Tag Archives: parenting

Blessed Are the Curious Children, for They May Properly Embarrass the Grown-Ups

(After a bike ride to the public library)

You have one or have met one: The child who simply oozes with questions.

If my daughter were a Nerf Dart Gun, she would fire continuously. Some darts might be soft and painless while others would be oversized and spikey. And you would never know which dart was about to fire until it hits. She once asked a woman in public whether she was a boy or girl. She has asked two people who happen to be standing next to each other whether they might get married. And of course, the usual array of uncomfortable questions: how much a person paid for a house, how much money a person makes, why a single person isn’t married, when the newly married person will have a baby, and on and on, painting my face a deeper shade of red with each and every dart.

It is in a child’s job description to embarrass parents. That way, when the child grows to be a teenager it all evens out. Any embarrassment a teenager laments is simply returning the favor.

For most parents, we deal with moments of curiosity-induced embarrassment understanding this is how kids make sense of the world. They ask their way into the moment. They wildly wonder out loud.

Today’s Nerf Dart came in the form of: “Mom, why did dad marry you?”

This is a dart I had not seen before. I’m not sure I’d ever pondered the question! Why did he marry me 20 years ago? I had no answer. “Because we were young and didn’t really know anything” didn’t seem the appropriate response! She’ll have to ask her dad.

Isn’t it crazy that a 9-year old can pose brand new questions to a 43-year old? Age might invite wisdom, but adding years is not exclusively the formula to becoming wiser. Curiosity does that. Even if the curiosity makes you blush in front of strangers and friends! If nothing else, those who are curious are contagious with wonder and wonder might call us to see one another in a new way.

I hope to overhear my husband’s response to today’s question. It makes me curious. Perhaps I might ask it myself.

DELETED BOOK CHAPTER: Shoes

(Photo by Tamas Pap on Unsplash)

The book I wrote is a mere 1/4 inch tall when it lounges on its back. I kept it brief in order to be more accessible to women whose lives leave little margin to pick up a book. In the year it took to write all the words, with my audience in mind I may have deleted as many words as I kept. One chapter I nixed had to do with shoes.

Before exiting the hospital with a baby, I had no idea the plethora of pairs of shoes required per set of growing feet per year. Soft-sole shoes for learning how to walk. Hard-sole shoes for walking outside. Shoes for soccer, baseball, basketball, gym, and dance. Boots for hunting. Boots for winter. Shoes for running. Sandals for summer. Shoes for church and other such occasions that require looking spiffy. I can NOT remember needing so many pairs of shoes when I was growing up! Perhaps feet have gotten needier?

Growing feet belong to growing bodies belong to human beings who are constantly changing…growing! And requiring shoes that fit their feet. A child puts on a pair of shoes and notices his toes are pinched. And finally, you rest your eyes on the teenage human with size 11 shoes who fits in the driver’s seat of the car where his giant feet push actual pedals!

Each time the shoe size increases, so does all the stuff they can do in those shoes. Drive a car. Walk into high school, college, a job. Judging from the growth of their shoes alone, kids experience a steady and astonishing stream of change. Just when their shoes get broken in and comfortable, they are suddenly too small.

“It’s okay,” loving adults around them say with words and sometimes cookies and also hugs (whenever allowed). “No matter what changes you are still you. You are so loved in each and every shoe size. You are a wonder in that growing body God made. You are expensive, you shoe wearer-outer and out-grower! Even so, you will never outgrow God’s love, wrapped more tightly around you than a too-small shoe. Which…I can see you have going on there.”

Thanks for the Who

(Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya on Unsplash)

In the book, Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle, authors Amelia and Emily Nagoski suggest two lovely gratitude practices.

  1. WHO: Give thanks for someone(s) in your life.
  2. WHAT HAPPENED: Give thanks for something that happened that day.

These two practices are inspiring and avoid an icky result of most gratitude practices. Giving thanks for a who and a what happened prevents us from giving thanks for things. Giving thanks for things leads us to be thankful that we have things. Then we notice people in the world who don’t have things, which leads us to feel guilty that we do have things while others don’t. And gratitude becomes an exercise in guilt.

I am excited to practice giving thanks for some of those who are who in my kids’ lives. (You made it to the end of that weird sentence. Good for you.)

*Thank you, Lord, for Driver’s Ed instructors. What were they thinking? Keep them safe.

*Thank you, Lord, for coaches who set aside a ginormous amount of time for an often thankless job. Keep them sane.

*Thank you, Lord, for grandparents. May the trade-off of too-much sugar for so-much sweet grandparent love all work out in the end. Keep them smiling.

*Thank you, Lord, for gracious strangers who reveal comforting kindness at just the right moment, such as when a kid on a bike needs to cross a busy street. Keep them plentiful.

*Thank you, Lord, for the moms who are absolutely real when my kids come over to hang out. For the way they feed my kids with food, hospitality and an honest glimpse at the truth that all our homes are often hot messes. Keep them real.

*Thank you, Lord, for Faith Formation Directors (Christina Jorgensen) who mail my kid a cute card after an amazing week at Bible Camp, who promise that faith in Jesus is cool both at camp and everywhere else. Keep them in that particular job for a very long time. Please.

Thank you, Lord. Thank you.

The End.

Why I Don’t Tell My Kids God Has a Plan

(Photo by Idella Maeland on Unsplash)

It seems like the standard, automatic Christian response: “God has a plan.” Why in the world would I not say that to my own kids? Because this Christian mantra makes me uncomfortable. Let me tell you why.

I notice the words are spoken in the face of events we do not understand and would like to make sense of: cancer, tragedy, a difficult transition, or an uncertain future. “God has a plan,” the Christian deduces.

Perhaps saying these four words will provide a sense of comfort when our kids face trials (from heartache to addiction), or intense decisions (from how should I dress to whom shall I marry). We hope in these words to remind our kids they are part of a bigger design and God has it all under control. However, I suspect these four words dilute the incredible gift of God’s presence.

For at least three reasons, I avoid this Christian phrase.

  1. If everything is in God’s plan, then the terrible thing becomes part of God’s design, too. With this mantra, we tell our kids they may be destined for cancer or heart disease or divorce or addiction or fetal demise or a fatal accident because God is just that kind of event planner. Nations are meant to go to war and domestic abuse is a thing that happens. And who determines whether something is or is not in God’s plan? This seems very confusing both to kids and grown-ups.
  2. This notion really sucks for the poor. If God’s plan means some humans are impoverished while others are not, we risk placing kids in a position of inherent privilege. They are simply “the lucky ones,” which is how slavery persisted and how Hitler did his convincing. A strong enough belief in God’s immutable plan abdicates kids from the messy and complex work of loving our neighbor. A plan is straightforward, but loving our impoverished neighbor is anything but.
  3. Christian words meant to eliminate complexity make me nervous. Reducing confusing things to “God’s plan” releases us from the hard work of sitting with God and wondering. All seasons of life require reflection with God, an unpeeling of the many layers around each difficult experience we encounter. An automatic response discourages kids (and grown-ups) from deep conversation with God about the complexity of human life.

God’s plan, I hope to help my own kids understand, is to walk with them, listen, encourage and comfort. It is to set the people they need in their lives at precisely the right time. God’s presence is enough of a plan.

And You Thought THAT Felt Scary?

(Photo by Ivan Shemereko on Unsplash)

So many years ago for the very first time, I witnessed the pink lines on the stick. That was scary. What was happening in my body at that moment felt scary. The feeling intensified when a “helpful” co-worker told me, “Just you wait. A few weeks ago before my first child was born, I sat weeping on the steps in my house, wondering how something the size of a watermelon was going to come out of me.” “Thanks for the encouragement,” I did not say.

Outside the entrance of Mercy Hospital nine months later, Marcus and I loaded up our first born, trying to make sense of the car seat situation. We were now responsible for a human being’s survival! That felt scary.

In the next several years, we would leave our kiddo and then kids with a babysitter, then a day care provider, then a teacher. Each time, that felt scary.

We would leave them behind at a new school, a camp, a sleepover at a friend’s. Today, one of my sons walked alone into a room to take his permit test. He didn’t say it, but I knew it felt scary. Big questions, big stakes. He passed.

He left behind the part of his life in which he could not drive, only bike or walk or sit in a passenger seat. He left behind some of his dependence upon me and in doing so, he now shares some of the scary feelings with me. Moving into a new season of life is never without them. The scary feelings accompany independence.

In an audiobook I’m currently reading called Learning to Pray, James Martin, SJ, suggested talking to God about feelings such as these, and asking God what these feelings might mean. What does it mean, God, that I am scared when my kiddos gain independence. Along with that question, he offered another. Who is Jesus for me?

What do these feelings mean? Who is Jesus?

I feel scared when my kids gain independence perhaps because I worry whether Marcus and I have equipped them enough for that particular new independence. Of course, I feel scared for what might happen, scared for so many reasons. The scary feelings are simply too much for me to carry on my own.

Kids absorb some of the scary feelings when they gain independence. While I am still responsible for a human being’s survival, my kids are big enough to carry much of that responsibility, too.

Still, the scary feelings can be overwhelming. Jesus, then, is the porter who carries the heavy, scary feelings not only as far as your hotel room, but to all places at all times. He is the companion who does not leave my kids even when I leave them at a new school or a friend’s sleepover. He is the friend at camp and the passenger in the car.

Jesus is the one who reminds me the scary feelings are fine as along as they do not hinder the independence. (Easy for him to say.)

In years to come, at my child’s graduation, wedding, or who knows what, I will look back on the day of the permit and giggle at myself. “You thought THAT felt scary?” I’ll say. But I’ll say it more nicely than that co-worker. I don’t need to be a jerk myself.

Focus Beyond the Family (Part 3/3): “Kids, the world is bigger than your baseball game.”

(Photo Credit: https://www.legion.org/memorialday/photos/237598/memorial-day-border. May 29, 2017)

My kids and I spent Memorial Day in my hometown of Sherwood, North Dakota. Two miles from Canada, I grew up understanding a border to be peaceful, and international neighbors to be neighbors. Each year, roughly a week after joyfully arriving at the last day of school, students were called back to school to take part in the annual Memorial Day program. You can read more by clicking on the link in the photo caption.

In a nutshell, Memorial Day in Sherwood typically begins at the Canadian/American border, where Canadian veterans and members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and American veterans and local police officers march from their respective ports to the borderline, where they exchange their nations’ flags.

People my age and older recall riding a bus from Sherwood School those freezing mornings (my memories involve freezing rain, but maybe I’m exaggerating) with our instruments and joining the march to play…something…I can’t remember…I’m sure it was “lovely”.

The program continued at the school, with a choir singing each country’s anthem as well as the songs of each branch of the military. A slideshow, which has evolved into an impressive video production, displays pictures of each of Sherwood’s veterans who are now deceased.

Next, the program moves from the north end of Main Street where the school is located, to the south end where a stone memorial at the city’s fire hall commemorates two men who died fighting an oil fire near Sherwood in 1991. The program concludes at the city cemetery, where a designated person places a wreath on the tomb of the unknown soldiers.

Each of the 84 years of this program has drawn a crowd, often including the governor of our state. It requires a great deal of planning and manpower, even though the number of volunteers to pull off such a program has dwindled over the years, in proportion to the shrinking of a small town like my hometown.

This year, even though the border portion of the program could not take place because of the pandemic and closed borders, I wanted my kids to spend Memorial Day in Sherwood. We sat on the bleachers, just as I had for so many of these programs, just as I had for the funerals of the two men who perished in the oil fire.

“Kids,” I try to remind my own, “The world is bigger than your baseball games, your jobs, your hobbies, your accomplishments.” When a moment arises to gather for something that is not kid-centered, I find those moments invaluable. Every kid, every grown-up, every human needs to know we are small parts of something larger than ourselves.

Not long ago, I admired the parents who spend so much of their time and money coaching kids’ sports teams. Volunteer parents receive very little gratitude for the sweat equity they have in their kids’ sports. Now, however, I am not so sure. I am starting to wonder about the danger of living in communities where we spend much of our free time and money watching our kids’ activities. Kids learned to be watched and adored or yelled at. They get to be part of a team, and that offers good life learning. But the humble act of sitting in the bleachers and hearing a story you’ve heard so many times about people whom you will never know, but whom you do know played a part in your living where you live…I suspect this is how we practice being human together.

Regardless of how I feel about war and politics and American flags, I need my kids to know they live in a community. You live in a community. Every one you know lives in some kind of community. A community functions best when we all proclaim a singular hope to make them community better for everyone.

My generation has often exchanged shared communal activities for kids’ sports, my own family included. I wonder what that means for the next generations. Who will set out the chairs for the community program? Who will organize the order of the program? Who will do the work of telling our story? It is a story that is not mine or yours or theirs, but ours. A story we may not even tell precisely the same way. (All family stories are like that; we do not remember things the same.)

I hope to raise kids who know that the responsibility of living in a community falls on them. Jesus’ call to love a neighbor is a call to them. The yearning for peaceful borders is not something to entrust to someone else.

Kids’ busy lives are not the whole world. The world is bigger as much as it is filled with possibilities for them to make it better. I only believe that because a community taught me, year after year on freezing Memorial Day mornings when I thought school was over but apparently it wasn’t because I needed to sing “O Canada” and play taps and occasionally I found it all very boring.

Now, I get it.

The More Absurd Mom-Chores

Today I think I will clean inside the refrigerator so that tomorrow it will look like I did not clean it at all.

One month ago I washed the windows so that one month later it would look like I didn’t.

I also make our bed, re- (and then re-) organize the kitchen cupboard that provides temporary housing for snacks that quickly disappear, and on rare occasion I have been known to fold and sort clothing and accessories belonging to my daughter’s dolls (under her direction and supervision).

All of these chores can be filed together under the letter “A” for absurd. These are absurd ways to spend time. I know my work will be unnoticed by most everyone but me, and my efforts will be undone rather quickly.

Yet for a brief moment there is order where there had not been. Like God speaking into the chaos and nothingness at the start of God’s first day on the job, it all makes sense for just long enough to take it all in; to believe that order might be possible after all.

And then someone raids the refrigerator, or soaks the windows when he meant to water the grass, or confuses the drawers that belong strictly to the doll’s stockings with the drawer designated for headbands.

What order?

Like a day that does what it does instead of what you expected it to. Like kids for whom you dreamed one dream who now occupy their own quite different dream. Like you, who woke up ready for this day and now you feel as undone as the formerly-organized snack cupboard; as dis-orderly as my refrigerator will be by the time the sun tucks itself beneath the horizon.

We are meant to be both done and undone, we human creatures. To be both orderly and dis-orderly, both lost and found, both “W” for wise and “A” for absurd. You have noticed the order God once pronounced long ago for the very first time did not stick. But God stuck around; kept speaking as stubbornly as the mom who continues to do the absurd chores. Even when it doesn’t look like we did them at all. But we did. We sure did.

Week 2 of 3: The World Needs You to Pray (prayer at home)

(Photo by Hanna Balan on Unsplash)

“KITT,” I would say with authority to the invisible watch on my wrist, “I need you to come pick me.” In real life KITT did not, but in my imagination, the talking car immediately responded, like I was totally David Hasselhoff in “Knight Rider”, and away we would go.

(https://screencrush.com/knight-rider-car-for-sale/)

My eight-year old self (and yours) never imagined actual communication through a watch, but now it’s a thing! I splurged on an Apple Watch and spent too much of a Saturday talking to my watch, gazing at it, and being confused by it. I adjusted my fitness goals, set my alarm, read the news, called my dad (like Knight Rider to KITT) and checked the weather a ridiculous number of times. My watch knows me well because I taught it what matters to me, such as moving around during the day, waking up early, and determining how many layers to wear when I go outside.

Prayer is something like being obsessed with your Apple Watch. The more time you spend, the more you are known, both by God and your own self.

If you wonder what to pray about, do not look far. Look at your own body and then at the bodies who are closest to you (maybe not in terms of proximity). Start there. Pray for God to help you know yourself, to understand why you feel the way you do in regard to your own life. Pray for wisdom and imagination. Lighting a candle or three helps.

Then, pray for those who mean the most to you. Pray for your spouse, your parents, your kids, your siblings, your aunt and uncle, grandparents, and cousins. Pray for them one by one, even if it takes some time. You are not praying for something to happen to them. Remember, you are not God and God knows more than you. You are praying for wisdom and imagination for them. For their well-being, for the peace of Christ’s presence to enfold them.

“Prayer is the place where priorities are re-established,” wrote the late Eugene Peterson.

You discover when you pray for your own self and for those closest to you that your priorities shift. You find yourself closer to God. You feel closer to family members. Prayer is not complicated, but it does take time and it may reroute your plans for life. What you had been worrying about might fall away. What had never occurred to you before might appear in your brain. You might come to realize how hard you can be on yourself. God’s resounding grace reclaims its space in your soul when you pray. And you remember you are known already, without the hassle of the Apple Watch, or the Hasselhoff with KITT. You are known, you hear your heart sing whenever you pray.

A preview of next week: In the last week of this short series on prayer, we will wonder what difference your own prayers make in the wider world.

Holy Week: The unDead End

The human experience is often habitual. From our morning routine, to the route we take through the grocery store, to the way we choose to relax. If you were to zoom out on your life, you would notice other examples of habit. How you set goals (or don’t) and whether you expect to achieve them. How you respond to your self-criticism. How you dream (or don’t dream) about your future.

When we move comfortably in rhythm with our habits, we might wonder whether this is all there is. Is this the only way? Does your familiar habitual experience lead irreversibly in one direction? Do all roads close in on the one dead end at the very end?

I am wondering because some habits are not particularly life-giving. Whenever you feel stuck in a job or a relationship, it feels very much like moving toward a dead end; as if this truly is all there is and there is absolutely no other way.

If you want a ridiculous example, I can supply many from my own life. To offer you just one. I have been wearing disagreeable sunglasses for almost a year. They never quite fit properly and they have left a small scratch on the bridge of my nose that will not go away for the obvious reason that I keep wearing them. In the very center of one lens, there is a damning scratch that occurred when my kids were fighting like zoo animals in the car one day and I threw my glasses because…because…well, that was just a dumb thing I did.

For the past year, I have answered “yes” to the question, “Is this the only way I might protect my eyes from the sun? Is this scratched and scratching set of sunglasses my only option?”

Here is another example, this one from the Bible and not so petty. I give you, the story we call Palm Sunday.

When Jesus sat on a donkey and strode into Jerusalem, he was mimicking a Roman victory parade. If we were first century residents of Jerusalem, we would have known that after your country (always Rome in the first century) wins a war, a prominent military figure would sit on a fancy-pants horse and enter a city through a parade of worshippers. It was “the only way” to assure a city the victors would forever be the victors. There was no reason to doubt the men in charge because, can’t you see, military men like this one will forever rule the world and therefore be worthy of your praise.

But…Jesus was on a donkey, not a horse. His victory would be by death, not by inflicting death on others. Which means this “ruler” of ours would not promise to live, but be killed. Eek.

Jesus’ life-long sermon was, “Nope, this is not all there is.” Victors who rule by might alone? Not all there is. People who are weak, poor, lost, addicted, not religious, lonely, left in the gutters? Not all there is. Women whose proper place is wherever the men decide? Not all there is. Kids who are subjected to sexual abuse because their voices don’t matter? Not all there is. The rich buying their way through life? Nope.

On Palm Sunday, Jesus preached this sermon without words. His parade into the city was a colossal joke, a prank meant to light a fire under the church and city rulers. It worked.

On Easter Sunday (and every single day) God preaches that sermon again and again. “This is not all there is.” Christians are brazen enough to look for the living among the dead because all roads, no matter how deep the ruts of our habits, do not lead to a singular dead end. The tomb was a most profound hoax of a dead end, revealing itself three days later to be an un-dead end.

I did order new sunglasses yesterday. Just in time for Easter.

A question for littles

Sometime when you are driving home and everyone is in a delightful mood and you are not in a hurry, take a different route. You could ask you kiddo to tell you where and when to turn. Ask them what they notice? What’s it like to take a different route?

A question for former littles

Do you feel stuck in any particular habit? (First, the grown-up must share an answer from her or his own life.)

A spiritual practice

When you have 5 extra minutes (or maybe during your shower) think of words you use to describe yourself. Be honest and let the words come to you. Notice whether the words are positive or negative. Are some of the words untrue? Do they lead you to dead ends in your life? How might the un-dead end of the empty tomb renew your sense of yourself?

Lent Week 5: Waiting

(Photo by Martha Dominguez de Gouveia on Unsplash)

Last year in April I had a cough that wouldn’t quit. Like most people who coughed in 2020, I wondered whether I had COVID-19, so I called my primary doctor and she suggested I come in to get tested. This was early in the days of testing before our community became proficient at drive-through testing. I drove up to the clinic door where I was met by a kind nurse who explained which door I would walk into. I parked my car and took with me only my mask and car fob to avoid the potential of contaminating my phone or purse. This might sound silly now, but April was a time of great unknown and we interpreted what we did not know about COVID-19 with heightened suspicion.

After following the kind nurse in the door and down an empty hallway, she deposited me in an exam room where I waited. After a brief wait, one of my favorite LPN’s checked me out and I waited alone in that room for the results of the strep test before going home to wait a few days for the results of the COVID-19 test. In the exam room, I waited about 20 minutes. Twenty minutes alone in a room in a wing of the clinic that was hauntingly empty with no phone therefore no Kindle book. It was me in a shroud of silence. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting.

Waiting is art, perhaps, in that it becomes what you make of it. It can be perturbing or relaxing. You are given time to stew or to notice. I chose to notice. I noticed what it was like to be utterly alone in a time when we were exceptionally careful of each other. So worried about ourselves and one another. I noticed the courage of the medical professionals doing their own waiting between tests. Each test moving them further into a global pandemic, something they had prepped but never experienced. We were all new to this waiting.

No, I did not have COVID-19. My cough stuck with me another couple of months, and nearly a year later, so has my experience waiting.

Much of the time we are waiting. Waiting for someone to come home. Waiting for water to boil. Waiting for kids to go to bed. Waiting for husbands to surprise us with coffee. Waiting for tulips to push out of the soil. Waiting for the bus. Waiting for the internet to speed up. The next time you find yourself waiting, you might embrace it as a time of noticing.

Lent is six weeks of waiting for Easter Sunday. We notice in the waiting how human and fragile we are and Jesus was. We are absolutely vulnerable to everything in these bodies God blew out of the dust and then climbed into in Bethlehem. We are vulnerable to broken bones and a broken heart. To insidious coughs and scary diagnoses. Notice in this last stretch of waiting during Lent that you are fragile and so is this life. Look around, notice and take inventory of what matters. Moments matter, relationships matter, Christ’s forgiveness matters, each season of your life matters, you matter.

Thank you, Jesus, for periods of waiting, and for showing up so we never wait alone.

A question for littles

Do you think Jesus ever has to wait for anything?

A question for former littles

What is the next big thing you are waiting for?

A spiritual practice

The next time you are waiting in line, resist the urge to go to your phone. Notice what is around you. Can you pray silently for someone you see? Or for the person who will later clean the floor you are standing on? What do you notice as you wait?