Mother's Day memories for 2010

Thursday, May 6, 2010

Jean Armstrong is woman of incredible wisdom. I once heard her share with a group of younger women advice I wish I would have had as a new mother: "Never make a big deal out of something unless it has eternal consequences." Had I put that into practice, our home would have run much smoother. I realize that when I compare myself to others who did it so much better than I.

For example, one of my author friends wrote of an incident with her daughter, Carolyn. The pre-schooler donned her favorite princess dress and tiara and came twinkle-toeing into the kitchen where her mother was working. My friend smiled and asked her daughter if she were going to a ball. Carolyn's response was not expected. "Actually, I'm just pretending to be a princess. I need to trick the castle guard so I can break into the castle and kill the evil king and rescue the real princess."

My friend thought it was hysterical.

I would have lectured my child on sociopathic tendencies.

If I were to grade myself as a young mother, most days I would have deserved an A or B. My children probably wouldn't be as lenient. For some reason, they have dismissed those June Cleaver days and instead recall far too many of my "Mommie Dearest" ones. Spankings that weren't deserved, groundings that were unfair, favoritism towards whichever one wasn't accusing me of it at the time, ridiculous expectations... yahda, yahda, yahda.. To have my kids tell it, SRS should have taken up residence on our front porch.

Implementing Jean's advice -- getting worked up only when eternal consequences were at stake -- would have made my parenting life a breeze. Billy Graham would have used me as an example of a Godly mother. I would have a regular guest on the "700 Club." After all, the kids weren't going to Hell for duct-taping 2x4's to their feet while attempting to water ski in our swimming pool. God wasn't going to strike them with lightning for putting a dead animal carcass in the freezer. (After all, they WERE going to make bed slippers out of it.) There was no eternal torment for stabbing each other with newly-sharpened pencils or for bloodying each others' lips with errant ping pong paddles or for throwing a few dozen gummy worms onto our living room ceiling to watch them stick. Surely every mother had hours like that, didn't she?

My problem was I rarely gave myself time to weigh the spiritual implications of any of their choices. I just reacted. "Go to your room and think about what you have just done. Come out when you're ready to apologize." They were out before they ever went in. Had Emmys been handed out for acting repentant, they would have had their own television series. "If you do that one more time there will be severe...and I mean SEVERE... consequences."

R-I-G-H-T. Like I was going to shoot them or something? They knew I had no clue which bullet went into what gun. "Wait until your dad gets home." Since that was typically three or four months, that comment instilled about as much fear as a piece of popcorn stuck up their nose. Which actually happened. More than once.

I look back and wish I could do so many things over. I would determine to have all A or B days, days rich in mercy and grace and teaching our kids of God's love instead of His (and my) wrath. There would be no memories of overreacting or exasperated threats, unnecessary timeouts or swats, groundings just to give me some peace of mind. I would have remembered how God "disciplines" me and would use logical consequences instead of a heavy hand. After all, my Heavenly Father understands my spiritual immaturity and covers it with grace; why did I have such a hard time doing likewise with my children?

I so appreciate Jean Armstrong and what she teaches me, and even though I can do nothing to change the mistakes I made in disciplining my children, I can pass on her advice to other young mothers who seem to overreact like I did. Doing it Jean's way is a much better plan to get those A's and B's, from both parent and child, but most importantly, from our Heavenly Father. And when it comes down to it, His is the only grade card that really matters.