Tag: raising kids

Reunited

Happy Birthday to the daughter of my dreams. Dreams do come true!! I love you infinitely.

This weekend my husband and I are visiting with, and reconnecting with a couple who were part of the “neighborhood gang”, when we were raising young families. Our family, and this couple and their family, lived in the same lovely locale in North Carolina, where we all raised our children, for the span of about a decade, over a decade ago. There were probably about ten families, or so, who were part of this core group and we did play groups, and book clubs, and happy hours, and we spent endless hours together at the neighborhood pool. We took trips together – camping with the kids (or more specifically, girls weekends without the kids, while the dads went camping with the kids – there were always lots of ‘interesting’ stories and photos after these events. Thankfully everyone came out of it all, alive and well, in order to relay the stories). There was also a couples’ getaway to the Caribbean, and an annual families’ trip to the mountains to cut down our Christmas trees – a favorite tradition for all of us, despite the creepy Santa, in the cabin at the foot of the mountains, who made everyone, kids and parents alike, more than a little leary. (My adult kids, to this day, can still perfectly mimic this Santa’s high-pitched, eerie whiny voice, “And what do youuuuuu want for Christmas, little one?”) Our children all attended the same, sweet, close-by elementary school, and we parents all had the peace of mind of knowing that on any given day, there was likely at least one extra set of eyes and ears and a loving, caring heart around our children, at any point in time, as many of us volunteered there at the school, throughout the years. It was honestly an idyllic place, and almost a “tribal” way to raise young children, and not too far off from the Norman Rockwell version of my softened memories and descriptions.

But as life inevitably rolls out and goes on, there were moves, and divorces, and squabbles, and aging kids scattering in all different directions, wherever their individual interests and activities and educations were taking them. Bye and bye, this group of young, energetic, hopeful parents of many, many beautiful, quickly growing and expanding offspring, mostly dispersed and moved on. Most of these relationships, at least for my husband and I, are now not much more than an annual Christmas card exchange. (I am not much one for Facebook and Instagram. I am a look forward person. Sometimes the past holds too many knots of nostalgia, that keep me all tangled up. . . I have learned that it is better for me, to stay clear of those knots.)

So, I am entering this weekend with anxious trepidation and overall excitement. I mentioned this to my local friends and to my hair stylist, and to my son’s girlfriend, and everyone had the same response: “Oh you’ll probably just start right where you left off! It will seem like you have never been apart.”

I hope so. I believe so. But no matter what happens this weekend, I’ll never forget what we all shared together in times past. My stomach is in knots already. But these knots of nostalgia and excitement and connection, I’ll hold on to for now. Sometimes glimpsing a little bit into your past, reminds you of all of the qualities of strength, and love, and hope, and the ability to connect with others, that you have always possessed in yourself – qualities that you have to bring with you, as you create your own broad, unseen, unknown future. Looking over the treasure of what you shared in the past, reminds you that fond memories are treasures that never go away.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Be Patient With Us

This is graduation time in America. Our nephew just graduated from high school. This year, out of our group of eight best friends from college, three of our children have graduated from high school, one has graduated from college, and one has joined the Coast Guard. Our daughter has been attending graduation parties more often than she practices tennis, these last few weeks.

No one told us how hard these transition times would tug at our hearts, when we started having these children, did they? Or perhaps the older people did tell us these things, but most likely, we weren’t really listening. We were busy being busy. And when the children were little, it often felt like those “raising the children” days would go on and on, forever. (in a good sense and in a bad sense)

I was watching a video of the author Kelly Corrigan, giving a recent commencement speech. Kelly Corrigan is an amazing writer and an engaging, sincere speaker. She gave excellent, funny, yet heartfelt advice to the graduates, but the part of her speech that got me beyond misty-eyed, and reaching for the tissues, was this part:

“Speaking of deep connection and great rewards, before I go, I want say something about the people who raised you. I have identified a fundamental difference between parent and child that I think helps explain all the crying and staring and weirdly-long hugs.

So… you were little and then, at some point you came into consciousness and looked over and there we were: the tall people cutting apples the way you liked them. You have never known a world where we were not.

But for us, we were just regular people and then you came and changed the whole thing. We could win the $19 million-dollar California Super Lotto tonight and you would still be the biggest thing that ever happened to us. We love you more than you have yet loved anything.

So yeah, maybe we want to stare at that face a little longer, hang on to that body that we once carried, take one more family photo. Be patient with us. This is hard.”

I have told my children often that they will have no idea how much I love them, until they have children themselves. Yet, it has also been of the highest, most deliberately practiced importance to me, that my children never feel like my love is a cage. It is my own greatest privilege, to feel and experience, the love that I have for them. As a mother, I have made an earnest effort to embody Khalil Kibran’s poignant reminder to us parents: “Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself. They come through you but not from you, And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.”

I see too many parents living through their kids these days, and that’s sad. We are all meant to add a unique, authentic footprint on this world, which we have all co-created. When we are focused on living through someone else, we have stifled their footprint with a heavy load, and we have robbed the world of our own developed, distinctive mark. When we take “ownership and possession” of our kids, and try to make them conform to the “image” we wish to portray, we all lose.

That being said, it’s not easy to let go. We keep our most precious material things in safes, with encrypted passcodes, hidden away under lock and key. We do this because we dread losing these things, right? At the same time, any of us parents, would empty our safes, our bank and investment accounts, our jewelry boxes, etc., if it meant keeping our children, alive and well and happy and thriving. That’s the big Catch-22 of parenting, right? In order to healthfully fulfill our parental duties, we must let go of what is the absolute most precious to us. It is our job to send our babies out into the world, in order for them to fulfill their lives’ purposes, lessons and adventures to the fullest. We spend eighteen years making sure that our children are safe and protected, and yet at the same time stimulated to go after their own dreams. We best give our children permission to go create their own lives, when we show them that we are living our own personal purposes, lessons, adventures and dreams. Most importantly, we let our children know that we will love them until the end of time, but with an unconditional, freeing, cageless love, an unfathomably bottomless love, which also comes through us (just as they did) from our Creator.

I love this quote, which I saw the other day on Twitter, directed to the writer’s mother: “You’ll always be a shareholder in all of my successes in life.” (Wisdom Amplifier) That’s the right word, isn’t it? Shareholder. We all have shareholders in our own lives, who have helped spear us on, to our own successes. Parents, siblings, lovers, family members, friends, teachers, ministers, counselors, mentors, employers, even detractors, are all shareholders, in whom we have become. Shareholders are invested. If we take this idea to the macro-level, we are all shareholders of this life on Earth. Are we invested? It’s easy to be invested in our own children, our own best friend’s children, but are we invested in the children of the world? Are we invested in co-creating a world that is safe and secure and nourishing and empowering for all of us? As my children have grown and started leaving the nest, considering these things at this higher level, has been helpful to me, as I work on letting my own children go. I’ve been reminded to become reinvested in my own life’s experience (as an example to them), and to make sure that I am also invested in doing my own little part, to make this world a better place for all of us. Still, it isn’t easy. As Kelly Corrigan says at the end of her address, “Be patient with us. This is hard.” It is perhaps one of the hardest tasks which we will ever do, as parents – letting our little birdies fly from the nest, with the secure feeling of being confident and blessed to do so, freely and uninhibited, with excited anticipation for all that lies ahead.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.