Today marks fourteen years that I’ve been a mother (plus the four before that where I was a house mom in a group home, but I digress). 7 kids: 5 adopted, 2 biological. Ages 14 to 1. I’ve learned a few things over the years and I want to quickly jot them down before I forget them in the fog of who needs to be picked up from cross country and who needs me to get poster board for their Star of the Week display next week. So here they are, in no particular order:
-Food fixes a lot. If people are grumpy, feeding them can go along way. If you are grumpy, take a minute and feed yourself. Don’t underestimate the impact of a warm meal eaten in silence. If you need to do that in the bathroom while the chaos rages outside every once-in-a-while, go for it.
-Don’t rescue your kids. They are capable of more than you think they are. Let them try some solutions before you jump in. Ask them how they would like you to help if they actually need help.
-Routine is your best friend. So many problems are avoided when you can find a rhythm and stick with it. When you do laundry on the same day, clean the house on the same night, go to church every Sunday and eat cereal for breakfast every Saturday morning, you deal with a lot less uprisings because kids are just used to it. Let your habits do the work for you so you don’t have to re-litigate every family decision.
-Physical affection matters. It’s hard to give affection to older kids, but they still need it. So you have to get creative. Do their hair, cook right next to each other, help them apply lotion, do a face mask, give a shoulder rub. We all need to know we’re loved and touch matters even during the awkward years.
–Don’t take it so personally. By “it” I mean pretty much every aspect of parenting. The tears probably aren’t about you even when you think they are, the anger isn’t about you, the frustration isn’t about you, the tantrum isn’t about you. It’s hard being a kid when you can’t control your life and Mom is a really easy person to take that out on. If Mom can recognize that and not feel so personally offended about it all, that makes life easier for everyone. I choose to believe the Mother’s Day cards they give me are personally about me and everything else is probably not.
-Tell your kids you like them. Love is a given. We have to love our kids. Our kids know this. It might actually be more important that they know we like them. We like their quirks and their talents and their groggy morning faces and that weird noise they make when they see a cute dog. When they don’t seem likable, remind yourself of all the things you like. Fake it until you feel it.
-We are not our worst decisions. I cannot define myself as a parent based on that time I forgot one of the group home kids at home when I took the rest of them to the pool (sorry, David). That was a bad moment. That’s not who I am. My kids have made dumb decisions. That isn’t who they are. I need to give them grace and offer it to myself as well.
-Hard things are worth doing, but knowing that they’re worth it won’t make them easier. It is very difficult to take a large family on a “vacation” (we all know traveling with kids is not an actual “vacation” for the adults involved). We still need to do it. And we will still have moments of frustration when we realize we paid A LOT OF MONEY to hear our kids complaining in a different National Park than the one they complained in last year. That’s okay. These are important experiences for them to have and important experiences are rarely easy. So many parts of being a good parent are hard, but that doesn’t mean we’re doing them wrong. It’s supposed to be hard.
-The way it is today is not how it will always be. Good or bad, things are always changing. The season of diapers and naps gives way to the season of report cards and YMCA soccer. If you’re exhausted and frustrated today and feel like it will always be this way, it won’t. But that doesn’t mean it will get easier, it will just get different. Toddler tantrums and teen tantrums are both challenging in their own way.
-Prioritize sleep. For you. For your kids. For your spouse. If things seem bleak, try taking a nap at the first opportunity and see if that doesn’t help a little. Train your kids that naps aren’t punishments, they are chances for a fresh start.
-Moms need friends. My kids do not need to try and meet all my emotional needs and quite frankly, neither does my spouse. That’s a big job. It requires a community of women who support me and love my kids. I need a safe place to say the things that are rolling around in my brain as I worry about how this will all turn out. Speaking them out loud helps diminish their power. Even when things are crazy and chaotic, I need to make time for women who keep me afloat and I need to invest in helping them survive too.
-Laugh as much as you can. Normalize laughing at yourself so your kids don’t think they need to be perfect. Laugh with your kids at dumb stuff or at life or at a funny movie. When you have to correct your kids, try and do it with a light touch. If there’s a way to be silly and still make your point, go with that. Live a life so your kids will remember what your laugh sounded like when you’re gone. Make sure they know you delighted in them.
-It’s okay to pick dumb battles and sweat the small stuff. Sometimes we know our kids need us to pick that small battle so we don’t have to fight the larger one later. Sometimes we need to sweat the small stuff because it’s THE ONE THING WE CAN CONTROL. If you want to get hung up about organic produce or cosleeping or flashcards or having the bed made every morning, I don’t care. Find the things that are important to you and your family and feel free to focus in on them. You need a home that runs smoothly and that doesn’t make you feel overwhelmed by your life. Your priorities can reflect that. Don’t let somebody make you feel bad if you refuse to have the dishes done before you go to bed OR because you make your kids wipe the toothpaste out of the sink every morning before they leave for school. You do you.
–Trust God. We are not capable of raising perfect kids or being perfect parents. If we were, we wouldn’t need a Savior and neither would our children. We can’t control the world around our kids, we can’t make them be who we dreamed they would be and we can’t promise them safety and security. We do our best. We pray like crazy. We believe God has a good plan, even if it isn’t our definition of “good.”
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