I watched her closely as she stared intently at the ceiling. It was the night before school started, and she is the one who needs a little probing if we’re to have any clue what’s happening inside that little brain of hers.
“Make friends?” she said, and she shrugged her shoulders. I knew she had a different answer to my question that she was afraid to share, so I pushed a little harder.
“You have friends already, and you’re so friendly that I know you’ll make new friends. What else are you hoping for this year?”
She sighed and shifted her focus to my face. “I want to make straight A’s.”
This sweet child of mine has a feisty nature that constantly pushes for perfection. It’s not something that her father or I push on her, but it is innate to her character. She does not like to make mistakes, and she struggles with anything less than perfection. This is a blessing, but also a concern.
The problem with perfectionism is we’re bound to fail. While I have a child on the other end of the spectrum who is perfectly content with average and generally not concerned with excelling (a trait that presents challenges of its own), this one takes perceived failure to heart, then she buries it there where it festers and grows until she slowly begins to shut down.
Nobody ever said parenting was easy, right?
I understand her, though, because I have a bit of perfectionism in me. By nature, I do not like to be wrong, to fail, or to make mistakes. I get very frustrated with myself when these things happen. Sometimes I don’t even realize that I’m fighting this feeling until I explode, a tidal wave of frustration spilling out in one ugly outburst.
In high school, I believe a counselor labeled this as obsessive-compulsive. Like my daughter, I have the tendency to perceive failure as simply not being good enough, and if I don’t feel like I can be good enough, then why keep trying? Why not focus my efforts on areas where perfection is attainable?
I know this child because she is very much like me.
There’s a balance to life. We learn this as we grow older, but I want to give her the tools she needs now to cope with failure. I want her to know she has the freedom to make mistakes, to stumble, to not be perfect. I do not expect perfection from any of my children.
I’m learning to not expect it from myself.
We talked a little bit about working hard in school, about doing her best and not worrying about the end result. “It’s okay if you don’t get straight A’s,” I told her gently. “I just want you to try hard.”
I could see her brow furrow, because I know what she’s thinking. If I try my best, I should be able to do this perfectly.
Ah, if only it were that easy.
I’ve been working feverishly on my e-book, preparing to launch it next week. As I did the necessary background work to release it, I found two typos in the manuscript. This is, obviously, not the end of the world. The woman designing the book for me has graciously helped me correct these typos so that I can publish a book that is as near perfect as it can possibly be.
But it hasn’t stopped me from berating myself a bit. I’m a writer and editor – how did I miss these things?!
I missed them because I’m human and I’m flawed, and I cannot always be perfect. But I can learn from my mistakes. I can be more careful in how I go about things. I can try harder to get it right.
And I can give myself the freedom to fail, to pick myself up and dust myself off, and to keep moving forward.
How will I teach my daughter that failure is not only necessary, but sometimes even vital to getting better?
I’ll show her. I have ample opportunity every day to model grace to her, both in how I respond to myself when I make mistakes, and how I respond to her.
This is my gift to all perfectionists who are loathe to make a mistake – There is freedom in failure. Embrace it, then pass it on to those around you.
There’s this weird, twilight experience that happens to women when they become mothers. Suddenly a distinct line is drawn between who we were, and who we are now. We feel simultaneously lost, and in the same breath found as we embrace this thing called motherhood.
Photo by Lulu Photography
It can cause a bit of vertigo if we’re not careful.
It seems that this feeling of embracing motherhood, dying to self, rediscovering passions, balancing life, and finding ourselves again ebbs and flows throughout the years in an endless cycle. Sometimes I feel like I’m coursing with purpose in my every day. I feel fulfilled in my role as mother. I feel energized in my work. I feel like…well, I feel like I’m enough.
But there are other seasons – the dryer times when I am utterly spent, weighted down with the responsibility that each day throws my way. I feel incapable of loving my children well, overrun by laundry that never ends, frayed by the bickering and arguing, and completely dry in my work.
In those times I feel like nothing I do is enough.
If I’m being honest, I will tell you that I’m fighting my way out of a very long dry spell right now.
I’m discouraged in my work, feeling like I’m spinning my wheels and getting nowhere fast. I am constantly overwhelmed by laundry, by bathrooms that just. won’t. stay. clean. I can’t seem to pull dinner together before 5:30 every night, I dread the grocery store, and some days I just sort of wander through the house like a vagabond.
I’m even feeling inadequate as I type this blog post, positive that these words have been written before by someone who probably articulated the message much more eloquently.
It’s in these times that I constantly remind myself that motherhood is a journey. I haven’t arrived, and not every day is going to be the best day of my life. Last week, as my six year old showered, he lamented the low water pressure and cooler water. Everyone was showering at the same time, and the washing machine was running.
“Why is the water so soft?” he wailed. When I explained, he hung his head in utter disgust.
“This is da worst day of my whole life,” he mumbled.
I had to laugh, because what I wouldn’t give to have the problems of a six year old. It was a reminder to me, though, that bad days come no matter our age. Sometimes the days feel like they’re trickling out, weak and tepid. I stomp my foot and wonder why on EARTH my circumstances aren’t more comfortable.
Such is the journey of life. It moves in patches of comfort and frustration. Productivity and fatigue. Obedient children and defiant children. Some days are so good. Other days are really bad. Most days are a combination of both.
And thank goodness for the ebb and flow, because can you imagine how boring life would be if everything were sunny and easy? Without the rain, there is no color in this world, but thankfully, motherhood is full of color.
Sometimes I just have to look a little harder to find it.
Blessings to all you Mama’s out there who are working your way through the trenches of motherhood. Hold your head high and watch for rainbows, my friends! They always come after the rain.
I pulled out the manila folder, frayed around the edges. A 4th grade boy cannot be expected to use a paper folder for an entire year and keep it fresh, after all.
Stuffed full, I opened it up and picked up the first piece of paper lying on top. The title:
BLUE
The first three lines of his descriptive poem gave me chills. They were so simple, written from the perspective of a boy who’d been told to describe the color blue to someone who was blind.
Blue is the color of the water in the ocean.
Blue is the color of the sky high above your head.
Blue tastes like blueberries.
The descriptions were rich, and I haven’t been able to eat a blueberry since I read his words without thinking that they taste like the color blue.
Like any mother, I am my children’s biggest cheerleader. I see their potential faster and more vibrantly than any other person. I know exactly how they’re bent, where they are strong, and where they are weak.
I can also be their biggest critic. I see wasted potential, and I feel as though I must draw it out of them or risk some sort of unspoken failure. I see their natural sin patterns, and I cringe when they rear their ugly heads in public.
Sometimes, though, these children of mine surprise me entirely. I knew my oldest to be creative and imaginative, but he tends to stifle it, especially as he gets older, and I forgot.
I forgot that he has a knack for words. I don’t know how I forgot, because he uses a lot of words day in and day out.
Some skills are so obvious. Athletic ability is a skill that doesn’t hide. An athletic child spends his days in pursuit of his passion. I have two athletic children. I know exactly where they stand in their abilities because one is constantly upside down, or flipping off of jungle gyms, while the other goes nowhere without a ball in his hand.
But the creative child? They can be harder to pin down. Some creative children are easy to spot. They spend their days in make believe, costumes the uniform that gets them from sun up to sun down. Other creative children, however, tend to let their creativity bubble beneath the surface. But it’s there. You just might have to prompt it out of them.
Describe the color blue to someone who has never seen it.
Blue tastes like blueberries.
The brilliance in that simple line is all one needs to draw a visual. Sweet, refreshing, blue.
Are you a writer looking for inspiration? Watch your children. Soak in their natural creativity. Ask them to describe the color blue and see what they come up with.
It just might inspire a little creativity of your own.
In any case, you may find yourself with a craving for blueberries and a new found admiration for your child’s imagination.
In roughly seven weeks, our life is going to change drastically. I think I’m ready for it, but I don’t know.
Are you ever really ready to have a baby?
This is the fourth time I’ve done this, so I feel like I’m a little more prepared for the process of transition. I’m ready to not be pregnant. I’m ready to meet her. I’m ready to see my big kids become big siblings, some of them for the second or third time, one of them for the first time.
I’m ready to to move forward, but I’m also not.
I’m not ready for middle of the night feedings. I’m not ready for the sleep deprivation. I’m not ready to try and get three kids up and out the door in the mornings with an infant in my arms, and then get those same three kids to bed at night with an infant in my arms.
I’m not ready to figure out how to fit eating and nap schedules into sports schedules.
I won’t really be ready for any of that, which is why I’m priming myself daily to just let it all go. Go with the flow. Ride the wave of crazy until it crests a little bit.
“You’re not going to die from disorganization,” I tell myself daily. Although with the nesting settling in full force, I am finding myself a bit twitchy at all the things that need to be done around here. The clutter – AH! The clutter. I want to get rid of all of it. I want to stop spending money (last bit of summer fun combined with school time preparations is making me feel like I’m just tossing stacks of bills into the wind…)
I want to hole up in a neat, quiet, organized house and wait for her to come.
But I can’t.
There are activities in which to participate, preparations to be made, messes to be tolerated, and bills to pay. Insurance confusion won’t sort itself out, and kids want to swim three times a day while they still can.
(I just wish they would quit swimming in their clothes because the laundry is killing me softly.)
There’s a season in which creating, working on my craft, takes a much more prominent role. And there are seasons when mothering my brood has to be given greater precedence.
There’s a season for a neat house and fresh, homemade meals, and there’s a season for dirty floors, dirty laundry, and take out and left overs.
There’s a season to keep up, and a season to fall behind.
I’m not sure if there’s ever a season for sleeping when you’re a parent, but I hold out hope as it’s the only thing that gets me through the days.
Right now, as we finish out our final two weeks of summer before school starts, I find myself in a season of activity. That’s okay. I’m going to be okay with that. This is a season with friends over, lots of noise, messy floors, and memory building. It’s not a season for extended hours of writing.
In two weeks the season will change.
And after that? An entirely new season will begin.
Embracing the crazy is my only option…because drinking’s off the table.
I’m kidding!
Sort of…
What season are you in right now? Are you enjoying the season, or are you, like me, talking yourself through it, clutching onto the joyful moments like a life vest?
On the stretches of highway between Florida, Tennessee, and Arkansas, I devoured the Divergent series. Because I aim to stay a solid 18-24 months behind the curve of pop culture, I decided it was time to see what all the fuss was about.
Every hour and a half, my eleven year old leaned forward, his hot breath all up in my ear.
“Whatcha think of it, Mom?” he asked. “Can I read that series? All my friends at school have read it. Is it good? Would it be good for me to read?”
Round and round we went as I read, and he begged to follow me. About midway through Book One, I thought that maybe he could read it, or at least try to. He’s still not a strong enough reader for a book of that size, but it seemed engaging enough that he might be able to get through it.
By the end of Book One, I had enough reservations about the material that I decided we’d probably hold off on sharing this series with him. By the end of Book Two, I knew unequivocally that it would be several years before I wanted him to dive into this series.
By the end of Book Three, I was convinced that he would need to be at least sixteen before he could read these books, and even then it would be with a lot of dialogue. I had also decided that I would be more comfortable with him reading The Hunger Games trilogy before the Divergent series, namely because it is better written.
Besides the fact that I felt the Divergent series got entirely off track and confusing in its ultimate message (Just exactly was she trying to say?! There were roughly 15 potential themes covered in those books, and none of them were covered well. It was maddening and frustrating, to be quite honest), I also found the kissy-kissy relationship stuff to be over the top, over dramatic, and much too graphic for fourth/fifth graders. As I read through yet another make out session between Tobias and Tris, I couldn’t help but cringe and wonder if the parents who allowed their fourth graders to read those books last year understood the maturity of the subject matter.
We’ve had a lot of talks with our children about the necessity to protect and guard their minds lately. These talks need to start early as our kids are being exposed to more and more thanks to the onslaught of social media.
From music to books to television, our kids are introduced to concepts that are far too mature far too early. At least in my opinion. If my son is ready to dive into a fascinating and challenging series of books this year, I will gladly hand him The Chronicles of Narnia. While I love some of the Young Adult series coming out, I would rather expose my children to fine literature first, and when they’re older, if they’re still interested in reading these pop culture series, we can discuss which ones would be most worth the investment of their time.
I’m also a bit of a stickler about reading a book before you see the movie version. My kids love that about me…
Parenting is a battle. It seems that every day I am waging a war against pop culture, and the conflicting messages that culture sends to my children. I’m fighting too much exposure to the online world, too much screen time, the lyrics of popular songs. I’m battling against a world that tells them to grow up young, that tells my daughter her worth is found in how she dresses (and looks in clothing). Television shows emasculate men, while music demeans women.
This isn’t to say that we’re hard core limiting what they see and hear. On the contrary, we allow quite a bit of freedom for our children to see and hear things in this pop culture world. We don’t want to put them in a bubble. But we do want to teach them that just because something is popular doesn’t mean we need to be exposed to it.
The fact is, my kids are not ready to hear all the messages the world has to offer. They are not adults living in tiny bodies. They’re children learning to navigate their way through this world. And pop culture is not the voice I want dictating who my children become, how they think, and how they behave.
I want to challenge them to be deep thinkers, to have minds of their own, rather than to be tiny robots easily controlled by the next popular books/song/movie, etc…To that end, I’m taking my job as guardian seriously.
It’s a really, really hard job.
What are your thoughts on raising children in a land dictated by pop culture?
I learned early on in my motherhood journey that I am not good at working with my children around. I am easily distracted, have a difficult time stepping away long enough to concentrate, and feel the general, nagging feeling of guilt contract my heart when I have to shoo them away so I can work while they play quietly in other parts of the house.
So summer is a hard time for me to be effective in my profession of creativity.
There is still inspiration to be found, though. Especially now as my children are older and I get to soak in their ability to create something from nothing. I watch them play, write stories, paint with water colors, and read good books, and I remember what it’s like to be a kid and relish the gloriously long, unscheduled days of summer.
There is a certain measure of discipline that I’m required to place on my own summer days. Given the fact that I’ve told my kids they aren’t allowed to use electronics between the hours of 7:00 and 10:00 am, I kind of feel like I need to adhere to that same principle myself. So my writing will take place in the early hours of the morning, or after 10:00.
This morning, I sipped my coffee slowly and watched them learn. We drilled multiplication tables, discussed verbs and nouns, and read books. The kids swam while I cleaned up the house, and I relished in the blissful quiet of a lazy morning.
By the time 10:00 rolled around, we all felt refreshed and ready to tackle the day, and I felt inspired.
I’m inspired by my kids imaginations. I’m inspired by the down time. I’m inspired by the forced slow down, the reading and learning, the just being together.
Will it always be this idyllic? No. They will grow bored with the morning routine at some point, and we will have to sludge through the boredom. Some mornings we will be up and out early to enjoy Florida life (hello water parks and beaches and all the things that make Florida awesome!).
We will be traveling for a few weeks, and time will go by too quickly. Before we know it, summer will end and routine will crank life up a notch again. So while we have this time, I want to relish it – even the whiney moments of boredom.
There is inspiration to find in everything, in every moment of the day. I will get less done this summer, and I’m working to adjust my expectations accordingly, but I have this feeling that if I am willing go with the flow, to embrace the slow, and to soak in the quiet, then I could find that this becomes a summer loaded with inspiration.
What about you? How do you find time to create, and to soak in inspiration in the long summer days when the kids are around all day? How do you fill your time…and theirs?
This sweet child of mine has a feisty nature that constantly pushes for perfection. It’s not something that her father or I push on her, but it is innate to her character. She does not like to make mistakes, and she struggles with anything less than perfection. This is a blessing, but also a concern.
