A Mother’s Day

I’m not a big fan of FaceBook, but I do read stuff on it from time-to-time.  Some of my friends re-post things that others have written or re-posted themselves, from other sources.  Most of it is too cutesy or just too inane to hold my interest.

But not what I read from Liz.

——————————————

One of my friends had re-posted the following, which was originally written by a young mother we’ll just identify as “Liz”.

Liz described her typical morning as a young mother who was raising four kids.  Before you start reading, I feel I may need to clarify a couple things Liz says. 

At one point, she mentions an IEP.  An IEP is an Individual Education Program which is basically an individualized plan meant to help certain kids who struggle with mainstream education. 

Another place, she describes something as “ish”.  Honestly, I don’t know for sure what she means by that, but I think I get a good idea from the context.  I think you can too and I’ll leave that one for you to figure out for yourself.

Also, I corrected her spelling, grammar, and punctuation minimally when I thought you might miss the point otherwise.  Oh, yeah, I added the word, “know” in parentheses when it was obvious (to me at least) that it is what she meant.

——————————————

September 20 at 10:46am 

This morning I woke four sleepy humans. Some I gently patted, some I prodded, and one I pulled the covers off and tried to roll onto the floor when the pat and the prod fell short. I’m not proud of that last one.

I made five beds, one twice because someone snuck into it and tried to go back into sleep. It “may” have been me.

I took a shower and made myself look sort of human and flushed three toilets and fished one very wet pull-up out from under my bed.

I made two very strong cups of coffee.

I dressed one child and myself and told another that her “outfit” would probably get me arrested should I let her leave the house in it.

I reminded them all to brush their teeth. Four times. None did it. We’re working on this.

I yelled “stop screaming! You’ll wake the neighbors!” loud enough to wake the neighbors. Many, many times.

I drove to school once to drop the bigs off and back again a little later to drop off the stuff the bigs forgot.

I stood on the bus stop and waited for two more buses while trying in vain to fish the littles out of a neighbor’s tree.

I watched them drive away with a wave and a throat lump and I walked back to my empty house.

I cleaned their breakfast out of my car and my kitchen and my hair.

I dismantled pillow forts and unhooked Paw Patrol underwear from table lamps and threw in a load of laundry and reapplied the lip gloss I’d left on four cheeks in goodbye kisses.

I fed and watered the dog and wiped down the counter and turned off the TV and the coffee maker and a hundred lights and locked up and fielded 12 text messages and 2 phone calls and 384 red lights.

All before 9:00 am.

By the time I sit in my chair at work and fire up my computer, my Fitbit says I have walked 2.5 miles, all just to get us ready and out of the house. And if walking 2.5 mikes and not actually making it anywhere at all ain’t exactly what this stage of life looks like I don’t (know) what is.

I don’t tell you this to look for sympathy. Not at all. I am lucky to have a job that affords me flexibility. I am lucky to have a job. I am lucky to have four healthy kids and not need to spend extra hours taking care of special needs or going to extra doctor’s appointments or managing an IEP with the schools. I am lucky to live in a culture where women can and do work freely outside of the home. I am lucky to be healthy enough myself to mostly manage all this.

No, I tell you this because if one more person says to me “wow, it sure must be nice to be able to waltz into work at 9:00am,” I am going LOSE IT.

To the working mamas, I feel you. I feel you so hard right now. But more than that, to ALL the mamas, I’m raising my cup of (now cold) coffee. You keep on doing you, sister, whatever that looks like.

Unless it looks like judgement. Ain’t nobody got time for that ish. Some of us have work to do.

——————————————

Another reader responded: 

Why are you flushing toilets & making beds?? let it go, kid! when i was living your life, 35 years ago, they were responsible for their own rooms; two became neat adults, one became a “relaxed” adult & one a messy adult. (i also gave the older ones alarm clocks) i used to joke that i gave up brushing my teeth & combing my hair.

hang in there; they will be grown in 5 minutes.

——————————————

My response:

I absolutely agree with the previous respondent!

Parenting is tough.  There are times when every parent feels like they have been challenged beyond their ability to cope.  Now, here’s my key point, there’s no need to make it any more difficult than it has to be!

Annie and I raised six boys. During child-rearing our standards had to be relaxed or modified and now and then we had to put in some extra time. We’d make the boys go back and do something they had “forgotten”. Yes, that sometimes took more time than it would have to just pick up their rooms or make their beds ourselves, at first anyway.  Then they learned that being too lazy or forgetful was NOT going to absolve them of responsibility.  Then we quickly got our time back quickly.  The boys had their chores and they had consequences when those chores didn’t get done.  If their morning responsibilities didn’t get done before school, they would usually be waiting when the culprit got home (almost always, unless it meant letting animals or parents suffer during the wait.). They soon learned that it was much more logical to make a bed in the morning than to make it at night just before bedtime. There were standards for school work too.

You see, even though we loved our kids and had a lot of fun with them, just letting them be kids (and sometimes acting like kids ourselves), we knew that, inevitably, we were not just raising children; we were producing adults.  Yes, they were kids at that time, but they were going to spend the vast majority of their lives in an adult world, and that adult world doesn’t tolerate childish behavior most of the time.

Too many parents now-days think kids should be kids, with all the freedom of Huckleberry Finn, and no responsibility…for their entire lives.

Except perhaps for a Mr. Finn, everyone eventually has to learn to handle responsibility if they are going to be successful adults.  Life will not wait patiently while you decide to grow up.

Today, among our boys, we have two teachers, a recently retired career soldier, a former high voltage lineman who not long ago took over managing a very busy roofing business, one mechanical engineer, and a diesel mechanic who was just offered a position as a transportation director at a large school…their youngest director ever.

Those six boys have given us an even dozen grandkids.  Not all of my boys have adopted the same child-rearing methods we used, but they have all adopted some of them.  They all love and adore their kids, and they all love us.

I’d say our effort was worth it.

My advice to Liz: parenting is difficult enough; don’t make it any harder than it has to be. If you do choose to make it more difficult for yourself, don’t complain to everyone else how difficult it is.

Just sayin’.

——————————————

PLEASE SUBSCRIBE AT THE UPPER RIGHT. IT’S FREE!

You will ONLY receive notifications when I post new entries to my blog.

Go to the top of the right hand column where it says, “SUBSCRIBE TO BLOG VIA EMAIL”.  Fill in your email and hit the “Subscribe” button.  You will receive a verification email.  Please confirm that you want to subscribe by clicking, “Confirm Follow” and you will be set!  Thanks!

It doesn’t seem to work from a cell phone, only a computer.  I don’t know why.  Sorry.  If there’s a problem, send me your email address and I’ll sign you up.

——————————————