Do More Than Just “Get Through” Parenting
I came back from a short walk to hear my seven year old yell the words:
“ MOM!!! The dinosaur swallowed the guinea pig! Help!”
As my brain tried to comprehend the situation and understand the words that I’d just heard, I thought, uh this was not mentioned in the parenting books. Anywhere. Seriously. Nothing had prepared me for what I was about to see.
Yes, this is in fact a guinea pig stuck inside the mouth of a swallowing Adonomous Rex toy. Have no fear with a bit of coaxing and ingenuity I was able to convince the guinea pig to crawl into the stomach and out the hatch. I still can’t believe this happened.
I am certain every parent has had at least one of those moments… especially with their middle children. (Sorry middle kids - you know who you are, sincerely an oldest hahahah) No one is exempt. Parenting brings challenges, we all know this (unless you are a teenager then maybe you don’t know it yet, but you will hahaha!) In all seriousness parenting is HARD! Parenting may be the hardest thing we ever accomplish in life IF we care about the outcome that is.
If you are reading this chances are pretty high that you are somewhere in your parenting journey. Whether you are about to become one, are brand new, are in the thick of it, or have made it through and now are raising grand babies. You might be an auntie or an uncle who is helping or even a parent that never had biological children. Wherever you are and however you become one, you are here and wondering how can you do more than just get through this parenting thing?
I would say most people fall into these camps or somewhere pretty close.
Camp #1 You accidentally or unintentionally became a parent.
Camp #2 You totally planned on becoming a parent and had everything thought out.
Camp #3 You Had children out of guilt or competing with the Jones so to speak
Camp #4 You had children initially because you wanted to, but life threw you a curve ball and you found yourself just plugging away until they move out.
Along with these camps there are three others… #1 you fell in love with your babies and have done everything in your power to enjoy each moment. #2 you are getting to the end of having children under your roof and are realizing just in the nic of time to enjoy it. #3 You had your shot and feel as if you missed the mark…
How am I doing so far??
For me, I fall in the camp of dreaming of the day I’d become a mother, planning it all out, falling in love with my children initially, and doing everything I could to enjoy it and then life threw a curve ball. I know I’m not quite where I’d like to be and I am making changes to get back to enjoying it more than just plugging away. It’s not that I lack the parenting tools or that I lack the capacity to love them. It’s not even that I want it to all be over soon, because in reality when you become a parent it’s for the rest of your life. It’s really just learning to navigate the seasons of parenthood and how they change so much from week to week as infants, to month by month and then milestone to milestone. The truth is, every one of us were handed a little bundle and sent home feeling totally and completely unprepared. It didn’t matter how much we babysat, helped with our siblings, loved that little bundle, read books on or watched videos… it all really just came down to trying things and adjusting as we went. Taking advice as we needed it… and well civilization miraculously lives on.
Whichever camp(s) you fall into we all have one thing in common… we are reading this blog and sincerely wanting to do more than just get through this whole parenting thing.
I have personally witnessed many parents who just put their heads down and “get through it” as best they can. Some resort to escaping through work or other activities. Some use substances to help them cope. Some parents unfortunately, walk away. They give up, While others embrace it for all that it is.
What if I told you there was a way to do more than just “get through”. What if I told you that you could thrive and actually enjoy parenting. That it won’t cost you any money, or take up any extra time. That your home could feel totally different in a very short period of time if you put your mind to it? We spend most of our lives being a parent in some form or another. We might as well give it all we’ve got.
Are you ready? I’m going to do this with you (I actually already started… which is how I know it works)
I want you to close your eyes and think about a moment that you felt absolutely head over heels for your child or children. Where there was total peace (even if it was brief), your heart felt like it was going to explode with love or pride. A moment that you were it totally and completely in awe of the creation in front of you. A moment where you knew you were feeling unconditional love. Got it? Now, sit in that moment. Feel it. How did sound? What words were spoken? What were you doing? What were your children doing? Was there a smell? Special lighting? Colors that stick out? Okay now write it all down or put it in a voice memo that you can go back to. Each time you get overwhelmed I want you to pull this memory up again. It will be even better if you can find more than one. Just make sure you really focus on it.
This is like your parenting piggy bank. Matter has memory. The more times we visit a memory the more powerful it becomes.
As we move on to the next several steps to doing more than just getting through parenting, I wanted to let you know I actually reached out to many people and asked this questions: “What is something that helps you enjoy being a parent?” I think the more perspective we can have on this the better. I truly was surprised by the response! Apparently this is deeper topic than I realized. Many people said, “Wow! This is a great question, let me think on it and get back to you” Several others came back with some amazing answers which I will add as we go through each step. What really surprised me was the amount of people who said I shouldn’t be asking them that question. They weren’t enjoying parenting. It was apparent that they really needed some encouragement and change. One response brought me to tears. - Wherever you are I want you to know that every single one of us struggles at one time or another. You are not alone. There is hope. This can change. You can thrive and enjoy being a parent.
Now that you’ve jotted down a memory that fills you with love. Go read it or listen to it one more time. Let’s keep that feeling through the rest of this blog and keep the momentum going.
How can we enjoy parenting?
It really starts with boundaries. This is a huge topic that we cannot possibly cover in fullness here, but I will briefly touch on it. If you let your children walk all over you, make empty threats and break promises there is no trust. Without trust you cannot have a healthy relationship. No one thrives in that kind of environment. I highly recommend this book on boundaries. It has helped me so much to learn the importance of placing boundaries, how to implement them and how to hold the line in a healthy way. You are building relationship with young people. They already have likes and dislikes. They come into this world with a whole personality. You are helping them to learn how to treat you and how not to treat you. I know holding a firm line is difficult, but it is so worth it.
One mama who wrote back said this about boundaries: “saying “no” less. Trying to find ways to say yes even if it’s coming up with a compromise. For example; Instead of saying “no, you can’t hit your sister when you’re mad. Try instead; You CAN hit this pillow.”
Now, let’s talk about your needs as an individual. Yes, you. Do you remember yourself before you had kids? mmm hmmm ya those needs have probably changed dramatically. Don’t think about who you were then. You are a totally new person. You have new needs. New desires. New preferences. Maybe you didn’t know you needed quiet time before you had children. Yes me, I am raising my hand on that last one. Oh precious quiet time. It can be very difficult to get your needs met when you are a parent, BUT it is not impossible. With some determination and gumption you certain can do this. Before you can get needs met though, you kinda need to know what they are. So get out your notes app or be old fashioned like me and grab a paper and pen and make a list (oh, how I love list making) What are the things that take out of you? Drain you. Deplete you. Leave you feeling like you never want to leave bed again.
Here are a few of mine
Being in large crowds
Constant noise
Leaving my house
Waking up to kids asking me for a million things
Having to ask more than once for something to be done
Seriously even writing these down feels draining. Yuck. Your turn.
Now, make another list, but this time list the things that make you feel refreshed. List things that leave you feeling like the best version of yourself. You know, like all is right in the world again…. here are a few of my favorite things
Alone time. By myself. (mostly at home)
Really good cuddles
Belly Laughs
Delicious & healthy food
Creating ie; painting, drawing, crafting, gardening etc…
Depending on where you are as a parent life can look a little bit like my first list: basically this is part of a never ending battle. 3 kids count as a large crowd, it’s like living in a bee hive with constant activity, leaving the house and some kind of buzzing noise that never ceases. Of course, the moment the kids wake up is when the asking begins and I think I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve asked for the pair of socks on the steps to be brought upstairs. Maybe it’s been a week or maybe that’s a new pair of socks in the same place?… I’m not sure. But you get the idea. So, If all of this drains me day after day what am I left with?? How can I fix this?? How can I ever enjoy this?
For starters I wake up at 5am every single day. This ensures that I am awake and can have a decent amount of quiet time before my children awake from their slumber. Filling my first and most basic need, alone time (second only to air and tea). By spending this time to charge myself before the day begins I am better able to manage the constant hum of noise and activity. By being filled up I can then start my day with my children and get some great snuggles from the kids and puppy which means twice at the beginning of my day I had done something to fill me up already. Do you see where I am going here??
Do everything you can to eliminate the things that pull from you, or change your schedule so that you can handle the things that cannot be gotten away from, then work to fill your cup up with the things from your other list.
Are you still with me?
Remember, your kids have cups too, or as we call them “Love Tanks”… a great resource on this is the book, The Five Love Languages, by Gary Chapman. I will admit I’ve never actually read this book, but I did take a class on it when it first came out. It changed everything about the way I see people react. There is a simple truth that when our needs are unmet we act out. Kids are exactly the same way, but often cannot express what their needs are. When we take the time to understand ourselves and the people in our lives we can love them better.
Speaking of love languages and meeting needs, I just had to tell you about this papa that wrote in He said, “The first time he got a real hug from my child. Not just, “this koala is hanging onto me for dear life” I mean like come up and hug you. For real. I could have died.”
These are the types of things that help parents keep going. Even when things are hard. Even when we don’t want to. Even when our needs aren’t met on a regular basis. These are the moments we can make more of so that we thrive while parenting instead of just getting by.
The next item on our list is something you might actually get excited about. Or maybe not, that’s okay. Hahaha.
Have the kids to take on more responsibility.
My oldest helping stack firewood.
Think back to the times when kids were expected to cook, clean, walk to school and help with yonger siblings. Oh and bring in the harvest, milk the cow, hunt… the list goes on and on. Anyone else thinking what I’m thinking?? Our kids can handle more than we give them credit for. It is good for children to have chores. Chores give a sense of responsibility, worth and meaning to life. Chores can help to build strong character and mold your children into hard working and capable adults. Sounds pretty good to me. If you are in the position of DOING EVERYTHING why not delegate something? I love this list of chores by age, by the spruce.com. Eliminating things from your plate helps open up your schedule just a bit so that maybe you can sneak in a quick 5 minuet break to do something from your refreshing list… Bringing balance into your home by sharing the workload has been one of the best things in my own home.
This last point I think we need most of all. Do you remember when you were a kid? Maybe it wan’t that long ago, maybe it was more years ago than you’d like to admit… but think really hard. Think about how it felt to have less responsibility. Did you run around and be silly. Did you smile a lot? Did you play games and laugh. What made being a child special to you? Was it when your parents took the time to really connect with you? It’s time to bring some of those things into your life again. A large number of the people that responded to the question, how do you enjoy parenting said that they make sure to share fun experiences with their children regularly.
One dad said , “I enjoy being a parent when my children are satisfied, at peace and are content. They get to this point by having their cups filled up.”
Another dad said, “ making time to show my son what I know, letting him ask questions and finding the answers together and involving him in my every day life stuff really makes us feel connected. We go do regularly things in an irregular place for example: play board games at a coffee shop to help keep things fun.”
One mama beautifully wrote back that it was more of a perspective for her, saying that keeping in mind that children are a gift and a blessing helps her on the days when stress and anxiety overwhelm her. To remember that being a mother is a privilege not everyone gets to experience.
A grandmother wrote back saying, experience has taught her to really step back and breath, pray, meditate whatever it takes to get out of the chaos. Give yourself and children grace. Don’t put so much pressure on yourself and know that God has your back.
I have a bonus for you and I even made a YouTube video to go along with it. After going through this eh hem… challenge shall we call it? I was thinking surely I cannot be the only parent who has gone through this. As it turns out I was right…
Here is a great story one grandmas shared with me:
My granddaughter was about 3 and we were playing tea party on the floor and I was distracted. She kept burning more “tea” for me. Suddenly I realized that she isn’t tall enough to get water out of the sink. I asked where she was getting the tea… you guessed it. The toilet! A reminder to be present in the moment and pay attention.
I’m sorry sweet grandmother friend of mine, but that one really made me laugh. Thank you for sharing this story. Parenting is not for the faint of heart. Just know that if you are here reading this. If you are a parent of some variety or another you are amazing! You are doing it every single day. Day in and day out. No matter how good or bad you think you are doing I’d be willing to bet if I asked your kids right now they would say they love you to that tree and back, or that rock over there, or as big as the whole universe, or as much as the fridge magnet (All things I’ve heard children say to their parents hahah) The point is that it’s not about right or wrong, good or bad or if you are doing as good as that person on instagram… It’s about you showing up, doing your best and loving your children like only you can.
My own mom wrote in and said this, which fits in nicely, “There are so any perspectives on parenting one could share. What stands out in my mind though, is when your children are young the concerns are teething, sleepless nights, diaper rash, ear aches, etc and the joys are the firsts, the smiles, laughs, crawling etc. When they grow up and become adults the concerns seem much bigger, and have a more lasting impact. They are always more expensive, but at the time each problem or each delight is where you are in that moment and you do the best you can with what you have.
Speaking of more expensive… my middle child has a propensity for costly mistakes. The most recent involved a call to the septic repairman. This is the topic of my latest Youtube Video. This video is pretty amusing, at least my kids thought so. A big shout out to them for helping create, film and edit this one! Seriously the lesson in this video could save you from the same fate! Check it out.
One last encouragement from a mama who’s been doing it for a while: “Our kids are really funny, and the older they get, the conversations are really deep. We like being around them. When our kids excel in something it makes parenting enjoyable. When we see our kids being kind reminds us that we are doing something right - seeing fruits of our labor makes parenting much more fulfilling.”
Perhaps we can all do a little more encouraging. We could tell each other things like, “Wow, you handled that really well.” Or actually make the effort to tell your parenting friends when you see their children do something amazing. We parents don’t get to see the fruits of our labor very often.
We got this.
Learn and grow
-Esther
Please share with us a moment you thought to yourself, '“nothing prepared me for this parenting gig” or one of those fruits of your labor moments.
