Kid For Sale

Ever heard this? I hear it a lot even from strangers. If I’m in Starbucks and a mom with a cartful of toddlers comes by and I comment on something they’re doing or how cute they’re acting, a common reply is “Yeah, wanna buy one?” My reply is always a big smile as I tell her I couldn’t afford it. Then I say hi to the kids.

As the mom pushes the hair out of her face and answers me, the kids are listening. They are hanging on the cart and paying complete attention. I see their eyes wide with interest as they process how life happens. And I wince that they heard their mother offer one of them up to a stranger, no matter how light-hearted she sounded.

The other comment I hear often is, “Ohhhh I can’t wait for school to start so I can get rid of the kids, this has been a long summer.”

Again, ouch.

It’s said in front of the children. What do you think they think about be referred to as a nuisance? (In another blog I’ll discuss the school’s influence on our kids.)

I don’t have a memory of my mother offering to get rid of me, although I know there were days when she needed a break. My memories are all of being wanted and valued, and that’s what my kids had better say about me – grrrrr. I miss my kids when they are at school, even if I’m doing something fun. I miss my adult daughter now, and her brother just because.

"You'll Just Have to Watch Him Then..."

That’s what I finally whispered to God when our son was two years old.

We were exhausted from dealing with a child who could not sleep through the night and regularly woke us up sobbing and gripping the baby gate we placed at his bedroom door. Our bedroom was upstairs and the kids’ rooms were on the main floor. (Not our choice, just our house at the time.)

In the wee hours of the night, my hubby would trudge down the stairs and carry our son back up to our bed. It took another bit of time to quiet him. The whole process left us majorly sleep deprived and after several years I just gave up one night.

A full night’s sleep was desperately needed by parents, and the only way we knew we could get it was to stop going downstairs in the middle of the night and rescuing our crying son. The one sobbing and gripping the gate blocking his exit.

So one night I broke. I couldn’t take the sleep interruption anymore and my husband was even more deranged. I set a timer to make sure a lamp lit the stairs to our bedroom, we took down the gate and I prayed for our son’s safety as he would surely seek us out in the middle of the night.

“You’ll just have to watch him God, cuz I’m just too tired anymore.”

That’s when I realized He had already been watching, and it was me that needed to rid myself of “ought’s” and anxieties. I needed to let go of the idea that I needed to supervise every single detail of this wild and woolly child’s life.

The sweetest thing happened as a result of letting go.

Upon being tucked into his bed, our son would ask if he could come in to our bed at “39” – his term for the middle of the night. We always said yes, we’d be glad to see him at 39. Neither one of us noticed “39”, and began sleeping through the whole night and woke up with our little guy quietly cuddling next to us. Well rested, we noted that he’d managed to climb the stairs safely every night thanks to God’s protection.

Our baby boy is now a lanky 16-year-old who chuckles upon hearing tales of our past bedtime woe. I’m so glad we let go and cuddled him for as long as it lasted…

Those “little guy” years pass far too quickly.

To Santa, or Not to Santa?

Over the years, parents have shared their questions with me about how to handle the whole Santa Claus thing with their children. If church-going, what do they do? If only concerned about Santa, what do they say the day their kids find out he isn’t real?

Once I heard Dr. Laura tell a concerned conservative caller it was okay for her five year old to tell his friends Santa wasn’t real. The doctor supported the caller’s wish to keep Christmas purely about Jesus, not about gifts. For her, there was no blend. It was one way or another: Santa yes or no.

I probably should stop and send this blog to Dr. Laura as well.

There is a happy medium! I oughta know, I’ve taught it to my children for over two decades and it works.

As a Christian parent, I did not want to take away anything from the true meaning of the Christmas celebration, that being the birth of Jesus Christ. Nostalgically I liked the Santa ideas. So we blended. Notice I did not say “compromised”.

I taught my children about the original St. Nicholas. The generous man who left small gifts for children on their doorsteps hundreds of years ago in Europe. This man had a spirit of generosity. The Santa we know in today’s culture is based upon this man who once really existed. People in our country dress up like Santa to represent the real St. Nick, that’s why we see representations all over the place, costumed in malls and on street corners.

There are families, I’ve told my children, who choose to make Santa a real being for their children. While we know this is not true, it is not our place to inform other children about what we know. We just go for the picture and the fun and the remembrance of St. Nicholas. Mouths shut. Tell kids about the St. Nick from long ago.

Our “Santa” left a gift on Christmas Day. Originally the gift was a biggie, then it moved to overflowing stocking stuffers, these days it is one item that actually fits in the stocking. We’ve even moved to ONE gift from parents on Christmas Eve and no Cards mailed. Getting rid of the commercialism as much as possible.

So Dr. Laura, there is a way to blend “Santa” with reality after all!

Ho, ho, ho…

My Child Has A Friend I Don't Like

We all have people we run into or know that we don’t like, and hopefully it is for a good reason (vs. jealousy). As adults, we hopefully know how do deal with our level of interaction with someone who falls into this category. But what do we do when we don’t like a friend of our child’s?

There was this one little girl that could irritate me til my skin crawled when my daughter was four. They were friends for the longest 18 months of my life. Fortunately, my daughter had no idea about my dislike of this over-indulged, manipulative child. That’s because I taught her that “we include and invite everyone to our home, and we must share everything.”

Two thoughts about what I learned about that generalization.

One: the other girl nearly broke my girl’s brand-new bike because of my “sharing insistence” and her lack of ability to ride. (We changed our policy to exclude special toys that a careless child may have little regard for.) Two: God forced me to pray for this irksome, irritating, whiney kid. Her parents had groomed her to be like that and she took it from there. God showed me that if I spent as much time praying for this “piece of work” as I did thinking and ranting about her, my time would be much better spent. (Once I started praying for her, I ended up having a fond heart for this girl and looked at her through much different eyes.)

I doubt my daughter remembers that former neighbor, but when I learned to limit her access to things and to tell my daughter there were some things that we did not play with in groups, plus began praying, everything changed.

What about when our kids are drawn to a troubled kid and your kid is being placed in the same category by association?

This too has happened to both my kids. Both were around second grade at the time. My parent sonar went right up once I saw that the newly discovered “friends” would not look me in the eye and had body language about a decade more mature. In both cases, these school-generated friendships lasted almost an entire school year. Both friendships dragged my children down and got them in trouble. I was frustrated to think these were their choices and sought to learn what was so attractive about these blooming problems.

It wasn’t so much the charm these kids had, because frankly, they lacked that. But what they did do was seek out my children, and my kids gratefully accepted the attention and followed the lead. Both of my kids were susceptible at the time and in need of peer affirmation. Reminds me of adults making poor choices in people because of who pays the most attention.

We managed by keeping the play dates at our house, where we closely supervised. We bit our lips. We prayed. We firmly enforced our house rules. And, we quietly and consistently encouraged friendships with positive kids as well.

Our dialog included age-appropriate discussions about what makes a good close friend vs. being friendly and kind to others. We affirmed positive character strengths we observed in our kids, and helped them see there are people we help, people who walk alongside us, and people who inspire us. It is good to have all 3 categories in our lives. We read lots of Bible stories and tried to remain as unemotional as possible. Each of the above actions took place in very small doses, and never behind a lectern.

As time passed and our kids developed more self-confidence, they drifted away from the negative influencers. I think because we never said “no”, but were calm and welcoming, not only did they learn to choose differently, their hearts opened to be loving to a wide range of people. Plus…they had learned to find their own worth in hobbies and skill development.

The First Time Mom

Oh my gosh start laughing with me before you even read what I did!

I was so honored and enthusiastic to actually be carrying a baby I got pretty zealous – especially since my mom had died a few years prior. Not having a mommie to talk to and share the excitement and wonder left me adrift. I filled the drift with lots of research.

Believe it or not, I actually created a CHART to compare different parenting book recommendations regarding the number of layette pieces needed. I carried that chart to the Carters outlet and bought the average of the recommended number of items. You know - undershirts, sleepwear, burp cloths, etc. The girlfriend shopping with me was chuckling at my earnest shopping desire to give my baby the “correct” number of items. (ACK!)

Once my baby girl was born, I was in heaven! I’d lost my mom – my best friend – and had desired to be a relational mom to a daughter in the next generation. Celebration! God had answered my prayers! I adored this sweet-cheeked easy going and alert baby. I also made everyone who came in contact with her wash their hands before touching her. They could not shorten her hyphened 10-letter first name, ever. Not only that, I put all her toys in the dishwasher nightly and when she was crawling, I made sure all her Duplos were put back in their original arrangement. We won't even talk about how I color-coded her outfits into Ziplocs when we traveled or wrote on the "Baby's First Year" calendar until she was 13. (You think I'm kidding...)

For her first birthday, I invited four other tots, stayed up night after night to sew them each a stuffed duck. Each duck wore a pink or blue bib embroidered with the guest’s name. Pretty overdone, huh?! The moms blinked and said the “party gifts” were nicer than the gifts they brought. (Correct.) I was just soooo happy to share my long-awaited baby girl’s first birthday I couldn’t contain myself.

Now I can pick out first time parents within seconds. I see the doting, glowing and innocence. Nothing wrong with that - it’s just that reality sets in when that sweet baby grows into a four-year-old who throws up on you at 3:00 a.m. and you spend the rest of the night hosing off the family and doing laundry.

So now I'm not so over-zealous, but guess what? I still delight in my heart with each stage and action in both my kids' lives. They are still my babies, and yep, I am still thrilled that I get to be their mommie.

How Do You Get One of Those?

That's the question I asked a much older father in the church I was attending when my daughter was four. I had seen how he and his wife interacted and volunteered, and more impressively - how their two college aged kids engaged and behaved at church functions.

The older kids impressed me by their humor and grace, ability to communicate with people of all ages and their quiet faith. They volunteered when they could, where they could and I considered them solid young adults. I wanted one like that in about 18 years, so I asked their dad.

He gave me a big smile and one of those comforting, knowing twinkles that contained the wisdom of the ages without any pride and said that was the goal he and their mother had. "We just claimed Scripture about leaders over our kids." I wasn't sure what that meant, but I sure wanted to try that!

They had used two sections out of the New Testament (1 Timothy 3:1 - 7 and Titus 1:6 - 9) addressed to church elders or overseers and personalized them with their son and daughter's names in place of nouns. These verses were prayed every day for each child since the kids were small. The verses mention character traits such as honesty, purity and self-control. Whether or not my girl (and son yet to be born) became some kind of leader any where, I surely agreed with the traits in the verses. So I've been praying them ('claiming them') for my kids ever since.

This father's comment has inspired me to comb the Bible for other verses to pray for my family, friends and others over the years. I love to encourage young families to seek out verses and pray them over and over. What a great idea to pray God's Word back to him.

The Mom at the End of Her Rope

One day I was sitting in the food court sipping my Starbucks mocha just watching people. You’d be surprised at the number of moms who actually engage in dialog with their children while eating their Pizza Hut breadsticks. Most moms sit staring off in space waiting for their children to finish eating. The children appear oblivious to mom’s lack of engagement and chatter aimlessly. The moms reply with uh-huhs, sometimes while texting friends. Once I saw a mother of three young boys sit down and enjoy each moment and enthusiastically interact with her crew. When they were finishing up the meal I had to go over and tell the mother how wonderful it was to see a mom fully present with her kids. You could tell this family clicked on many levels. She burst into a huge smile and told me I’d made her day. No, she made mine.

Back to the mom from last week. You could hear her coming because she was herding her children along. Only one child was in the cart, she had let the other two walk and carry their own mini pizza boxes and they weren’t walking fast enough for her. So I heard the rumbling of the cart and the barking of the mother before I saw her and her three young boys.

They selected the table right behind me to set up camp. The youngest was definitely under two, the middle boy was about four and the oldest was around five. The littlest one stood backwards on his chair to eat. The other two were dipping their pizzas in too much sauce according to their mother. She sat there looking trapped snapping out commands and not following up on one.

“That’s too much sauce, look what you did. Stop that.”

“Hey come back here! OK sit over there but we’re here to eat so get your pizza.”

“Sit down!”

“Would you just eat?!!”

Over and over she tossed out commands to kids who had obviously learned to tune her out long ago. I don’t think she was aware of how she sounded. I got a good look at her when I stood up to throw away my coffee cup. She was left with the toddler and the older two had climbed on stools at a nearby counter. Her table was strewn with pizza boxes, bread stick containers, balled up napkins and crumbs everywhere. She was the most miserable looking parent I had ever seen. Her face wore the look of a parenting hostage who felt trapped in her life. Her tone was laden with exasperation and frustration as she told the boys it was time to go.

I wanted to spontaneously begin one of the parenting workshops I conduct just for this woman in dire need of a communication makeover. In the scheme of things, does it really matter how much sauce is used and when? Does it make sense to repeat orders and not follow up?