Mother's Day Observations

“I am sure your parents are proud of you for being a good person- that's all a parent really wants- a happy, caring, good person. Your success is your deal.”

This is a copy of a message that I sent one of my students after she contacted me about meeting up to talk about her future. After rereading it several days later, I have to admit, I am great at dishing out advice yet find it ironic that sometimes I need to stop and take heart and listen to myself.  This is a message about Mother’s Day.  It will not be in list form although I am sure if it were, it would go viral because everyone wants that easy list one can go through with the keys to raising great kids.

I am so proud of the young men my sons have become. They are caring, loving and smart. They are a dream for any mom. I am sorry it took me so long to realize that. I think I always knew it, but I was so wrapped up in the adage, “Your children are a reflection of you” to honor their special gifts.  So at 54 years of age with a 29 year-old man and a 24 year-old man that I have reared, here are some of the things that I learned from them and although these things are nothing new, they are so true:

Ask for help because on the outside looking in, it looks like you are doing just fine. I went through rearing my children so prideful that I was embarrassed to ask for help.  In the 90’s and 2000, media was so forceful with the message that women could do it all, that we actually believed it. As a single parent the only articles I found were statistics of how screwed up my kids were going to be. You know, the ones that say children from single parent homes have a  ___ more percent of being a drug abuser or ending up in prison. I became determined to prove the pundits wrong so I never let on to people that I was struggling.  Mistake number one because had I talked about my struggles I would have found people in my inner circle that were going through the same thing. I did not even want to talk to my siblings because I thought their kids were perfect. As we got older we began to share more and I found out the hard truth: No one’s kids are perfect. No family is perfect. Everyone struggles at one point or another. They might have been the same struggles I was having and could have empathized with me had I just let go of pride.

Parents love their children, but sometimes they do not like them.  I had a phone call one time from a friend who was about ten years ahead of me in raising her children. I was shocked when she said, “ You know I love my daughter but I will have to admit, I do not really like her in this stage of the game.”  We talked and I listened trying to help her, but this conversation stayed with me for years. When my oldest became a teen, I gave myself permission to admit I did not really like him all the time and knew because of that conversation ten years earlier, that “this too will pass”.   

Don’t let one kid’s behavior overshadow getting to really know the other one(s).  Whether you have a child that is a troublemaker, sickly, a shining star/over achiever—chances are there is one child who takes more of your energy and time. This is not something to beat yourself up over; it is just something of which to be aware. One day a friend told me how funny my youngest son was.  It took me back because I never really saw him as funny; he was my sweet one. Well, because his brother was a few years older than he was and because this brother was just like me in terms of temperament and personality, my youngest never had the chance to shine with his brother around. I was always putting out fires, running around to this practice or that practice that I just counted on the youngest to not make waves.  Don’t get me wrong, my youngest got plenty of hugs and love, but he was different around me than other people. So… when his brother went off to college and it was just the two of us in the house, I really got to know him. I got to hear his dreams, experience his sense of humor and we laughed- a lot.

They are all on their own time table- don’t compare.  This is easy to remember when your kids are young. Articles are everywhere about late walkers/talkers etc. But as the children turn into adolescents it is harder to remember that they are all on their own timetable- especially when it is not YOUR timetable. When I was 16 I had a 30-35 hour a week job and basically self-sufficient.  This is what I expected of my kids. Your friends are all telling you what their kid is doing and rather than listen you are thinking about your own not measuring up or wondering what you did wrong. Well, they will be fine; they will someday figure it all out and make something of themselves. It might not be what you would have made them into but it will be something. It might not happen until they are 28 or 49- but it will most likely happen. I remember I had one friend who whenever we asked he how her kid was doing in college her answer would be, “He is loving life.” We would laugh and take that as a good sign.  When my own entered college I finally figured out that this meant he was doing more partying than studying so please do not ask because his GPA is in the toilet. Fast forward 5.5 years (yes- you know me so well- I really wanted it to be 4 years!) and they have both graduated and have found their success.

Walk with a partner in the mornings before it is light. I walked about 2-3 miles three to four times a week as my children were growing up. For about ten years I walked with a male friend who lived in my neighborhood. I hate exercise and we were walking up some massive hills so I would always have him tell me a story. I learned so much about raising boys from this man just from his stories. As I got more comfortable and under the guise of darkness I would ask his advice. I will never forget his telling me, “Trish, you talk too much. Just tell them to do it and expect it will get done. You do not have to explain yourself or be logical with them. If you say to do it, it should be done. You are the adult and they are little kids.”  How right he was. By the time I finished telling them why I wanted something done, my children had probably forgotten what it was I wanted them to do OR because of my lengthy explanation, my kids felt it was up for negotiation (I certainly raised a couple debaters!).  Get an AP Psychology book and reread the chapter on child development every year or so. You do need that reminder.

 It’s their room and as long as it does not leak into your domain- it’s not a battle to fight. It is his junior year in high school and I am about to kick my son out of the house because he can’t seem to keep a clean room. We have had fight after fight over this. Then one morning I am walking and complaining to my friend (yes again the early morning therapy session) and she says, “ He is about to leave your house; do you really want his last year to be about fighting over a clean room. Enjoy him.”  He is 29 and finally keeps a clean room (so he tells me) and we did have a much more enjoyable senior year without this being a fight.

Keep the electronics out of the bedrooms. I do not brag on my parenting skills much but I do think this is one thing I did right. We had a TV in the living room and in a playroom but not in any of our bedrooms. We had our desktop computer in the playroom. They slept in their bedroom.  When they were younger, they had timeout in their bedroom  (Dare I tell you I had to turn the lock so I could lock it from the outside to get one of the kids to do 5 minutes in timeout?); they did not have screen time on their bedroom. One of my sons came up to me his junior year in high school and said, “Mom, did you know that some of my friends go out on the week nights? I mean like stay out until midnight?  I don’t know how they do that?”  He probably said it because when he went to bed, he went to sleep and so he was use to getting the 8 to 10 hours of sleep an adolescent needs.

I just read Sheryl Sandberg (the author of Lean In) Mother’s Day Tribute (which gave me the idea to write this) and was surprised she admitted a deficiency in her book. In many parts of the book she discussed having an equal partnership in rearing kids and the importance of sharing the responsibility.   In this article she admitted, “We need to understand it takes a community to raise children and that so many of our single mothers need and deserve a much more supportive community than we give them.”  I am here to say as moms (not just single moms but any moms) we need to ask for the help we need, and perhaps in the asking we will give others the opportunity to be blessed.

Well, that’s all I have to say for the time being about kids.  I am so blessed to be a mom and to have so many people in my life who have helped me through the maze of motherhood when I finally asked (and some when I did not ask but they distinctively knew). I am so blessed to have had a mom who loved me unconditionally and who taught me many important things about life. I am sorry to have lost her so young, but I am so thankful she was my mom.