To my friends up to their eyeballs in young uns, I offer a post from a few years back. And I'll add two irrefutable statements, both of which you already know:
1. It does indeed get easier.
2. You'll miss these days more than you can comprehend.
Over the past eighteen months or so, a number
of alarming headlines have bounced around the blogosphere linking
children and unhappiness. Childless couples report more contentment,
these articles seem to conclude.
I’ve
read a few and, frankly, I’m a bit skeptical. I wonder what exact
questions were posed. I wonder where in the parenting spectrum these
parents were exactly. I wonder if the writers queried empty-nesters or
parents in the big, thick middle of it. I wonder what had transpired in
the fifteen minutes prior to the interview.
I didn’t care for the popular book, Eat, Love, Pray.
Short on commitment and long on navel-gazing, I found it to be one long
essay on selfishness. The author did, however, offer a memorable and
fitting metaphor for parenthood: Having a baby, she says, is like getting a tattoo on your face.
I’ve
written before that parenting is the hardest thing I’ve ever done. No
question about it. But what worthwhile endeavors don’t require hardship,
perseverance, even suffering?
Medical
school, law school, business school? Hard, hard, hard. Planning a
wedding, remodeling a house? Hard and hard. Running a marathon, opening a
business? Hard and harder. Finishing a PhD, writing a book? Both hard.
Is
it surprising, then, that raising an eternal soul to adulthood is
trying at times? Does a mother admitting her struggles means she wishes
she’d done things differently, that she would reverse course if she
could?
I think not.
While
we were dealing with the emotional and physical upheaval of
sub-fertility, I found myself growing distant and angry with God. I sat
in a confessional with a very young priest and poured out my soul. After
going through all my anguish over our repeat miscarriages, I went on to
confess my perpetual sin -- the struggles I have with my kids. At this
point, I began to lose Father.
“You’re upset about your miscarriages,” he began.
“Yes.”
“But you’re frustrated with the children you have,” he continued.
“Yes.”
“But you wanted to be pregnant …?” he went on, brows knit, clearly puzzled.
“Yes.”
Confusion
began to morph into bewilderment. As I said, this was a very young
priest. Fresh faced, he even had braces on his teeth. If it wouldn’t
have been horribly patronizing, I would have patted him on the back and
said, “Trust me, Father. You’re going to hear a lot of this.”
Mothers,
of course, totally get this. Completely frustrated with you children?
Check. Desperately hoping for another one? Check. No contradiction
whatsoever. Friends of mine have laughed out loud when I’ve shared this
little exchange with the priest. No mystery there.
So when I read that parents report unhappiness, I wonder if that is the whole picture.
We
have had an exhausting year, a year that’s left me convinced I need to
lighten the load so that next year isn’t déjà vu all over again. I’ll
have to jettison activities I value. I don’t, however, plan to jettison
the children. I don’t even plan to jettison the idea of another child.
Parenting
demands heroic fortitude. Yesterday – on Mothers’ Day, no less! – a
nameless member of my family decided to irritate his brother by yelling,
“You’re mustard! “You’re mustard!” over and over and over again.
I mean, where do they get their material?
For my part, on a day that I’m supposed to be celebrating motherhood, I found myself saying, “Stop saying bad words!”
Yes,
mustard is now a bad word. This, sadly, is the comical state to which
we are sometimes reduced – censuring our children for calling each other
the names of condiments.
Yesterday
John – who may or may not be the very same child calling his brother
mustard – shot a rocket into his cheek and then spray painted his
forehead forest green. All this in the span of thirty minutes. While I
was home. And supposedly supervising him.
While dealing with John’s mishaps, I was also simultaneously supervising the construction of a diorama (hence the spray paint) and helping a neighbor’s child with a research paper. In the midst of it all, I spotted Ainsley dashing down the hall carrying the keyboard. Finishing a research paper without a keyboard? That would make the hard list as well.
While dealing with John’s mishaps, I was also simultaneously supervising the construction of a diorama (hence the spray paint) and helping a neighbor’s child with a research paper. In the midst of it all, I spotted Ainsley dashing down the hall carrying the keyboard. Finishing a research paper without a keyboard? That would make the hard list as well.
Only
God could have anticipated these mind-numbing antics. Only God could
have sweetened the whole deal with joys innumerable, joys as unexpected
as spray paint on a toddler, joys more profound than any I’ve taken away
from other human endeavors.
Jennifer Fulwiller writes that "Life doesn't have to be easy to be joyful." So true, so very true.I just finished the morning shuffle. I close the van door and carry baby Ainsley into the house nuzzling her cheek and hugging her cuddly self clad in a flannel blanket sleeper that makes her even more irresistible than usual. I hear John's sweet laughter as he sits engrossed in The Brave Little Toaster.
These children of mine have, indeed, tattooed my face and my heart and my memory.
