Sunday, January 27, 2013

Parenting in 2013..

This could literally be a book.  It's SO hard to be a parent. When I was a little girl, I remember thinking, 'when I grow up, I want to be a mamma.' In my little girl brain I wanted to have five kids and just be a mom.     Although I did not have five kids, I did have three and one is no longer here..so I have two.  Two is what it was supposed to be.  And two has been enough, these two boys have kept us contentedly busy in lots of ways.  Five?  If I think of five children, someone would have had to knock me silly a couple of times a week and send me a maid too.


As it is, we are happily happy with the four of us, yes, we miss Lucas, but its clear God meant it to be this way.  So having said that, we go on.  And we get busy and we do the best we can.  My husband and I are pretty on balance with how we parent, ways we think things should be done etc etc.  Of course, we don't agree on everything.  Would be no fun that way.  It's good to have two dissenting opinions, then you can find the balance of the two and hopefully the kids benefit from the middle ground.  Let's pray it makes them more open minded to know we had to 'meet in the middle' on stuff from time to time.  

However, the hardest part of parenting is knowing if what YOU BELIEVE is really right to teach them and what they need.  Yes, its easy to know what you think and do what you know....if that makes sense..but that is for YOU.  What about what is best for THEM?  We all know when they sent us home from the hospital there was no binder or how to books.  I remember driving home with the Oldest sitting in the back seat thinking, "Are they frickin' kidding me?  They're letting us TAKE THE BABY?"  Sheer panic set in and on that long drive home when my honey probably drove the slowest he's ever driven in his life, for fear of crashing with the baby in the car, I remember being in a daze.  Happy?  Yes.  Very happy.  But in a daze.  What in the world did we just do?  What just happened here? Oh yes, a lot just happened there.  We knew NOTHING!  But pretended we were in control.  I'm sure it was pretty hilarious.  

 ---Flash forward...along comes the Middlest, Lucas.  


This was me as we were taking Lucas home from the hospital.  We were a bit more seasoned by then..just a bit.  Life back then was fairly simple, the boys were little.  There were no terribly difficult decisions (yet).  It was pretty straightforward, feed them, make sure they get plenty of sleep, change their diapers, make sure they feel loved 24 hours a day.  

NOW.  They have grown.  There are bigger decisions.  There really are decisions and tough choices to be made.  Sometimes indignation even!  I pray pray pray we are doing things right.  We hold our ground on some of the things that their friends' parents don't.  It makes us the bad guys sometimes.  I'm OK with being the bad guy.  But will it be worth it?  Hard to tell.  Have to go with your gut.  And pray.  A lot.  

Everything is so fast forward.  Kids with iPhones.  Kids with iPads doing and interacting in ways we could never have imagined when we were little.  Kids in 6th, 7th and 8th grade having boyfriend/girlfriend relationships.  Violence in the media, violent video games, provocative imagines flying at them in warp speed on the main channels of TV, it's too much to absorb for an ADULT sometimes, let alone a child.  How can they process it all and be expected to make fully informed decisions?  There's no way, and I'm not trying to take away anything from them, as they are very smart!

It takes a village.  And lots of attention from us as the parents!  I can't even imagine how it will be for OUR BOYS to parent when its their time.  What will it be like then?  Futuristic parenting...I wouldn't even want to begin to guess what a futuristic world will be like with regard to parenting.


All I know is, we are doing our best and we love them.  At the end of the day, I pray that shines through more than anything else.  Any of the 'no's they will hear or disappointments they may have....I hope they hear, feel, and see how much we love them more than any of that other stuff.  Our society is throwing so much at them on a daily basis, they have to be smart to navigate it all.  And us parents?  We have to be SMARTER.  Maybe that's the takeaway.  Gotta be smart.  


No comments: