Sometimes I’ll look around a public place like a grocery store or an airport and I’ll see all these docile children, offering their sibling the last cookie in their snack bag or saying, “Yes, Mommy” when she asks them to hand over her iPhone where the child was quietly practicing her phonics.
Meanwhile this is what going down with my kids during a photo session for our parish directory:
Thomas might have a future playing a zombie in Walking Dead.
And this really isn’t so bad. Actually, we encourage silly photos because we get so tired of telling Thomas to stand still, and the silly, candid snapshots always end up being my favorites anyway.
But sometimes – like at Mass the other evening – an oh-so-nurturing child (insert eye-rolling, sarcastic mama here) snapped at a younger sibling and my little boy tried to lift up a sister’s dress and then when I gently pulled his hand away, he stuck his tongue out at me. He also turned his fingers into guns and started “shooting” in the direction of an altar. This is the child who isn’t allowed to see most PG movies and doesn’t watch anything like Power Rangers or Star Wars. He is just 100 percent Chuck Norris boy.
All of this was done in church! Of all places. Where love should flow freely.
We are so close to Jesus, I reminded the kids. They looked at me sheepishly. Ten seconds later two of my girls were surreptitiously elbowing one another, and Thomas was poking me in the bottom and giggling when I was standing.
When it came time to offer a sign of peace, I kissed my kids first and then I turned around to see a mom behind us, alone with five kids. I had not heard one peep from them. I had assumed my circus was sitting in front of a long line of monks. But, nope, just quiet, mild-mannered, and well-behaved children. Now I know all kids have their moments and to be fair to my own brood, two out of five of the kids behind us looked like young adults, and my oldest was a big help during Mass and only loud-whispered once or twice. But it can break a mama’s spirit to see how other families behave when I am struggling to not completely lose it during Mass. Of all places. Where love should flow freely…
This summer has been a riot. No, not the funny kind of riot, but a literal riot. Crowds of children reacting harshly to other children. So much togetherness. My dreams of singing Kumbaya together and checking off fun off of our summer bucket list has morphed into me just trying to survive. (And, of course, my baby who normally sleeps quite well has decided summer is the time to wake up for hourly nursing sessions.) There’s me, the powerful matriarch (yeah right), at first gently but firmly trying to pacify the unruly bunch, and then me, losing grasp on any semblance of control and raising my voice. Then they raise their voices louder. Soon it’s one big, yelling party, and I start to worry about the fate of this family of mine.
I remember the first time my husband met my big extended family. He joked, “We’re going to have some loud kids someday.”
We should have been prepared. My dad is one of nine, and out of those nine siblings two of them are professional entertainers. The rest of the clan is imbued with a whole lot personality as well. But boy do we have fun when we get together. There’s laughing, dancing, animated games of charades, and everyone is competing to be seen and heard.
Then there’s my husband’s side of the family. His mom tells stories of his brilliant defiance as a child, how he fought sleep like it was akin to the apocalypse (same as my firstborn Madeline), and he didn’t accept no without a lengthy and surprisingly logical argument. He is a calm, reticent, and rational man now, but he was not so easy-going in his youth, according to his mom. And while I didn’t fight much with my siblings, apparently my husband wasn’t always very nice or nurturing to his little sister.
And so these children of ours seem to be carrying on some of the family traits. Now Charlie appears to be super laid-back. None of my other babies, for instance, sat as still he does in my lap. It’s like Buddha is perched there in all his happy glory. He also doesn’t require a nursing marathon to succumb to sleep (although, as I mentioned, he has been waking up a lot lately for brief nosh sessions during the night). All my babies have been relatively happy babies, especially by the six-month mark, but Charlie freely smiles at everyone and everything ALL OF THE TIME. Others comment on his effusive happiness. There have been many times when he’s actually smiled through tears.
Recently, he abruptly threw himself forward while one of his older siblings was holding him and he hit his head on the table. He started crying but when he looked at me, his little lips curved into a gummy smile and his crying turned to giggles despite the red bump already forming on his head. It seems he came into this world eager to look on the bright side. Now come back and ask me about his temperament once he’s a toddler, and we will see just how chill he is then. But mothering certainly has taught me that children are born wired a certain way and with special and unique temperaments.
Mothering has also humbled me incredibly because I can’t always crack the cipher of each of my kids – or at least not all the same way. A discipline strategy for one child works like magic; yet for another, the same exact strategy implodes. Being a mom, I’ve found, is an interesting study in human nature and psychology. I have to pay close attention and give each child the brand of love, guidance, and discipline that will help her the most. I fail miserably at this a lot, but sometimes I get it (almost) right. Being a mom requires something else as well. It requires a quiet acceptance of the child you’ve been given – whether he is strong-willed or easy-going. You’ve been gifted with the charge to raise your child to be the best version of him or herself. It’s easy to forget my kids came through me, but not from me. There’s a difference. They are not an extension of my expectations, desires, or plans.
And as much as this can be challenging to a control freak and perfectionist in recovery such as myself, it’s also what makes parenting such a wild and fun ride.
Yes, I sometimes worry if the neighbors think the Wicker home is an asylum because of the crazy loudness. My kids are loud when they are angry, happy, sad, excited, tired, and wide-awake. Charlie, will pull off while nursing, in reaction to the din, look up at me slightly bemused and then break into a smile before latching back on again. More times than I’d like to count, Thomas will widen his eyes like a mad man and shout in Charlie’s face. I’ll admonish him. “Stop! You’re going to scare Charlie.”
“Charlie’s not ‘scarward.’ He likes it!”
And sure enough Charlie is grinning and oftentimes giggling at his brother’s loud antics. Our newest member seems to accept the chaos, loudness, and big feelings of my kids. I sometimes need to do the same.
I watched my sparkly children at the airport on a recent return trip home, and I didn’t try to tame them or roll my eyes at their opposite-of-docile antics. I laughed at their high-octane personalities and captured their goofiness on my phone, and I said a quick prayer of thanks for the privilege of being a mother to this expressive, motley crew.
Motherhood requires us to accept our child for who she is and to allow her to face the consequences of her actions. We are to serve, raise, and nurture our children but not in a way that enslaves or controls them or impairs our own ability to see their natural bend as well as our own temperament. We offer our children guidance and boundaries, but we don’t keep them – or their personalities – locked away. God doesn’t control us. Why do we try so hard to control our children?
We can bring our children to church and pray with them, but they might pinch their sister during the service (another lovely moment from this past Sunday) and not really seem to grasp the whole God-is-love thing. We can lavish them with only organic food served on BPA-free dishes while they listen to Mozart, and they still might get sick or join a heavy metal band and adorn themselves with numerous body piercings (which actually might be kind of cool; passionate, theatrical mamas give birth to similar children, obviously). Yes, we can pray for our children, and of course, cling to hope when we find ourselves standing on the precipice of discouragement or despair or just plain, old exhaustion. But we can’t coerce or even love our children into being carbon copies of our expectations or to behaving more like the children we observe in other families. Sadly, we can’t guarantee they will grow up to live happy, fulfilled lives either – whether they’re wild kids or more easy-going ones. There is no such thing as an insurance policy in the realm of parenting.
And, believe it or not, an acceptance of your utter lack of control as a mother is the first step to not losing your sanity as you grapple with your children and their sometimes challenging temperaments and behaviors. Accept your children as they are, and then tell yourself you can’t completely control them. You can slightly, ever-so-slightly mold them, but the more you try to change them or compare them to other kids (or yourself to other moms), the more frustration will erode the joy of being a mom to the unique children God has wisely gifted you with.
Likewise, do not gauge your success as a parent by the choices your kids might make on any given day. Do not see a child’s difficult stage as evidence that he is destined to a life of abject behavior. Also, try to look at the positive side of a trait that might sometimes spark impatience in you. My first refused to poop for 15 days while on an adult dosage of Miralax when we were potty training. I sat with her by the hour, holding her hand, and trying to make her poop. On a good day, I laughed at my role as a poop doula. “Push! Push! You can do this! Who’s the boss of #2? You are!” On a bad day, which was most days during this tough time, both of us would end up angry and/or in tears. I’ve gotten her permission to share this story, and I frequently do because it illustrates my utter lack of control over some things in the parenting trenches as well as her tenacity. She’s now a rising seventh grader who is far more immune to the typical social pressures than I was at that age. She remains strong-willed and self-assured, and she has no problem calling a peer out if he or she is acting like a jerk to another kid. She plays with heart as an athlete and is competitive to the end, but even if the end results in her team losing, she keeps her head high. She no longer holds her poop in, but she does hold on tightly to her convictions.
Similarly, after this past Sunday’s difficult Mass, a woman in front of us turned around and I braced myself for her chiding my children or me for all the distractions we caused during the liturgy. Instead, I was greeted with a bright smile, and then she said, “You all have such beautiful voices. I loved hearing you sing together. It was like a choir of angels. Thanks for sharing your gifts with us.”
A choir of fighting, pinching, little angels.
Now seriously, if my kids weren’t so passionate and demonstrative, would they sing their little hearts out? Probably not. They might not yell-whisper (my kids cannot whisper to save their or my own life) or stick their tongue out at their mom, but I will take the good with the bad. They certainly take and love all of me, even the less than desirable traits I, too, have.
Does your newborn refuse to sleep? Is your toddler biting everyone he meets like a bloodthirsty vampire? Has your older child stopped talking to you? Do you have a grown child who has abandoned her faith? Do you have a child suffering from a sickness, depression, an eating disorder, or an addiction? Release these children into God’s care. Pray day after day, “Jesus, I trust in you.” Yes, it’s scary to stop trying to control or to “fix” your child, but it’s equally liberating. It frees you from a sense of guilt and responsibility over your child’s every choice and action. {Excerpted from Getting Past Perfect}
Put God at the center of your life. Ponder his goodness more than your own and your children’s weaknesses, and remember when your headstrong teen is breaking your heart or all of your kids are leaving the Church, their stories aren’t finished yet. God is a sneaky author who seems to like surprising plot twists. He transforms even the worst sinners into saints. He knows what he’s doing. Can you trust him? Maybe if it’s not okay yet, that’s because it’s not the end. {Also excerpted from Getting Past Perfect}
And laugh a little. Please. There are moments when I have to look at my kids through the eyes of the future me, the empty nester who is so cloistered in silence, she talks to her dog all daylong. We can all take ourselves and our lives so seriously. I’ll never forget when I was riding in one of my uncle’s cars, and he opened his sunroof to allow the snow that was falling from the winter sky to drift into the car. As a child, I thought he was the coolest adult alive. I’ve tried to remember that moment when I’m “adulting” it too hard, and to just let go a little and be silly with my kids and to laugh at their antics rather than roll my eyes at them.
When I accept my children and all their loud quirks and big feelings and even invite them to express them when it’s appropriate, when I acknowledge I’m not in control of their bowel movements or them and never really have been, when I pray to God instead of comparing or fearing, I give my kids the gift of growing and being aware of their own power, strengths, weaknesses, and abilities to navigate this huge, awesome, and yes, colorful and fun world. That’s when these sparkly children of mine will really start to shine.
I’ve got six lovely “sparkly” children too, and I love that word as a descriptor! I keep hoping for a calm, phlegmatic child one of these days, but I suppose that would be… Dull
Hi, Rosie! I’m so sorry I’m just responding now. For some reason your comment ended up as SPAM and I just noticed it this morning. Ugh! Yes, I tell myself life would be a lot duller (and calmer perhaps ;-)) and that I’ve been given these sparkly children for a reason. Thanks so much for letting me know I’m not alone! Solidarity!
My husband and I are both deeply introverted. #1 and #3 are mellow easy kids and #2 is just NOT. Everyday it is a struggle to figure out what makes her tick and how to make her feel loved. Thank you for this!
Even though I’d say 4 out of 5 kids could be identified as definitely sparkly, all my children are so different and it’s been tough to break each of their ciphers. I recently had my older children take a love languages quiz for kids just to make sure what I thought was their primary love language was accurate. I happened to be correct for them, but their love languages are quite different. One, like me, totally relies on words of affirmation. The other needs quality time. My youngest girl is a physical touch kind of child. Parenting constantly keeps me on my toes and humbles me because what “works” for one child can be ineffective or even a disaster with another. Good luck with your mellow kids and your sparkly one! :-)