I took a ten hour car trip with two other women last week. For any of you who have been on a long car ride with other women, you can just imagine how many conversations we got into over the course of that journey. I’m trying to think of a topic we didn’t touch on at some point. About six hours into this trip we started discussing our college experiences.
It was fun to think through my years at college, especially the year I spent as a Resident Assistant on a hall of primarily Sophomore girls. Look back at the influential experiences of my life, I can see how this one had a unique influence on the direction I was headed. While I was barely a year older than those girls, they let me love them and help create a “family culture” in our little corner of the college. To this day I love those girls and feel so blessed to be loved by them.
There are many moments of parenthood that give me that de ja vu feeling and sometimes I think it’s because of my RA experience. Haven’t I done this before? Haven’t I felt these things before? I remember during my houseparenting days at the group home, that in some ways it didn’t feel that different from being an RA. . . although some of that might have had to do with always having college student interns living with us.
In our little conservative Christian college, rules were a big deal. I mean, at least they were to me as someone who loves rules. Part of my role as an RA was to be the Enforcer of The Rules. This is awkward when you’re dealing with peers and it feels easier to ignore things you know you shouldn’t ignore. But then people KNOW you’re the type that ignores so it just gets worse. Anyone who has been a mom knows that this is basically the entire experience of motherhood. You don’t want to say awkward things like, “Who forgot to flush the toilet?” but you know if you don’t, then just NOBODY will EVER FLUSH THE TOILET for the rest of their years in your home. Being an RA was great preparation for having to be consistent even when it made you feel like a jerk. Turns out, a lot of motherhood is just kind of feeling like a jerk even when you know you’re doing the right thing.
And then there’s grace. The moments when you know someone is really struggling with homesickness or a bad breakup or just keeping their head above water academically. That is not the moment to swoop in with a dumb consequence for a dress code violation (yes, we had a dress code). Seeing the heart behind the action, knowing the context was so helpful in learning how to love well. And I bungled that plenty of times on account of how much I love rules. But I learned and that learning is what has benefited my kids. Even if it doesn’t negate the need for a consequence, I want to hear what’s going on for them. I want to get the full picture before I jump in.
As many consequences as I gave out, I don’t think anybody received more of them than I did. I was a constant violator of curfew (yes, we had a curfew) and had to learn how to gracefully submit myself to authority. We had to do work hours for the college as a consequence, and I did a lot of flower bed weeding and baseboard wiping– things that were pretty public so everybody knew. This was a help for me as I learn to admit my mistakes to my kids. Nobody is above authority and it helps them submit to me when they see how I submit to others. Humility is important for moms so our kids know it’s okay when they make mistakes, too. And also, I am now pretty awesome at cleaning baseboards which is a nice lifeskill to have.
I continued to nurture my ongoing love of boundaries while in college. There were times I did not answer the knock at my door. I knew I had to stay on top of my studies and occasionally I needed to sleep, so I couldn’t just be constantly available. This ability to turn off the guilt of not being able to meet every need has served me well in parenting. There are times I have to rest or use the bathroom or make dinner or get some work done and I need to be able to communicate to my kids that it’s okay for mom to have boundaries, too. I am a person, as shocking as that seems to them at times.
There were three RAs in my dorm and I learned to uniquely value the time we spent together. We loved our girls, we struggled when they struggled, we had a love/hate relationship with rule enforcement, and we knew we sometimes felt isolated because of our position. These girls were my team and I still love them. They helped set in my heart a desire for that team approach to loving those in our care. I’m so thankful for the fellow moms in my community that come alongside me with the unique understanding of what it takes to devote yourself to your children– the joys and the struggles. We are better moms together.
I also learned things about the importance of remembering someone’s birthday and how often to check on someone who has a fever and how to tweeze eyebrows and how to make Ramen with a hotpot and how to handle a leak through a ceiling tile and how to clean a massive amount of hair out of a vacuum cleaner. . . some of these skills are more useful in my current life than others. But most of all, I learned to love these girls and to let myself be loved by them. They choose to let me into their lives and struggles and I never took the privilege of that for granted. And they cheered me on, too– staying up late one night until I got back to the dorm (past curfew, obviously) to celebrate my engagement– a proposal they all knew was coming and I had no idea. They wrote me sweet notes and shared their secret stash of cheese and crackers and one of them helped me pass my statistics class in spite of my math deficiencies. They showed me that to love someone is to allow yourself to open up and be loved by them, too. They taught me that trust is earned and must be handled delicately while it’s growing. They showed me that nobody is as put-together as they seem, not even me. All of these lessons have been valuable as I have loved others, especially my kids. And ESPECIALLY my kids from hard places. Love is always a choice. I’m glad they choose to love me.
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