Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Parenting and Perspective

You know how some days it seems all your parental shortcomings seem blatantly obvious. Like two seconds after you walk into the hallway after just telling your son “You are not the mom!” for his trying to stop one sister from stealing the toy of the other sister …it hits you that you could have said that a better way. Like “Thanks for being a good big brother, but come tell mom inside of yelling at Darby.”

Or when you realize too quickly that you are just adding to the negative behavior when you react to the son’s yelling with just more yelling? Like maybe that would be the time to implement the softer voice and use words like that book that your sister lent to you probably tells you to do anyway. I probably need to read that book.

Are you just more profound these days? Or is someone upstairs trying to point out some needed improvements? Hmmm…makes one wonder when she is driving on the freeway with all three of her normally wild children who are now peaceful asleep.

Like when two out of three children are still asleep from the awesome day at the zoo (no school) and you are remembering earlier conversations. I just met (sorry for the abrupt change in perspective) the cutest girl (which by cute, I mean classy inside not outside, but she was cute outside too, which is frequent with the ladies I meet…which meetings happens a lot when you are friends with other classy girls ) and she remarked that she could have four children under the age of 6 because they were all so good. Which then I remarked “Lucky!” I should add that she did indeed have four children under the age of 6. Okay, so this isn’t directly the conversation but my summarized version and its already weird that I’m blogging about a person I met a few hours ago.

Anyway, the point is…are her children that much more well behaved than mine? Or have I hand picked the spunkiest of the bunch?

But maybe (here’s the profound self-discovery part) we had the same kind of kids and that I just always called mine ‘crazy and wild’ and she called hers ‘sweet and helpful’. Or maybe I really will get a prize for raising the most ‘independent’ little monkeys.

Just made a girl start to think anyway. Dang that perspective! Should my kids be hearing me tell people how sweet and helpful they are (even if I feel like I’m lying) instead of awing over other peoples more well behaved ones? Hmmm….and how many more things are like this?, and why am I realizing these things all on the same day.

Because no matter if you have the most wild child on the planet, which I tend to think I have a monopoly of, we (us mothers) all secretly think they are the most fabulous, smartest, talented and best looking little people. Don’t try to deny it. I even think that mine are really well behaved...just in certain isolated settings. So why don’t we toot that part more and downplay the wild and crazy part? Okay, maybe you are already tooting. Maybe you are tooting so much that you are driving your friends crazy. Maybe I should pick a different word than tooting? Although my kids would like that word.

But today makes me want to do things a little different, and there isn’t anything wrong with that. Another one is awake, gotta go. I think I'll go give him 52 kisses.

p.s. I’ve decided to embrace the run on sentence in case you haven’t noticed. Jason is working too late to correct me and too busy to read my blog. Love you hon, thanks for bringing home the bacon

p.s.s. and sorry to all those i didn't tell I was going to the zoo. it was a last moment decision and baylie is sort of sick. i guess another sorry for all the people we contaminated.

5 comments:

Tanya said...

your funny, I totally have those days when I notice that...yes I should have responded differently or whatever, but I think your kids are well behaved, they just have lots of energy...LIKE YOU!!

Amber said...

I often feel the same way about my wild and crazy son. I wonder if it's just his personality or if it's something I'm doing wrong as a mom. I like to think it's just his personality and the Lord blessed me with such an interesting child:)

Nancy Jo said...

I love your kids and think they are great!

christy said...

i think our kids have their own unique personalities but how they deal with them is learned behavior and it is usually learned by watching their parents. so i try to remind myself that they probably learned that from me and i shouldn't get so upset b/c it's kind of my fault and if it's something that needs to be changed then I need to tell them that we will work on it together, like yelling. that's a problem with me and a couple of my kids. i need to stop yelling to get them to stop it too. i also think their personalities are a lot like ours and it may be a bit hard to handle at times but if my kids were oh so sweet and quiet all the time i might think they are boring or weird.

Claire Thompson said...

I think the personality has something to do with genetics, I think nurture has a part to play but I definetly think nature has a lot to do with it too. Just think of some of those kids that are a kinda wild but the parents seem to be the calmest people on the planet?