I was sitting on Ruby's bed last night rubbing her back as she was just falling asleep. She had just got done trashing her room, peed on the floor twice because she refused for wear a diaper. As I looked at her I couldn't help but think " This is so hard" Bedtime is SO hard at our house right now, ok lets be honest bedtime has always been slightly hellacious at our house. Having two VERY strong willed children and then one of them doesn't need a lot of sleep... you can imagine. Please do for a minute ;)There are times when I hear my mom as clear as day say "Paybacks a bitch" and I laugh because it is. Anyway, as I was sitting there just thinking about how there are days that I don't want to do this, that it just seems like too much and that it shouldn't be that hard I really felt the question " what is God trying to teach me" ring out. It made me take a step back. I was just like this, probably worse as a child and I turned out ok right? My strong will has worked well to serve me as I have gotten older.
What am I learning from this super challenging experience? How am I being stretched, and believe me I am, we are. Kids have a way of bringing out the worst in you sometimes and if you are able to look at it, you get to see all the crap you need to work on, all the stuff you aren't good at. You get to see how you can be better, do better, teach them to be better. It is humbling really. As a parent I think we spend a lot of our time focusing on what we are doing wrong, how we are scarring our kids for life or doing exactly what our parents did that we SWORE WE WOULD NEVER DO...but instead of feeling guilty for not being the PERFECT PARENT (ha ha ha), I am choosing to use what I see as a challenge to be better. Do do my best to raise my kiddos to love Jesus, know that it is ok to make mistakes and try to do better, to be loving and kind and grow into confident adults and man that is HARD WORK!
Friends, moms, dads - Don't discredit yourselves. We are all doing a fabulous job. It is hard stuff. Super hard stuff. SUPER, SUPER and all the hard stuff is where the meat is at. This is it. This is where the good stuff happens. Isn't conquering the really hard stuff where we end up feeling the most pride. The I did it's?
Yes, parenting is very very hard work! And it can be thankless, too, because not very many kids... probably none... come up and say, "Gee, thanks Mom, for making me pick up my toys/listening to my tantrums/be consistent with discipline", etc. Sometimes you wonder if it's all worth it, losing sleep, not losing our tempers (even though we sometimes do), cooking, cleaning, laundry, and loving our kids the way Jesus loves us.
ReplyDeleteYou're doing it, Emily. You're doing all you can to be a good mom, and though right now, and maybe for years to come, you won't get any thanks for doing it, it will come. It really will.