to realize that trying to fit her into the same mold as Mookie was not softening her heart toward me or the Lord, but having an opposite, fossilizing effect.
And when I’m not banging my head against a wall or burning all of the books that promised me guaranteed outcomes as if only one type of child existed in the world, I’m truly thankful for this curveball.
I’m encouraged by Sally Clarkson’s writings, who discourages formula parenting and encourages a true look at the individual child and suggests that constant smack downs for childish behavoir may not be the key to every child’s heart and it’s not necessarily the way God parents my own heart. I think He overlooks a lot of foolishness on my part in order to teach me bigger, deeper heart lessons because He can see me with such a wider lens than I can.
I want to do that with my kids. I want to parent for the long road of their life, to capture my kids hearts not to produce really impressive behavoir that gets me admiring nods from other moms, but leaves hearts untouched. I’d rather have kids(and myself for that matter) who are open to instruction, willing to see their sin and ask the Lord for help, and understand what it means to live by God’s grace instead of put on a good outer show.
This invites a lot of mess and not as much controlled, for-convenience-sake parenting. It also means a willingness to admit you don’t know exactly what you’re doing, and fail, while trying to find things that work.
But I’m still grateful for the birth order that let us ease into this thing! And I don’t have regrets about our earlier, more black and white parenting, because it fit Mookie well and gave us a strong start.
She’s still a rule follower, and she’s also most similiar to me in personality. She already has a heart for the Lord and she teaches me so much about generosity, encouragement, and service.
Jellybean, who’s got me at the drawing board scratching my head right now, will also lead me constantly back to the Lord, will help me work hard to engage her heart and mine, and will, I pray, end up with a strong heart for the Lord and whatever and whoever she cares about because when she answers the “Why” questions for herself, she’ll be able to follow them with passion.
Who knows what challenges our 3rd and 4th child will bring?!
One heart at a time, starting with mine.
