Looking back on motherhood

The past week each time I have been at a store I have noticed the people flocking around the card aisle to pick out their Mother’s Day cards. I’ve heard the question more times than I can count being asked “What are you getting your mom for Mother’s Day?” Of course watching all these people scurrying about to find the perfect card or gift it has made me reflect a lot on me being a mother and what it has meant.

In the midst of all this I have thought a lot about my role as a mother and the roller coaster ride that it has been. I’ve bandaged cuts and scrapes by the hundreds, consoled thousands of tears, laughed at more things my kids have said and done than I can count and been showered with more hugs, kisses and I love you’s than I probably deserved on some days. But becoming a mom is a job that you are basically just thrown into and you think you have all this training that will make you the “perfect mom” because you watched your own mom do it all your life up until that point. (And believe me I had a wonderful example to follow.) But no matter how much I observed over the years, how many books I could have read or how many pointers I could have received – it’s basically a on the job training kind of thing and the times that you succeed are always a hit or miss kind of thing.

I have been extremely blessed that for the most part that they have turned out ok, it has been an uphill battle along the way and to be honest there were things that I could have done differently and definitely much better. As much as I wish they were perfect they each have their flaws and their mistakes that they have made. But even if I had been the perfect mom and did everything right according to Dr. Spock they still wouldn’t be perfect. We have made our mistakes in this children/mother partnership and we have learned a lot of lessons through this journey that we have been on that’s for sure.

It seems like they have grown up so fast and that the hands on the clock just spin faster and faster with each day. My kids are not babies anymore. One of them has a child of her own, the other is graduating next weekend and the youngest one will soon be 15. I swear it just seems like yesterday that it was April 18th 1990 and I was getting my first shot at this thing called motherhood. It’s almost as if I just blinked and the onesies turned into caps & gowns and the Fisher Price plastic key set turned into the real thing. It was like they instantly went from crawling and pulling at my pants legs to heading out the door to the real world and not even looking back.

If I had known that this would happen so fast; that all the opportunities to do things with my kids would have passed me by so quickly I would have done so many things differently. I wouldn’t have worked 2 and 3 jobs at a time – instead I would’ve sacrificed a little more of other things instead of my time. I would’ve listened more to what they had to say and I would’ve appreciated the finger paints and the class projects that hung on my refrigerator more. I would’ve cherished more the moments of them sleeping with me cuddled up beside me and maybe them being a recluse in their bedroom as a teenager wouldn’t be so painful on certain days when I get to missing the times that they actually preferred to sit in the same room with me.

But like other things in life we learn as we go and motherhood is no different. There are really no do-overs – it’s a thing that happens when you aren’t looking and before you know it – well it has left you looking back at a stretch of memories miles long. I think for the most part that I have been a good mom. I have loved my children with all my heart. I have tried to be their biggest fans (and their loudest one). I have watched them each accept Christ with a heart that could have exploded with elation and I have seen them make their ways through struggles – but also through victories.

If I could turn back time to the days that I held their tiny beings in my arms and watched them as they slept there is still no guarantee that knowing what I know now that I would raise them “mistake free”. All I can do is look back with them over the years of being their mother and hope that we can smile at our journey together and hope that they see in the rear view mirror a mother who loved them more than life itself.

So in retrospect thinking about how blessed I am as a mother; it’s nice to for a mom to have her own special day – not because of any award that I can be given, but instead the rewards that I have already received.

Setting an example to follow

Do you ever have a moment that is kind of like an epiphany? You know one of those moments when someone says something that suddenly makes all these bells and whistles go off in your mind? Well I had one of those exact moments this morning at church. I was listening to the preacher as he talked about the examples that we should set for our children.  As he preached I looked over at my youngest daughter who is about to graduate high school in 12 days and as I looked at her for a split second I saw a 5 year old little curly headed girl and then I blinked and there sat a beautiful young woman who is preparing to embark on the next chapter of her life. I thought about how fast life has passed with my children and wondered if I have done them justice in the things that I have tried to teach them.

As I listened to my pastor make reference to the many things in life that we teach our children vs the things that we could’ve taught them, I thought about how it applied to me as a parent.  I know that I have taught my children the basics. You know the parenting 101 stuff like looking both ways before you cross the street, not to stick a fork in a plugged in toaster and don’t cross your eyes or they will stick that way.  But I wonder if I have taught them enough about what the important things in life are. I know that I have taught them to love God above all others. I know that I have taught them that if they have a choice to do right or wrong to always do what is right. I know that I have taught them the golden rule. But through all the talks and the long lectures have I taught them more by words than I have by my actions? I find myself a lot of times (especially since his passing) thinking “how would my dad have handled this situation?” - Probably because my dad was the wisest person that I have ever known.  I learned so much from him just by his every day walk of life. He was the kindest, most compassionate and most forgiving person that I have ever known, and I learned those things about him not by what he said, but by what he did. He wasn’t perfect by any means – none of us are. But when I look back I can’t remember as a parent him ever leading me or any of his children by a bad example. He was just a good person and that simple description says a lot about a person’s character.

I’m certain, without any doubt that I will never measure up to the person that he was. Not because of his failure in teaching, but by my failure in learning. I know that I will not always make the right choices in my children’s lives or in my own. I know that there are certain footsteps of mine that I pray that my children don’t follow. But at the end of the day, when choices have been made and their character is challenged I hope that they will ask themselves if the decision that they made is one that I would’ve made. Because if they ask themselves that question then it means that somewhere along the journey of parenthood that I set more good examples than bad and that it made them think about what I would think of their own actions.

Being a parent is so much more than just bringing a child into the world. It is more than just knowing when to tell them yes and when to tell them no. Being a parent means setting an example that you want them to follow. It means that at the end of the day when they lay their head down to sleep if they are proud of the person that they are – then you have done something right along the way in creating that peace that they have.

Today at my daughter’s baccalaureate service the pastor made reference to a gentleman by the name of George Bernard Shaw. In one of his last interviews he was posed the question “If you could go back to the very beginning of your life and be ANYONE you wanted to be – who would it be?” His response was “to be the man I could’ve have been.”  Even though my oldest daughter is 24 and the other two children are not that many years younger than her, they are still impressionable and can still be influenced by the things that I teach them or the things that I don’t. So my prayer as a parent is that it’s not too late to set an example for them that if that question is ever asked of them that they will have a different answer. There are many things that I want for my children in their lives, and one of the most important things that I want for them is to have no regrets or remorse for the lives that they have lived; that when it is all said and done that they would not want to turn back time and have another chance to be a better person.