I skipped yesterday’s Daily 15 minute writing session. Partly because I was tired. Partly because I wanted to read. And partly, because I didn’t want to.
Yeah, I’ll admit it.
I have been dragging my feet because I really do not want to take my therapist’s advice on trying to write from a place of vulnerability and openness.
[clickToTweet tweet=”In the end, I was reduced to silence. For what could I say to persuade a god? What could I possibly offer? What could a god have any need of from me to guarantee safe passage in my children’s tenure on Earth? #parenting #fear” quote=”In the end, I was reduced to silence. For what could I say to persuade a god? What could I possibly offer? What could a god have any need of from me to guarantee safe passage in my children’s tenure on Earth?” theme=”style1″]
I am a master of deflection.
I have been practicing being present with my children lately. It’s not for long periods of time. I try to put away my phone for a few minutes at a time. Hugging my kids tightly and cozying and being with them. Giving them the respect of my full, undivided attention for just those few minutes. (My undivided attention is in short supply now, and perhaps, always was.)
It has not been terrible.
I have not broken down weeping each time.
I have allowed myself to sink into the safeness of that feeling. Contentedness and happiness. And, perhaps, joy may have also snuck in.
It seems so small a thing. Too small a thing, perhaps, to brag about or write about. But there it is. My four hearts.
I find it endlessly wondrous that they are people. No longer blobs of lard and hungry mouths longing for milk. They are persons. Tiny and flawed and beautiful.
When I think of them as tiny humans, with wants and desires and hearts of their own, I am simultaneously awed and afraid.
I am in awe that we all start off as amorphous beings, shaped and warped by our environment and circumstances. To think that from birth, and even as they were formed in my womb, that my children were everything they are now and yet not.
It is a heady responsibility to raise children.
How do we raise good human beings – both beneficial to society, but more importantly, good to themselves and the ones they love? How do we go about doing that without breaking our children or passing along our own brokenness?
How do we allow just the right amount of success tempered with that right amount of suffering? And how ridiculous that I think I can even control this in any shape or form!
When I think deeply about my children, I have to force myself not to panic.
When I used to pray over my babies, I would find myself endlessly bargaining with God. If You just keep them safe for me. If You just keep them healthy. Keep them safe. Make them good people. Make them kind. Make them loving.
I had all sorts of additional requirements for what I thought would give them the perfect life. Yet even as I begged, I knew that I knew nothing. I had no idea what it would take to give my children a joyful life.
In the end, I was reduced to silence.
For what could I say to persuade a god? What could I possibly offer? What could a god have any need of from me to guarantee safe passage in my children’s tenure on Earth?
And who is to say that safe passage is the purpose of life?
That my children would even thank me for it?
I find it just as curious as my therapist does. Why do I immediately go to the most extreme suffering and painful possibility when confronted with my and my children’s mortality?
I try to convince myself that all parents have this response, but I am pretty sure my husband does not react the same as I do. In my cynical times, I think it is because I obviously love my children more than my husband does.
But if that were the case, why is it that my husband is in the thick of things with my children? Spending all his time with them, playing with them, doing life with them? Is that not love? Is that not more than what I give to them? I, who at first opportunity, run away to write or read or be with my friends?
There are many ways to love. And my children are surrounded by love.
[clickToTweet tweet=”It is a heady responsibility to raise children. How do we raise good human beings? How do we go about doing that without breaking our children or passing along our own brokenness? #parenting #fear” quote=”It is a heady responsibility to raise children. How do we raise good human beings – both beneficial to society, but more importantly, good to themselves and the ones they love? How do we go about doing that without breaking our children or passing along our own brokenness?” theme=”style1″]
I comfort myself in statistics. Or the fact that my mother seems to have an “in” with God so of course, God would honor her prayers over mine.
In the end, after all these years, I have resorted to this prayer, “You know my heart. Please have mercy.”
