Parenting Measuring Stick

This was not a good parenting morning.  At all.  I got angry.  I slammed a door.  I reacted poorly.  I had listened to all the excuses I could listen to and I got mad.  Was I right to get mad?  Is it acceptable to show kids just how upsetting they can be sometimes?  YES!  Was I right to be so upset?  What was the infraction of the morning?  Some of them were just too tired to get up and go to church…didn't go to sleep until 3 (playing video games) and just couldn't do it today.  Whose fault is that?  Is that a reason to let them skip church?  Again?!?  This is not the first time I have heard this.    

As some of you know I am a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  With that comes quite a lot of expectation…especially of our youth.  Well, of all of us really, but we do focus on the youth and for very good reasons.  It's hard to grasp what they are faced with on a daily basis…I don't mean war or famine, that's different though still dealt with in some parts of the world.  I am referring to the temptations that are literally everywhere.  I could launch into a diatribe about that but I won't…for now.  Back to the morning, being a member of this church means going to church on Sundays…every Sunday.  It means that we go at an assigned time based on where we live.  Our current time is 8:30am but that will change when we hit 2015 and it will be a little bit later.  8:30 isn't my favorite time but it's doable…unless you are a teenager and you stay up until 3 in the morning and then it's tragic.

As I have worked through the frustration of the day I have realized something much bigger and it's kind of hard to express but I will try.  You see, in our home only one parent is actively engaged in any attempt at being part of church.  The other parent chooses to abstain, for many valid and personal reasons that I have come to accept. (mostly)  As in any faith, one parent involved is only half the team.  We stand together in everything else.  It's hard to grasp unless you have worked through something like this…and it isn't just religion that divides people.  It can be anything.  When you want a baby and the other one doesn't, or one wants to move for a job and you just can't even consider it…I know well that this is a universal challenge.  What our particular challenge implies is a murky gray area where we are neither too religious nor too apathetic.  We are in the middle.  Here's where the realization came for me.

I have often felt inadequate as a member of this faith based on my willing participation in the gray zone.  Much counsel has been given clarifying that there is no gray area.  Only the black and white.  Those are the talks that are hard for me.  I have sometimes prided myself on my ability to walk this gray line and keep my family together and support my husband in his own beliefs.  What I know now is that there was nothing noble about it.  My immersion into the gray area is self preservation.  The truth is that every time I find myself merging out of the gray, attempting to present definition for our family and raise the expectations for all of us I find myself quite sad…sometimes heartbroken.  See in our faith we believe that families are forever.  We believe that we have the divine responsibility and privilege of sealing our families together for time and eternity in sacred ordinances in the Temple.  We want that for everyone.  We know that not everyone agrees with this idea and that's ok…that whole free agency thing and all.  It is; however, a fundamental tenant of our faith.  Having grown up LDS I knew that my only path to real happiness was to marry a nice Mormon boy and be married in the Temple.  Well…that theory has been proven and disproven many times over.  It is sometimes difficult to maintain the faith when I will not be allowed to perform this sacred ordinance with my own husband and children.  It also means not participating in the daily rituals that come with this faith.  So, I wade in the muddy waters…I allow mediocrity because it, in some small way, diffuses that disappointment for just a little while.

I do believe in a loving Father in Heaven who knows better what to do with me than I do.  I believe that families can be together forever and that sometimes those ordinances aren't done for some time….but at some point, they will be done.  The problem is that while I do believe that, the moments of disappointment are still real.  So today I reacted poorly.  I am still reacting poorly actually.  I tried communicating with all of my children a little while ago and felt quite defeated by the end, wondering why I tried at all.

So why did I say anything about a parenting measuring stick?  Because in spite of this very personal frustration I have great kids.  I know that.  I don't measure them against anyone else or what others might expect of them.  I want them to be the very best versions of themselves, no matter what that looks like.  I heard a brave woman talk about her desire to impose her own maternal will on her children today in church and that she wished that she could have done so to prevent the loss of her oldest child nearly a year ago.  Wouldn't that be nice?  Just to tell them what to do and they do it…because we said so.  That isn't the order of things though.  Agency is the thing that allows us to fail and succeed and it is up to us to determine which way that falls, even if the results are devastating.  The beauty of the results potentially being positive is enough to make us carry on either way…gray area, muddy waters, divorce, suicide, job loss and any other manner of tragedies and disappointments notwithstanding.  We keep getting up.

In a funny way this realization makes me slightly less upset with my kids about the morning.  They have no idea what it all really means to me and that's because they have only really known the gray.  So I try to explain…and then the cycle starts all over again.

Divorce sucks

No better words for that one really.  Having been through divorce myself…twice, I might add…I know how ugly this divorce thing gets.  I have seen friends go through it.  Siblings now in the middle of it.  And life on the other side of it.  There's just no easy way to say this…it just sucks.  It gets better.  Of course it does.  People always say that sort of thing when they don't know what else to say but in this case it is true.  (unless, of course, you continue to make stupid decisions and then it still sucks)  In the people around me I am seeing multiple varieties of divorce…there's the one you don't want but have absolutely no choice but to accept, the one that you never saw coming, the one where you probably messed up big time and now you have to live with that guilt but there was more going on in the marriage than just the Mistake, the one you really want but can't quite get your head around, and the one that was coming before you ever got married in the first place.  This is, by no means, the sum total of all varieties of divorce…it's just what's in front of me at the moment.  So why does it have to be so hard?  I remember thinking that it would be easier to deal with a death than divorce.  At least then there is some closure…some way to say goodbye.  Divorce just cuts you in half with no real way to stitch yourself back up for a long time.  You have to figure out who you are all over again and face that you might not like who you are at that moment.  Marriage changes us, that is true.  But I believe that divorce may change us even more.

Here's the kicker…I don't really believe in divorce.  I know it sounds counterintuitive. (twice…)   I don't believe that you should give up on the person you committed your life to.  I don't believe that we are the sum total of our mistakes or accomplishments and that for better or worse has to include the worse…unless the "Worse" looks something like criminal misconduct and then it's a no brainer.  I also don't do mean.  Mean has no place in a family.  Mean is kind of third party in a marriage and fights for attention.  When Mean gets in the way…it can take over and the person who is mean can even believe that they are right to be mean.  Not a concept I can wrap my mind around but I have seen it too many times to ignore it.

I believe that people are who they are and that you can't expect to change them.  Change comes with age and experience.  Change comes with mistakes.  It comes with success.  It comes with love and with hate.  Change comes but not because you want it to or demand it from your significant other.  In my world at the moment I see two divorces that must happen…no way around it.  I see one that probably shouldn't…but no one asked my opinion on that one.  I see a man that I divorced many years ago that I love more than I can possibly say.  We got lucky…we paid a high price but we got lucky.  We found the relationship we could have had all along.  It's not perfect…let's not sugar coat it.  But man oh man do I adore him.

My take away for tonight is this…while divorce does suck…I HATE THAT WORD AND I KEEP USING IT…while it does bear a strong resemblance to hell itself…not all divorce has to happen.  We talk about being happy and taking care of ourselves and "falling out of love" and deserving more but the problem with all of that is that we have neglected the foundation of marriage.  Fight for the one you love every single day.  Fight until there's no more fight and then take a deep breath and fight again.  Sometimes that choice is taken from you.  Some relationships cannot be saved and we may break into a million pieces when it crumbles.  Give yourself the time to get back up but for the love of all that is good in the world…GET BACK UP!

Like I said…it does get better.

Involuntary anxiety leads to this

Let's just examine this, shall we…
March 10th.  Now 79 days since "the incident".  House is finally coming together.
It's Spring Break.  A week of sleeping in and enjoying time off.
In a quiet hotel away from the chaos of construction.
All things considered…everything is good.  Productive.  Moving in the right direction.

So why am I so darned irritated?!?!  Saw a movie today, one I do NOT recommend, and everything about it was annoying…except for a funny Bill Clinton joke.  The people who came into a nearly empty theatre and decided to sit right next to us…annoying.  The kids who came in late and sat on the other side of us and talked the ENTIRE time…annoying.  Listen, movie theaters are kind of sacred ground for me.  You have to respect the space.  Turn your phone off.  Don't talk.  Don't sip that drink until it's louder than the movie because it's actually empty but you keep trying anyway.  Put your feet down.  DON'T TALK!  It was a kids movie so I expected a certain amount of noise…it happens.  But talking in full voice to the person in your row but not right next to you is not acceptable behavior for anyone over the age of 2.  Frankly, it makes me anxious just thinking about it again.  Something might be wrong with me.

Miss Kierstin wants the Easter Bunny to know that she is ready for Easter so she has written a note and created a masterpiece of jelly bean art and expects the Easter Bunny to come to the hotel and take her cute picture and write her back.  Easter isn't for another 6 weeks.  Isn't it a little early for Easter Bunny magic?  See what I mean?  Something might be wrong with me.

Seeing pictures of friends having a good time on their break should make me smile.  And they do, until they don't anymore and I find myself complaining because I am not there.  Hearing of successful diets or work out routines…most of the time I am the one who will get up and jump for joy with you…today?  Just irritates me.  HAHAHAHA!

I know how crazy I sound right this second.  Believe me, I do.

Are these things one should keep to ones self in the event that it sounds crazy or selfish or petty?  Probably, but this is my little corner of the web and I am whining tonight…no…not whining…bellyaching…some would even say bitching…yep, that's the one.