There have been seasons in my parenting where I was consciously aware of how little parenting I was actually doing. Pregnant and huge with twins, my two year old certainly got the short end of the discipline stick. He thought it was great. He picked his own snacks, watched a lot of TV, and got away with sneaky behavior that he should have gotten reminders for. I was too big, too tired, and too overwhelmed to deal with him. The result: a child that struggles with self control, getting his way, and doing what is right no matter who is around. He has certainly grown in those areas as my husband and I have focused on them more recently but for a while, he was hard to be around.
I thought things would certainly be different for the twins. When they turned two, I remember thinking “I won’t repeat what I did, or rather, what I did not do with Callaway.” I will be present, aware and quick to discipline. Insert grief. I stepped outside of myself for many months and watched as I struggled to even dress, eat, or move without intense expenditure of energy. Disciplining my children and the effort that took seemed impossible. I knew the dangers and sitting back and hoping for the best but I physically couldn’t do any more than I was doing. My daughter became whining, throwing fits at every turn. My son was a terror and as much as I enjoyed going places outside of the home, it was a gamble at the destruction he would cause wherever we went. I was watching my parenting go down the drain right in front of my eyes and felt overwhelmed to do anything about it.
This wasn’t just about the kids either. I could tell my husband was feeling the effects as well. He saw training the children in a very black and white manner. When they did something wrong, consequences needed to happen. Other things can wait. Disciplining was first priority in his book and while I completely agreed with him, my actions did not always line up. I know my lack of ability was frustrating to him. He was so very patient with me though and gradually encouraged me to start small and to remind me of our big picture with parenting. It helped to call him throughout the day and see parenting at simple small movements in the right direction. He would talk me through it, talk to the kids on the phone, and train them as much as he could when he was home.
It was about friendships too. With close mama friends that were the primary caregivers of the children, parenting seemed to be a main focus of our lives and conversations. And, whether we cared to admit it or not, the behavior of our children marked how well we were doing at this job of mothering. A month or two after moving into this house and only a few months after my dad died suddenly, a friend came by with her kids. It was the last time we have hung out in over a year. “You child delights in evil,” she let me know about my then 4 year old. A few months after that, a dear friend and her children were over too. But, it is also the last time they have been to our house in over a year. I heard through another friend that they needed more supervision if her sons were going to be around mine. Weeks ago an incredibly close friend resisted her son coming over for a play date due to worries that her son my get hurt if I let them play in the backyard alone. And, just yesterday a friend admitted how different our parenting styles are. “I am not as hands off and laid back as you. I like to know what my children are doing and am strict with what they are allowed to do.”
All of these friendship interactions hurt, but the most recent ones felt like the final blow. In the recent months, once the devastation of holiday grief and intense nausea of my 5th pregnancy wore off, my parenting became my first priority. I slowed down my schedule, we had little commitments at night, and any energy I had went to patiently working with the kids to train them up in the way they should go. It was exhausting and hard but completely worth it. I remembered parenting this way at different times in the past and life went so much better when I was putting in the work to teach and train them. I finally felt like that groove was returning when BAM, those recent friends hit me with the reminder of how they say my parenting: not enough. Not good enough. Not. Good. Enough.
It instantly brought of feelings of those past hurts from friends and feeling like a failure in parenting. I cried, I was mad, and I retreated. I took it all so personally. Thankfully, my husband brought some clarity to my jumbled feelings. He reminded me that there had been seasons where my parenting was not what it should be. If friends wanted to pull back, that was their prerogative. He also reminded me of how far I have come. How I had “woken up” and rejoined the land of the living as far as parenting is concerned. He had seen the change in our children. The integrity, the responsibility, the tenderness of their hearts, he saw it as they worked hard with joyful hearts, obeyed the first time, cared for one another, and generally had lives that were marked by honoring our words. Whew! Thank goodness for his performance review.
I had put so much power in the hands of my friends to determine if I was a good parent or not. I wanted them to think I was a good parent and that I could handle it all. But, I couldn’t and I let their words destroy what little bit of hope I had in seasons that I already felt depleted. Instead of extending grace and patience when my life was literally unbearable, they backed away not wanting my chaos to affect them. Whether they did that intentionally or not, it is how I perceived it in my grief, depression, and exhaustion. But, they very well needed to do that for their own protection, to keep their own boundaries, and remain sane in their parenting.
Although my friends have hurt me during my seasons of grief with their lack of understanding and continued expectations, I can’t fault them. Having a dad pass away at the age of 30 is not normal and not something any of my friends have been through. I want to open my heart to forgive them for the intentional or unintentional hurt I felt from them but also forgive myself for giving them power to determine my worth, my capabilities, and strength. It isn’t their approval that I should be seeking. It is God’s. It is His children that he has given me and instructed me to care for. It is Him I must press into for help, Him I must seek for guidance, and Him I must stand accountable to in the last days – not my friends.
My husband and I are on the same page with our parenting. We know the struggles we have faced and the special circumstances that are presented to our family – children close together, lots of boys, a set of twins, grief, depression, etc. It is our lot and according to Psalm 16, those boundary lines are set in pleasant places. God knows what our family needs, what special circumstances we have been through, and the children he shaping them to be because of them. Thank God for that. Our job is to teach and train our children but I am not doing this alone. God knows what my children need and all those days I was not able to give that to them, I am thankful for the continued work He did on their hearts. I will continue to pray for that work, as He is the one opening their hearts to change, for forgiveness and to mercy to grow more Christ-like each day. I certainly cannot ever muster enough energy or effort to accomplish such a task.
So here is to a new start, one of learning more of the mom God created me to be, relying on His to give me strength to accomplish the task at hand, and trust that He will be enough knowing that I certainly am not and that is just fine.
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