Children of Man

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Last night, in the kitchen with my oldest son, I realized for the first time all of the emotions my mother fought so hard to get me to understand back when I was his age.

Life is truly a balance when you become a parent. You want to see your children experience all of the good, give them all of the best gifts, and protect from any harm you ever personally knew, plus more. Yet, you also want to prepare them for the fact that the harshness in reality is very true, and in your raising process, you hope to armor them enough to withstand it. 

Like me, my oldest sees the conditions in which he feels we allow for our younger son to take advantage. Also like me, my eldest feels that it is his place to vocalize his objections in the way we parent.  He does this with full intention of what he feels he is offering us in the manner of help, but not realizing that as the actual "experienced" parents in the household, we know what we are doing, as well as what we deal with.

In my late teens, and early twenties, I consistently filled my mother's ear with how lazy and selfish my younger sister was.  Being that I was her sister, I thought it gave me every right to make judgements on how my mother should raise, and respond to her. In the heart of my thinking, I felt I had every right because, I mean hey, I was her sister, and the only one who loved her as much as my mother did....

I was so wrong.

Its funny how, when we enter adulthood, we come with the mentality of a know-it-all, and nothing anyone else says, or does, can convince us different. Life has a way of circling back though.  It will push the reality of truly not knowing a thing about it, without experience, in your face with a vengeance.

In the kitchen, as I sat and listened to my son complain about his little brother, and tell me how we allow for him to take advantage of us, for a moment, I was my mother.... Hurt. Not from feeling taken advantage of, but from someone outside of me and my husband's two-parent arena, speaking poorly about our child. 

When it comes down to it; no matter what they do, your children will always hold a place in your heart few can only dream to touch.  There is love, indeed, to be shared with everyone, but the type of love for a child runs well past the one you have for sister or brother.  It is one which will have you risking hell and high water to see them provided for, and safe. One which can only be compared in a much smaller sense, to God's love for us. It never ends, it never fails, is long-suffering, and will never give up the hope that what has been invested will yield a great return.

That is how my mother sees my little sister, and hearing me say anything derogatory about her, pained her heart, just as it did mine when I listened to my older son in the kitchen last night. 

As a parent, I would love to teach my children, and have them learn about life the easy way.  I would love for them to take what my husband and I have to say from experience, then go out and make better choices as a result. But, what I've learned in living, is that there is no better teacher than life itself. It is only through experience we gain the 20/20 hindsight we all long to see. 

I've given up trying to make my children understand what it is to be a parent.  I will even have to take a backseat on trying to make them see what it means to be an adult. Those things will come eventually.  They will each have their day in the kitchen with their own sons or daughters.  The light will come on inside their heads, their hearts will ache for the sake of their seed, and their eyes will open to the words repeatedly preached to them by each of their parents. 

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Wow!  Thank you Mama.... You put up with stubborn old me.