Something I Almost Missed

When I was a teenager I never did the babysitting thing. If people I knew had new babies I never wanted to hold them. I didn't work in the nursery at church or help with the little kids Sunday school classes. I just didn't have any desire to be around children. I really thought I would never have kids. It just wasn't my thing. In fact before I was married I considered taking care of things permanently to never have children. I didn't take that step, thank God! I waited a while after I was married, almost 10 years, but I did finally actually want a child. I'm not sure if I've ever shared this before here, but I lost my first baby to a miscarriage, but luckily I did get pregnant again and about 40 weeks later I had a little girl, then 3 1/2 years after that another little girl. The teenager who didn't want any children was now a woman in her early 30's with 2. In 1992 and then again in 1996 I became a mother. Then, as life does sometimes, I was thrown a curve ball, and in 1998 I became a single mother. This thing that I started out never wanting to do at all I was now doing alone. Today is Mother's Day. A day set aside to honor those who gave us life, but this post is about honoring those who gave me a life worth living. Being a parent is hard work. Don't ever let anyone tell you anything different. It is the most important job in the world because, in essence, you hold the future in your hands. The  people you create and bring into this world will watch and learn from you. They'll pattern their behaviors after what they've seen you do. They'll treat people the way you raise them to, and they'll value and love themselves only if you treat them as valued and loved. You never stop being a parent. It is a tireless job 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, but I would not trade it for anything! I am not rich. I do not have a high paying corporate job. I do not have a beach house in Malibu. In fact I haven't taken a real vacation in almost 10 years. Some people would look at those statistics and pity how unsuccessful I am at 50, but they would be so wrong. I have something so much more than material success. I have raised two amazing daughters, daughters that I know will make their mark in the world! Hell, they already have by the way they treat people in their everyday lives and the impact they have had on everyone they come in contact with. They are my legacy. They are my success! I have poured everything I am into being the best Mom and Dad that I can be. Am I the perfect parent? No, I have made tons of mistakes along the way, but I try to admit them and move on. I could not ask for a better relationship with both of my girls. We talk. Nothing fancy or ground shaking here. We talk. I treat them like people, and have always been honest with them and valued their input and opinions on whatever level they could offer them. More times than I can count they were teaching me something rather than the other way around. And as they continue through life and maybe become mothers themselves one day I pray that they will have the same awesome experience they have given me. I will be forever grateful for the privilege and honor of being their Mom and thrilled that life didn't work out the way I had originally planned.

The Bradys had it right!

Yes, I know I haven't blogged in a while. I promised myself when I started this blogging thing that I would not write unless I felt inspired or something moved me to do so. That kept me from putting pressure on myself and from putting up a post just to be putting something up. Who wants to read that? So what inspired me now? Believe it or not, The Brady Bunch.  Lately the Hallmark Channel has been broadcasting reruns of this iconic 1970's series, and I have been watching. I grew up with the Brady family. They aired for the first time in 1969. I was 6 years old, about the age of Cindy and Bobby, and it went off the air in 1974. I was in the 5th grade. I don't have to tell you that things have changed immensely from 1969 until now, especially in the way that kids and parents interact and kids in general. WARNING!! This may turn into a back in my day post. Yesterday an episode aired that really got me to thinking. Greg, the oldest of the Brady Boys, was 15 years old and looking to get an after school job to save for a car to be able to buy when he turned 16. Okay, let's stop right here. Greg didn't go to his parents asking for a car or the money to buy a car. Better yet, he wasn't expecting to be handed a car as reward for the miraculous feat of turning 16. He was asking his parents if he could get a job to SAVE money to purchase a car himself. I know! Crazy, right? Wait! There's more! He gets a job at his father's architectural firm cleaning up and making deliveries. He's asked to make an important delivery of architectural blueprints. On the way he stops at a news stand to purchase the latest car trader magazine. While there the blueprints slip out of the tube carrying them and onto the street unbeknownst to Greg. He arrives home late to greet his parents with the bad news. He is late, by the way, because he has ridden everywhere on his bike looking for the lost documents. When he tells his parents the news, he is truly remorseful. Carol, his mother, asks if he stopped anywhere. He says no at first, but then remembers the news stand. He stands there with the folded magazine tucked in his belt. Mike, his father, reaches for the magazine and says, "For this." Greg apologizes for losing the blueprints to which Mike replies in a calm but disappointed voice, waving the magazine, "But you didn't lose this, did you?" I turned to my 17 year old daughter, who was watching with me, and said, "That's exactly like something I would say." This was no surprise to her because she was raised in the "Brady" fashion. For all of the sitcom's cheesy story lines and "what did you learn from this?" The six children were taught to be respectful, to share, be considerate of others, to be honest and selfless, and what's wrong with that? I started thinking that I cannot remember hardly any episodes where someone was being bratty, and if they were, they learned their lesson by the end of the episode. What happened? Why are children allowed today to behave, as my grandmother would say, "like they were raised in a barn?" What happened to simply expecting children to behave? Call me crazy, but I think the world would be a much better place if we took a parenting lesson from Mike and Carol

I Get the Message!

Isn't it funny when something speaks to you that you seem to see that same running theme everywhere? It's kind of like when you buy a new car in a color that seems unique at the time, and then every car you see on the road is that same color, the one you thought was so exclusive just a day ago. Lately it seems I am surrounded by people who are going through challenges, and it made me think of the challenges in my own life. More importantly, it made me reflect on how I handled and continue to handle them. I have never been a wallower ( I'm pretty sure that's not a word), but meaning I have never been one when faced with a particular problem, trial, challenge, whatever you want to call it that I sit and wallow and lament my situation. In fact, I think sometimes people think I'm a little callous or unfeeling because my attitude is not "Why, Why, Why?" It's "This sucks!, but how are we going to deal with it?" This is not to say that I think no one should be able to be sad or emotional when they get slammed with this wonderful thing called life. Believe me, I have done my share of crying, but it's the letting those circumstances bog you down, control you, guide your every move and thought that I'm condemning. My daughter wrote her own blog post today dealing with this same subject. My other daughter was dealing with some issues of her own surrounding, again, this same subject. Today as I read one's blog and talked with the other as she helped a friend, I couldn't help but be proud and in awe of what awesome women they have become. Neither one is a stranger to struggle or adversity. As I have shared in this blog many times before they both had a hard blow dealt them when they were very young. Struggle has been more the norm than the occasional occurrence, and yet they have persevered and become stronger for it. At the risk of crossing the line into "patting myself on the back" territory, I think a lot of how they deal with life came from the fact that I have never sugar-coated anything! I always tell the truth, even when it's not so easy to hear. I have encouraged them, and I am always in their corner, but I have never given them false hope about any situation. I have never been the mom that when my kid came home from preschool with a picture they colored entirely brown to say, "Oh, Honey, That's beautiful!" rather I would question, "Why didn't you use any other colors?"  Some would think me awful for that, but my honesty opens a dialogue about color and feelings and all sorts of things. What is fair in encouraging anyone to do something they really have no talent for? If you are not honest with your child about their abilities or lack of, in some cases, and you constantly tell them that they are good or, worse yet, the best at something, they will believe you, and someday someone will deliver the crushing blow that they really have no talent at all, and they are left questioning why you lied to them all of those years. I'm rambling, but the basic thought is this. Life is hard! People make mistakes. You can't always be the best. Sometimes things don't work out. The triumph is not in winning but surviving and becoming stronger when you lose.