Learning about “perfect” from our children

Posted on May 15, 2012 by FoBaM-Jamie

As a child, you think your parents are gods.  Eventually you learn the truth – your parents aren’t perfect.  They are mere mortals who make mistakes and have character flaws.

At some point while growing up we realize that authority does not equal instant perfection.  Just because I’m the mom does not mean I don’t have to say I’m sorry.  Just because someone may be the parent, teacher, priest, elder, president, or the police does not mean they’re right and irrefutable.  Like kids and parents, everyone makes mistakes.

Additional inevitable truths each of us eventually realizes:

• you will be hurt by those you love;
• you too will hurt people;
• you will face disappointments;
• and you must choose how to handle each of the above.

These are the life lessons we share with our two sons, ages 9 and soon to be 8 after they’ve had an argument, fought with a friend, or struck out three times and want to quit.  In response to such crises (each of these situations is a crises in their eyes) we ask them, “Now that x has happened, what will you do?  Will you say you’re sorry?  Will you work to make things better?”  When they want to be the best at everything but are still learning, we remind them no one is perfect. When mistakes are made, we work with them.  When they try their hardest – that is what makes their dad and me proud.

Though as a parent you long to make conditions perfect, safe, healthy, and peaceful for your child each day, you cannot control everything.  People (especially parents) have demented needs to be in absolute, total control and to see life as prettier than it truly is. When we let go of these needs, life goes much more smoothly.  This is yet another truth about life (not just parenting) I hope my boys will come to learn from us - rather than focusing on controlling how their lives go, I would rather my boys align their life each day to something much more important:

Love. 

My boys are little but they and their dad have opened my eyes to a wondrous truth: YOU REALLY CAN LOVE SOMEONE UNCONDITIONALLY.

After going through life’s ups and downs, grown-ups and kids alike can put up walls and act strong.  The walls and the tough act make it difficult to truly love and be loved. But it’s a very powerful feeling, being vulnerable and open to loving people unconditionally.

How do my husband and I explain our unconditional love to our sons?

• We tell them that when they lie to us, we love them.
• When they hit each other, we love them.
• When they don’t do well on a test or at a game, we love them.
• As our sons, there isn’t anything they can do that would make us not love them anymore.

Don’t get me wrong.  Though we love our sons no matter what, we still hold them accountable for their actions.  We teach them right from wrong out of our love for them.  Growing from mistakes is possible, and we expect them to do that.  As a family, we hold each other accountable and have high expectations for one another, out of love.

It’s vital that my sons see each day they are loved by us.  I realize that when my sons are older, just like many teens and young adults, they may realize they are gay and find it hard to know who to talk to about it.  They may suffer from a drug addiction and not feel like themselves anymore.  They will have embarrassing questions about sex and drugs.  It is my hope my sons will never fear that by telling us something we will not love them anymore.  We want them to be confident in knowing we love them and are there for them whenever they need us.  No matter what.

Loving someone no matter what means just that.  NO MATTER WHAT.  I never thought such love was possible, but my boys and my husband have taught me that it is.  Knowing they are loved is a lesson I hope will stick when all goes to hell in my kids’ lives, which I know, unfortunately will happen to them at some point, as it does for each of us.  Knowing you are loved gives you solid and stable ground throughout your life and prepares you to unabashedly love others as well. Love brings you joy and no one should be deprived or ashamed of it.

Recently, my youngest son responded to a question in school “In what ways are you special?” by writing “My family loves me.”  My sons know their family loves them.  This is what makes each day of motherhood worthwhile.

Jamie Duignan is a mother of 2 boys, Daniel and Owen, ages 9 and 7 respectively.  Her family enjoys life on the south side of Chicago.  She has a background in law enforcement, which has taught her many hard lessons and opened her eyes to the extreme importance of love in the world.

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Image Credit: Carolyn Sewell

Of small creatures with big spirits

Posted on May 8, 2012 by FoBaM-Jamie

This past winter, I came home from a poultry show with a day old chick who had deformed feet. Webbed toes in a chick is a genetic abnormality that you don’t want perpetuated in a flock. As this little chick was a rare breed, no one would have wanted to keep it.

Put that on top of the fact that her feet were so gnarled and curled that as she grew larger, there was no way she would be able to hold up her body weight and it was pretty clear that the best thing to do would to have been to put her down.

But, as I saw this incredibly small little ball of fluff just trying to make do with what she was given in life, I made the decision to try and help her.

We are not new to orthopedic problems in our house. When I was young, I was hit by a car while on a bike. The damage, which only became more apparent as I tried to continue in high school and college sports, required over twenty-two operations throughout my life to fix. I had to relearn how to walk and have adjusted to living life with a certain amount of daily nagging pain.

The philosophy in our house is to fight on and power through. If you want something bad enough and work hard enough, you’ll usually get what you want.

And then there was my teen son who as a result of undiagnosed Lyme Disease had arthritis severe enough to curl his fingers and shuffle his steps. It was inconceivable that he would ever think I’d give up either on him or on a baby chick who through no fault of her own, started off – literally – on the wrong foot. After pleading with the breeder to give me the chick, I took her home and another son and I performed the delicate surgery needed to release her toes.

Charlie (named after the Chocolate Factory because her eggs will be a dark brown making them look much like chocolate eggs) not only survived the surgery, she has thrived. She has lived in our house since January and has become a mascot of sorts for our family – “the little chicken that could.” Although she is certainly old enough at this point to join the others in our backyard flock, we’ve all become rather accustomed to having a chicken in our house.

Charlie makes us laugh. She has a distinct personality and knows what she wants. She watches TV with the kids, sleeps with our Maltese dog, and nests in a box near my writing desk – keeping me company while I work. It’s not that unusual to hear someone off in another room talking to Charlie – “Who’s a good girl?”

I suppose at some point, our little house chicken is going to have to transition out to the hen house (having a chicken in the house means constantly cleaning up after her) but for now we accept her in our home as a valued member of our flock – a constant reminder to us all that if we work hard, we can overcome.

Wendy Thomas is an award winning journalist, columnist, and blogger who believes that taking challenges in life will always lead to goodness. She is the mother of 6 funny and creative kids and it is her goal to teach them through stories and lessons. Wendy’s current project involves writing about her family’s experiences with chickens (yes, chickens).

Motherhood is in the details

Posted on May 1, 2012 by FoBaM-Jamie

Motherhood is a big job. We get that. The responsibility is huge – the overall task sometimes pretty damn overwhelming. But, when you get right down to it, motherhood is in the details. It’s in those fleeting moments that sneak up on us when we least expect them. It’s in the time we manage to carve out to be fully tuned into our families, without any distractions. It’s in the small gestures and quiet emotions that are the underlying bedrock of any relationship.

We all love to do Big Things for our children – the amazing trip to Disney World, that extra special birthday present, a tree house, a new puppy. Those are all wonderful gifts to be able to give and they create special memories, but they are not the things that make motherhood magical. They are not what give mom her mystique. It’s all the little things we do that – combined – make us the moms we are.

And our children respond most deeply to those small things.

I’ve done my share of Big Things with my daughter, but I don’t think they’ll ever add up to match the legacy of little things we’ve done for each other and with each other. Our trip to Disney World was amazing, but it can’t hold a candle to eight plus years of nightly bedtime stories and snuggles. The tree house my beau and I built her is a one-of-a-kind masterpiece, but it won’t ever be as important as the time we share at breakfast each morning. The fancy earrings I bought her were a big hit, but not as big a hit as the fact that I know the names of her Club Penguin puffles.

It doesn’t matter as much what we give our children, as how we make them feel. The notes I put in my daughter’s camp lunch box, the time I take to go on walks with her, the way I listen to what she has to say, the fact that I tell her the truth … these are the things that make her feel loved, cherished, valued, respected. These are the things that matter most.

And she returns those feelings to me, and I to her, and around and around it goes.

She picks me a backyard bouquet and I place it with care in a vase on the kitchen windowsill. I make her a handmade Valentine, and she makes me a piece of art signed “For mom. I love you. You are cool.” She tells me her dreams and I tell her mine. I teach her how to keep a journal and she teaches me how to rap. Back and forth these exchanges of small gifts from the heart go – making our bond stronger and deeper than any trip to Disney World ever could. It’s because of these small kindnesses and expressions of trust and affection that we are the kind of mother and daughter who sing duets at bath time, have tickle fests on Sunday mornings, and still – though she is eight-and-a-half and verging on “grown up” – hold hands on our walks and snuggle under a single blanket on movie nights. Those special moments are both a benefit of and an element of the attention we pay to each other’s details – the little things we know make the other person feel happy and loved.

Motherhood truly is in the details. What small things do you do to let your children know they are special and cherished?

Mom confession: My TV babysitter

Posted on April 24, 2012 by FoBaM-Jamie

A few weeks ago, I did something I didn’t think was possible: I slashed my daughter’s TV time by about ninety percent. The differences it has made in our daily life and how we connect with each other has been nothing short of life changing. Seriously.

Before I go further, I want to be clear that I don’t think televisions or the Internet or mobile phones or even video games are evil. I do think, however, that most people spend way too much of their lives plugged into these screens. That’s why I’m a big supporter of Screen Free Week – an annual event run by the Coalition for a Commercial Free Childhood (CCFC).

If you had asked me six weeks ago whether I thought I could manage my busy world without the “support” of television as a stand-in sitter, I’d have said, “No way.” I confess – though I probably didn’t rate as a prime offender – I did let my daughter watch more TV than was good for her. I did this mostly because (here comes the justification) I’m a single mom who works from home and often until after midnight. I needed every waking minute just to keep my head above water, and letting my daughter indulge in an hour (or – wince – more) of “quality” TV (ok – mostly quality) each day was my way of buying myself the extra time I needed to keep all the balls in the air.

But, at what cost was I buying this “freedom?” A really high one.

My daughter was never neglected, but (I can’t believe I’m admitting this) she routinely ate both breakfast and dinner parked in front of I Love Lucy or Looney Tunes. I multi-tasked my way through the mornings and afternoons, often feeling like I’d hardly seen my daughter although she was sitting mere feet away from me. The trouble was, she was plugged into the TV and I was plugged into my laptop. We were engaged in, as one of my favorite bloggers put it, “parallel play.”

I’m not sure what triggered me, but I woke up one morning and said, “That’s enough.” I kept the TV off and moved our shared meals to the dining room. We played cards and board games. We talked. My beau was a wonderful influence – helping come up with fun ways to distract my daughter from the lack of TV in her daily routine. It was less of a weaning process than I’d anticipated. Who knew she’d much prefer the one-on-one attention of her mother to the electronic company of broadcast cable TV?

Over this short span of weeks I’ve learned that it’s not that hard to unplug. I’ve seen an amazing improvement in the quality of my time with my daughter. I’ve realized (yes, with a pang of guilt for all the hours wasted) that I really do have enough time to do everything if I stop with the multi-tasking and just focus on one thing at a time.

We still watch TV, but more often than not, we watch it together and reserve our viewing time for special things like movies. We still each get our share of screen time on the computer and iPhone and her Nintendo DS, but we spend even more time just hanging out – without the crutch of devices getting in the way of our human-to-human connection. I couldn’t be happier, and I think she’s pretty psyched, too.

Image Credit: Movimento Basta

Mom’s Summer Bucket List

Posted on April 18, 2012 by FoBaM-Jamie

Summer is nearly here.

I can hardly believe it. Seems like just yesterday, I was bringing my daughter to school for her first day of second grade. Now, we’re poring over  summer camp catalogs and websites trying to figure out what she’s going to be doing while mummy works. She and I both wish I could take the summer off, but I’ve explained that I’d have to be a teacher in order to get those hours, and I’m not prepared to go into that line of work. (I bow and say, “I’m not worthy.”)

Despite the fact that I won’t get eight weeks off to spend with my daughter, I am already making a list in my head of all the things I hope we get to do this summer.

When I was a kid, it seemed like summer went on forever. My mom worked, but only part-time and often from home. Because of this, my sister and I enjoyed an endless parade of unstructured days at home. I spent mine reading, drawing, walking in the nearby woods, and playing with my dog, Boomer. Long hours of slow and quiet activities made the weeks stretch off to distant horizons. It truly seemed like it would never end.

But, of course, it does.

Now that I’m the mom, the summer seems to pounce on me from out of nowhere, and disappear almost as quickly, leaving me with regrets about trips we didn’t take, outings we didn’t have, and lazy afternoons that never materialized. Well, not this year. This year, I’m making a bucket list for summer. I may not fit everything on the list into the few weeks between now and the third grade, but I’m going to do my best to create some special memories. It will take some planning and some serendipitous aligning of the stars. It will mean ditching work once in a while. (And, that’s okay.)

I haven’t finished my list, but here is what I’ve got so far. Love to hear what’s on your summer bucket list – maybe I’ll steal a few of your ideas and add them to my own!

• Dance in the rain, preferably in puddles
• Catch fireflies
• Spend a lazy day swimming in a river and picnicking on the banks
• Climb a mountain
• Spend an entire day reading, playing cards, and journaling
• Make s’mores at a campfire
• Go to a nighttime, outdoor concert
• Use a rainy afternoon to do a few of those art projects we never seem to get to
• Have a lemonade stand
• Go on a whale watch
• Have ice cream for dinner
• See fireworks
• Spend way more days at the beach
• Meet a hobgoblin and a fairy (my daughter added this one)
• Ride the swan boats and feed the ducks in Boston
• Meet elves (that’s my daughter again)
• Go to the zoo
• Have strawberry shortcake for dinner
• Go miniature golfing
• Go to NYC (that’s my daughter … again)
• Fly a kite

Of course, even if we don’t manage to do any of the things on this list, I know that our summer will be full of its own adventures and memories. Even the days when we do nothing at all are special – as long as we spend them together.

What’s on your summer bucket list? 

Image Credit: Martin Rey