As I write this I am sitting in a coffee shop, Jack Johnson playing in the background, a half eaten snickerdoodle next to my laptop and my youngest child playing happily with the toys while people chat happily all around me. Bliss. My three older children are all attending a local Vacation Bible School and will attend yet another next week. To all the churches and volunteers that choose to entertain my children and teach them about Jesus while I enjoy this much needed down time I am eternally grateful. Thank you. Just one child, every morning for two weeks! It's like a vacation, practically like having no kids at all! That's how it feels now at least.
A couple of years ago, pregnant with my fourth child and totally exhausted I was sitting around a table at a mom's group talking to a first time mother. I answered her questions the best I could, but realized even as I did so how jaded I had become. In my head I felt like "You're just having one baby! No worries, you've got this. If I could only have one baby again it would be a piece of cake, no whining! Of course I didn't say these things, but I felt them. Not because I had any animosity towards the mother, or even because her questions were over the top (they weren't) but simply because I was treading water myself and could not lift my head up enough to remember the struggle of adjusting to my first child. Even at the time I remember telling a friend later that day, "I think in a few years I will be a wonderful person to go to for advice, but right now I just feel jaded and sarcastic." I was too deep in the mire to bother turning around. As I predicted, every year I feel more and more capable of lifting my head and seeing what others are going through and am able to offer at least a listening ear if not a word or two of sound advice.
You see, child rearing is like weight lifting. When you start from nothing anything feels like all you can handle. As time goes by and you adapt, your child grows older and more independent, you adjust. Then you add more children and you adjust again, just as you would add more weights the stronger you get. (For those with just one or two children they experience this too, as each age brings new challenges, but it feels different I would imagine.) At the point where you have several children, having a break where you only have one child can feel like such a relief that it can be hard to remember the early challenges you faced. The danger here is undervaluing the struggle someone else is going through because it's no longer (or never has been) your own struggle. Some people do have a really easy first baby while others are extremely difficult. Not to mention where the parent is coming from in the first place. For myself, although pretty prepared for day to day baby care through much experience and training (early childhood ed. degree, years spent working as a full time nanny, babysitting as well as teaching) I still struggled a bit. Nursing didn't go like I thought it would and the weight of having to bottle feed when my daughter was just a few months old was immense, not to mention hours and hours of crying late into the night for no apparent reason. Time went by and she got easier, and then we had another and so it goes.
Right now I find myself in a sweet spot. Life is much simpler in many ways. My children sleep through the night, they feed themselves and play independently, yet I still remember when they didn't. We still have hard days, rough trips to the grocery store and find ourselves in desperate need of a nap. Sometimes I need the nap more than my kids. I still gaze longingly at moms sitting in beach chairs at the public pool reading books, all the while trying to keep track of all my little ones. And yet often I hear these moms say, "I remember when my kids were so small and so much less complicated. I can't wait until they are out of the house." We can spend our time looking back to the past, forgetting our struggles or always looking for the next easier stage, but if we do either of these we won't ever really learn to enjoy where we're at. My advice? Remember where we've come from and the struggles we've overcome so that we can more appreciate where we're at in life as well as have compassion for others. And one day maybe we'll be able to help them out as well. Oh, and just so we're clear, I am still so distracted by life that I wrote this two months ago and am just now posting it. What can I say? Life with kids. Busy, messy, and simply wonderful.
As I write this I am sitting in a coffee shop, Jack Johnson playing in the background, a half eaten snickerdoodle next to my laptop and my youngest child playing happily with the toys while people chat happily all around me. Bliss. My three older children are all attending a local Vacation Bible School and will attend yet another next week. To all the churches and volunteers that choose to entertain my children and teach them about Jesus while I enjoy this much needed down time I am eternally grateful. Thank you. Just one child, every morning for two weeks! It's like a vacation, practically like having no kids at all! That's how it feels now at least.
A couple of years ago, pregnant with my fourth child and totally exhausted I was sitting around a table at a mom's group talking to a first time mother. I answered her questions the best I could, but realized even as I did so how jaded I had become. In my head I felt like "You're just having one baby! No worries, you've got this. If I could only have one baby again it would be a piece of cake, no whining! Of course I didn't say these things, but I felt them. Not because I had any animosity towards the mother, or even because her questions were over the top (they weren't) but simply because I was treading water myself and could not lift my head up enough to remember the struggle of adjusting to my first child. Even at the time I remember telling a friend later that day, "I think in a few years I will be a wonderful person to go to for advice, but right now I just feel jaded and sarcastic." I was too deep in the mire to bother turning around. As I predicted, every year I feel more and more capable of lifting my head and seeing what others are going through and am able to offer at least a listening ear if not a word or two of sound advice.
You see, child rearing is like weight lifting. When you start from nothing anything feels like all you can handle. As time goes by and you adapt, your child grows older and more independent, you adjust. Then you add more children and you adjust again, just as you would add more weights the stronger you get. (For those with just one or two children they experience this too, as each age brings new challenges, but it feels different I would imagine.) At the point where you have several children, having a break where you only have one child can feel like such a relief that it can be hard to remember the early challenges you faced. The danger here is undervaluing the struggle someone else is going through because it's no longer (or never has been) your own struggle. Some people do have a really easy first baby while others are extremely difficult. Not to mention where the parent is coming from in the first place. For myself, although pretty prepared for day to day baby care through much experience and training (early childhood ed. degree, years spent working as a full time nanny, babysitting as well as teaching) I still struggled a bit. Nursing didn't go like I thought it would and the weight of having to bottle feed when my daughter was just a few months old was immense, not to mention hours and hours of crying late into the night for no apparent reason. Time went by and she got easier, and then we had another and so it goes.
Right now I find myself in a sweet spot. Life is much simpler in many ways. My children sleep through the night, they feed themselves and play independently, yet I still remember when they didn't. We still have hard days, rough trips to the grocery store and find ourselves in desperate need of a nap. Sometimes I need the nap more than my kids. I still gaze longingly at moms sitting in beach chairs at the public pool reading books, all the while trying to keep track of all my little ones. And yet often I hear these moms say, "I remember when my kids were so small and so much less complicated. I can't wait until they are out of the house." We can spend our time looking back to the past, forgetting our struggles or always looking for the next easier stage, but if we do either of these we won't ever really learn to enjoy where we're at. My advice? Remember where we've come from and the struggles we've overcome so that we can more appreciate where we're at in life as well as have compassion for others. And one day maybe we'll be able to help them out as well. Oh, and just so we're clear, I am still so distracted by life that I wrote this two months ago and am just now posting it. What can I say? Life with kids. Busy, messy, and simply wonderful.
1 comment:
Ģood advice! The only
Trouble is, I have a really hard time remembering just how it was! One thing I wish I would have done more of SaaS too put myself in my children's shoes instead of just trying to cope.
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