Whether it’s from 3000 miles away or it’s across the house as they’re sitting 15 feet away from you, the distance might seem just as insurmountable (whether there be physical, mental or even spiritual chasms).
How do we smother them with love when at the same time we want to smother them with a pillow? Not really. But you know you want to shake them every once in a while!
Born of our flesh, they often times have the same psychological make-up that we have. Similar deficiencies and hopefully some of the same beautiful parts in their own unique packages.
And whether they be 10 or 16 or 26 - they are hard.
There’s a verse that says, show a child the way they should go (Proverbs 22:6). Sometimes it means directing them towards activities or interests that they may not really want to pursue; sometimes it’s encouraging things you don’t really like yourself, but you know it’s things they enjoy. And sometimes it’s setting up those ugly boundaries that just suck. They suck because they’re hard and they suck because they truly suck the life out of you.
Parenting is hard.
Yesterday I got to sit across from my daughter on her 25th birthday. I never imagined we would make it this far. She’s made like me in many ways and at the same time she’s much stronger than I am. She’s faced things that I can say I’ve never had to go through or endure. And she’s doing the best she can every day.
It’s one of the joys when you see them on the other side. And as we were leaving I looked at her and I said “what’s your faith?”
She hates the question but instead of me telling her exactly what kind of faith she should have, I asked her what she believed. And she told me she had a higher power. She wasn’t sure much beyond that, but that’s a start. Because I would rather her believe in something than nothing. I would rather be able to have the discussion I had with her openly without it being mixed with the anger that she seethes toward people who push faith or her in total silence.
Parenting is hard.
It’s much harder when we don’t have faith. That means me, my kids, and even the other parent. You can’t manufacture faith in someone who doesn’t believe, but you can pray like hell for them to find something that sticks in their ass and makes them realize that there are bigger mountains to climb.
How do you parent?
I never feel like I do it well enough, but I try. And for many years I didn’t try. Not to the level of trying i could be proud of - trying to bridge the gap. Find things of interest that a 10 year-old, 25-year-old and a 26-year-old might want to talk about. And I often still fail to find those common grounds.
I do believe fully that if you try, you’re at least participating.
Talk to them. Talk to them until you’re blue in the face if you have to, but also listen. And when you listen, maybe you’ll find one thread that you can say is common between you. Maybe they’ll see you listening and realize there’s more to communication than just yelling and screaming and then running away or just hiding and trying to slide by without opening up. Because parenting is really relationship. Starts as this protector of life and it develops into one of guide or mentor into hopefully some kind of relationship that might resemble a friendship. Or at least a connection that’s beyond just “do what I say!”
I don’t know if any of this resonates but I just know after several days of talking a lot about parenting and how it does and doesn’t work at times, I know that it’s better when you actually talk with others. Talk about your failures and talk about your hopes for your kids.
Parenting is hard.
But so worth it.
~ Peace
The Burtle
