Month: October 2015 (Page 5 of 7)

To survive being the mother of a large family, you either have to be the super organized kind of mom, or nearly  the opposite, the laid-back kind. There’s just too much going on to stay in the middle of the road. With any family, but perhaps more noticeably in a home with lots of kids, mom either has to keep all the schedules, tasks and needs in order, or she has to be able to tolerate some amount of disorder.

I am the second type, but I’ve never liked the term “laid back.” It sounds like that mom is lazy, or literally laying down on the job. I prefer the term calm, casual or maybe unflappable.

The super-organized moms are the ones you see in magazines and reality shows. In those households, everything hums along, chores are cheerfully done, school work is fun and creative, everyone is in line and the rows are straight. I know families like this–they do exist–and I admire them tremendously. I love the idea of it.

We’re not that family. It causes me more stress to keep my home that way than it does to live with a little clutter, some dust bunnies, and dishes in the sink. So, a big hairy dog will rush you at the door, the bathroom may have toothpaste smeared on the mirror and dinner will likely be running a few minutes late, but we’re happy and healthy.

It’s not that we don’t try. It’s just that we can’t quite get ahead of it. I’m sure I should have delegated more responsibility, and maybe I should have doled out harsher consequences for missing dish duty.

My kids have turned out to be good roommates, though, which is some measure of what they learned at home. I hear them complaining that they are the only ones in their house or apartment that do dishes, vacuum or clean the bathroom. This is a great mystery to me, because they were not doing this at home with any regularity.

I’m so relieved that I didn’t completely ruin them by not having the Good Housekeeping dream family. I suspect that maybe the organizational level of the home doesn’t really matter that much. We don’t want the health department to have to intervene, but it seems a more casual approach may be good enough.

Every family is somewhere on the organizational and neatness scale. Your home reflects your family’s personality and values, and doesn’t have to look like a magazine spread to be great.

I’m not the person to come to for how-to’s on how to get more done in a day, or how to finally conquer your clutter. If you want to talk about how crazy and exhausting and amazing it is to be a parent, or about getting through hard times with your kids one day, one hour or one prayer at a time, I have lots to say. With so many kids, I have plenty of experience with that.

Well, it’s actually text and call. I’m at my kids’ text and call.

When something comes up–problems, joys, news, questions, plans–I get a text. Or I send one. Whole conversations take place over text. I started texting when it became the most reliable way to get a hold of my kids. When they couldn’t (or wouldn’t) answer a phone call, they would read and respond to a text.

In the days of flip phones, it was terse, more like a telegraph, with just the bare minimum of words– “Get home now, ” or “Where are you?” Now that we have a full QWERTY keyboard at our fingertips, texts have expanded.

They can be surprisingly personal. Everybody has their own texting accent. Some are standard English, complete with proper puctuation, others are slapdash, with short phrases, periods and question marks optional. Some use slang and abbreviations, others are wordy and descriptive.

With or without frills–emojis, pictures, videos, links–personality comes through. The other day, one of my texters sent me this message about lunch in his distinctive style: “Yo that sandwich was on schmack.” I’m pretty sure that means he liked it.

Even serious conversations take place this way.  I’ve informed the family of sad news, like the death of an elderly family member, over group text. With everyone seeing and responding to each other’s texts, it is a sweet way to be together in  sad times

When the text hints at something bigger, I follow up with a call. Making or answering a call is a bigger time commitment than tapping out a text. Texters can multitask; they can be in public, in a meeting, in class, even in the bathroom and carry on a full conversation. With a phone call, more attention is needed, and it requires stepping away from other people and activities.

A text came the other day, “Mom, I’m really wrestling with whether or not college is right for me right now.” This needed more than a few cheery words. I called and learned that a bad situation with a roommate had gotten to be too hard. When I can hear the tone in a voice, or the tears behind the words, I can get a better sense of what is going on and be a support and encouragement.

Because so much talking is done via text, phone calls have become the long, newsy, handwritten letter of modern communication. On the phone, we can have a good, old-fashioned chat. Quick calls don’t happen as much; when we get on the phone, conversations can sometimes last an hour or two, like a remote coffee date.

I am so glad I can be at their text and call–I love having the space in my life to be available to connect with them when life happens. They leave home, but they are still often on my mind. A little text–or maybe a long phone call–lets them know they are loved.

From the first day mothers find out we’re pregnant, we worry. Mothering and worrying are synonyms. I’m not talking about curled-up-in the-corner, eyes-glazed-in-fear worrying (though that does happen), I’m talking about a more active worry: The “I Will Keep My Baby safe From Everything” type of worry.

It starts with vigilant pre-natal care, pregnancy books and blogs, birth plan research, and breathing practice. Healthy eating and exercise regimens become a constant quest. When the precious one arrives, we battle through diaper choices, feeding decisions, child care options, and skin care products.

Relentless, life forces us to make schooling selections, extra-curricular and child-care plans and find appropriate social outlets for our little ones. The details and thinking and–yes, worrying–are endless.

Everyday, we either protect and care for our children ourselves, or we carefully select the people who are in their lives as caregivers, teachers, medical professionals and friends. We dress them, feed them, hug them, talk to them, listen to them and make sure they are growing and thriving.

It gets more difficult in the teen years–but we do our best to keep track of them, to help them navigate school work, to go to every game they play, and to drive them and their friends around, eavesdropping just a little to get a sense of what’s going on inside their lives when they aren’t talking to us quite so much.

Then they move out. They go to college, they start working, they are not in your constant, physical care. You have to turn them over to themselves. That old Mother Worry screams, “Wait! I didn’t teach you everything yet! You can barely do your own laundry!”

The Mother Worry is kept in check by the ability to do something about it. For the first 18 years or so, we have a hands-on role in keeping baby safe. Even when they start to exercise their independence, we are there, waiting up for them to come home. We are still feeding, clothing, watching, listening, monitoring. When they aren’t there to see and feel and feed, Mother Worry can take on a life of it’s own.

I feel it now, as I think about it. The clenching in the gut, the what-if’s crowding in with images of all sorts of trouble and pain waiting to pounce on my babies. It is not safe out there. I remember how I felt when I first tip-toed out on my own, unsure of myself. I was lonely. I was a little scared. I wasn’t sure I could do it. I want to be there for my kids to help, to cheer, to protect.

So, I pray. I text. I call. I send care packages. I visit. Many nights, I wake up and can’t sleep, and my kids come to mind, so I pray some more.

There are some hard things that they have to face. There are still bullies out there, and terrible friend choices. There are drugs and parties and bad drivers and bad bosses. One of my precious ones even got lost, barefoot, in a forest after a river floating trip. And I wasn’t there to help. I didn’t even know about it.

That’s when I realize that my Mother Worry, while it helps me to be a persistent, careful parent, is not enough to ensure that my children with grow up to be happy, healthy adults. It never had magic powers to keep all the bad, scary stuff away. There aren’t any guarantees that can be purchased, stolen, earned or even prayed into existence.

Children grow up, learn from their mistakes, and live their own lives. It is truly a wonder to behold. Pride and anticipation start to push down the worry. They have grown into themselves in ways I couldn’t have imagined when I was focused on keeping all the bad stuff away. They are people that I like and admire.

The worry doesn’t go away, but we can manage it by trusting that God is the best at Mother Worry, and is taking care in ways we often can’t see or understand. Then, when the children come home for a visit, we get to baby them again.