I read a blog post today where someone quoted Shakespeare as the title. IT was so powerful and thoughtful and made you want to read the article. I think I am a pretty good writer, but coming up with titles is not one of my strong points. Anyway, this title has nothing to do with the post. (Or does it??) Just thought I’d throw it up there and be cool.
This post is really about pride and humility and parenting.
Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about being a stay-at-home mom. Everybody tries to honor stay at home moms and say how great they are, but when have you ever gone to hear a female speaker who was “just” a stay at home mom? Either she built her own business or she has a doctorate in psychology or she served a as a nurse in a third world country or she went to the olympics or…. Nobody really wants to hear from the regular old stay at home moms who do nothing other than keep house and raise children. And sometimes you’ll see around the internet that if stay at home moms got paid for all that they do, they’d be able to retire soon after potty training. But we all know that’s not real. If I died, my husband wouldn’t spend $150,000/year to replace all that I do. And I’m certainly not worth that much money if no one is willing to pay it. And last I looked, I wasn’t on anybody’s salary. So anyway, these were the thoughts of the past few days that had been going through my mind when…
I went to the Relief Society activity at church tonight. We were having a speaker come. All I knew was that it was a woman that you usually had to pay to hear speak. I found out when I walked into the room that she was speaking about parenting. I wanted to turn around and walk right back out. Does anybody else feel that way? I don’t even know why that was my immediate response. I just don’t want to hear it.
Secondarily, I thought about all the women who had successfully raised families but weren’t “trained” in whatever the newest parenting method was. They didn’t have designated letters after their names even though some of them had put in almost 80 man-years parenting successful and/or happy people. I thought about myself and my own parenting styles and beliefs and my awesome children. I thought about some really incredible things that have happened within the walls of our home.
And frankly, I wanted to be the one up there sharing. I didn’t want to be the one in the audience listening. I knew I had a bad attitude. And after I made two comments I decided I had better stop talking because it was showing. So I refrained from saying anything else for the entire evening. But there was so much I wanted to say. There were times when I wanted to contradict the speaker with alternatives or different points of view. There were times when I probably would have otherwise agreed with what she was saying but just felt contrary and wanted to say it myself. Most of all, I just wanted to share story after story after story and examples of how things could be done and how I’d changed as a person and as a parent.
I wanted to tell someone that on my way to this very presentation, I had walked into the building where there was a large group of young men getting ready to go ice skating. My own sons were there, and even though I had seen Kelvinator just a few hours before he left all his friends to come over to me and ask what I was up to and then give me a big hug and a kiss. In front of all his friends.
And while I was wallowing in my own pride, the lady sitting next to me was the picture of humility. I think she has four kids–all of them adults. She’s a grandma of two now. She was asking questions and wanting to know more. She was taking notes and listening raptly. She was open to hearing new ideas and learning and admitting that she didn’t know it all. In fact, she was more likely to admit that she didn’t know anything.
I felt conflicted. I admired her for her humility. But I also couldn’t bring myself to want to feel it myself.
If I could have a job as a personal parenting consultant or speaking to large groups about parenting, I think that would be fun. Except I could never teach anybody else’s parenting philosophies. They’d have to be my own thoughts. And I couldn’t get certified or do trainings. I’m also not sure I would eve be able to completely focus on the other parent/child and their issues since I’m always so caught up in talking about myself and my experiences.
Although, after the meeting the grandma sitting next to me was talking about a difficult situation she was having with her 4 year old grandchild and as we were talking I threw out about three or four different ideas off the top of my head that she seemed to love and was amazed by and couldn’t wait to try out.
Maybe she was just being super humble again and it didn’t really have anything to do with any unique ideas I spouted off.
The speaker said that it takes 20 years or more to teach your kids to be responsible and so we should have patience. My thought was that it takes 20 years or more for us to learn how to parent, too. It’s not just our children who are growing through the process.
One thing that I hate about every single parenting course/style/philosophy I have ever read about is the focus is primarily on how to get your kids to do what you want when you want it. I’ll admit, that’s important. I mean, I’d love to be able to achieve that. But doesn’t it sound childish when you say it that way? Tonight I heard about how to move from a polite request to an “I-statement” to a firm request and then on to natural or logical consequences. There was so much emphasis on the consequences and the differences between saying, “Would you please clean your room now?” and “Clean your room now.” (I would argue there’s really no difference if you’re just going to punish/make consequences because you aren’t really taking no for an answer.) But there was little to no discussion on Why do we (parents) want this behavior? Can we change our own expectations to solve the problem? Is what we want legitimate or even right?
In other words, parents are just trying to come with with “nicer” ways to get kids to be obedient and teach them a lesson. The presumption is that parents are always right and that we always know best. I disagree with that premise.
Another thought I had was just how ridiculous the whole consequence thing is. What if I treated my husband that way? What kind of marriage would that be where he had to do what I wanted him to do when I wanted him to do it when I asked nicely. If he didn’t do it, then I would ask firmly. Then I’d give him a consequence. And I would consistently give him a consequence each time so that he would learn not to make that choice again.
Ugh. It makes me want to pull my hair out the disrespect that we unwittingly give to children. End rant.
sparkling blue 