Tag Archives: being mom

  • hope1

    Wrestling Hope

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    “Totally without hope one cannot live. To live without hope is to cease to live. Hell is hopelessness. It is no accident that above the entrance to Dante’s hell is the inscription: ‘Leave behind all hope, you who enter here.’” Jurgen Moltmann

    I’ve wrestled a lot with hope in the last few years. Mostly to try and send it away. “Hope deferred makes a heart sick.” I’ve had enough of being sick. But allowing oneself to venture into hell is a dangerous thing as well. I know – I’ve wandered into hell more than once as of late and couldn’t muster the strength to find my way back out.

    I’ve taken to resisting comfort. I’ve fallen for it too many times before. I’ve read the words of scripture and their promises that God will not abandon me or let me fall. My heart has leapt at them only to find that holding onto comfort is like holding onto water as it slips out between your fingers. And God is no where to be seen but my failure is all around me. Better not to let myself try to grab hold any more.

    I’ve gazed at the cross with its promise of redemption after suffering. But Jesus’ suffering lasted for a weekend and mine is lasting for years. Jesus’ suffering was probably greater than mine, but it’s not a competition. My neighbor’s broken leg doesn’t make my broken heart hurt any less. I’d say I just want my suffering to end, but the damage has already been done. What difference does it make now?

    And then I realize that it is an evil thing I’m fighting with which bids me to remain in hell and refuse comfort as too little too late and far too quickly gone. I’m tired of keeping up the fight. But behind this evil that I’m wresting with are a whole hoard of demons just waiting to rush forward and devour the ones I love. There are generational curses straining mightily to break through. And demons of rejection and abandonment waiting to sink their teeth into young children’s hearts. There’s resentment and confusion that will lead a teen down misshapen paths to no where. There’s weariness and betrayal and anger that never rests looking for unguarded cracks to set up infection in a barely healing soul.

    I resent it – being pinned down by all this evil. Having to keep up this fight rather than allow myself to walk away or be swept up by some worldly comfort until it takes my life with it. Even Jesus got to die in the end.

    And along comes a three year old who drapes herself into my arms, looks up at me and says in her baby way, “you love me mom.”

    Yes I do baby.

    “I love you. I love Noah. Noah loves me. Everyone loves me.”

    Yes they do, baby.

    And then an 8 year old comes in.

    “I just want to be with you for a minute.”

    How come?

    “I dunno. I just feel good when I’m by you.”

    A six year old brings a picture she’s painted.

    “It’s for you. It says ‘joy’! Do you like it?”

    She’s made her J backwards so it really says “Loy”.

    It’s wonderful, pretty girl.

    “Joy” it is.

    I start to find my feet again for the first time in days. The evil’s still there, but I’m not pinned down under the force of it now.

    Later I’m stumbling again and a 17 year year old boy stops to put on a song for me before putting his arms around me. When he was younger he made his own sound effects every where he went. Today, he keeps a sound track going.

    “What you need to remember is that you’ve done good, mom. Even if the rest of the world is to stubborn to admit it to you, you’ve done good.”

    I wanted life to be better for you. I didn’t mean for it to be this hard.

    The thirteen year old chimes in.

    “We’d both be ruined if it weren’t for you. Life is hard. But at least we know that we can handle it. That’s more than most people can say.”

    And finally, finally, the ones I keep up the battle for have gotten me steady enough on my feet to walk away out of hell and away from the evil. I don’t know that I’m ready to hope exactly. But I think it will be a while before I wander back into hell again. And that’s no small thing.

  • Trotter children are immediately identifiable by their curly hair

    Do Your Kids Know Their Own Story?

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    Trotter children are immediately identifiable by their curly hair

    I’m having some trouble writing at the moment, so in honor of my daughter Olivia’s 3rd birthday, here’s a repeat which ends with the story of how Olivia came to be – aside from the obvious, of course. (At the time this was written, my husband and I were separated. We’re back together now. For those of you following along at home.)

    Each of my children has a story we tell them about some way in which their lives have mattered.  I believe that it’s one thing to tell a kid they are important and that they matter, but it’s something of a gift to them to be able to tell them how they have mattered.  Then they’re not just a lowly child floating out in the world with no real base or purpose to start with.  It grounds the message that they have value in their real world.  It’s concrete evidence for them that just because they exist, the world is a different, better place.

    My oldest Noah was born when his father and I were not married.  If it wasn’t for him, we would not have formed a family and his siblings wouldn’t be here.  And his birth also changed me.  Before having him, if you had walked up to me at any given moment and said, “I’m sorry, only real humans are allowed here.  Penguins such as yourself belong elsewhere” and I would have shrugged at being caught and thanked you for telling me I was a penguin – I had been wondering about that.  I had a bad case of imposter’s syndrome.  Practically from the start, parenting Noah was something I just knew how to do and I felt completely comfortable doing it.  It was almost like working out of an area of spiritual blessing and was an important step on the way to me knowing (hopefully) more and more of who God created me to be.

    Collin, who is now 12 was born while his dad was very sick.  His medical care was awful but we were young and hadn’t yet realized that the system works differently once your illness has no identifiable cause or treatment.  They eventually told us that he was crazy – really, they did.  They even gave us a black binder with a report saying so.  In fact he was crazy in a way.  Unbeknownst to anyone, his body had stopped processing B12 years before.  Your body uses B12 to coat nerve endings so they can communicate smoothly.  He was not thinking clearly and became difficult to the point of being unsafe to leave the kids alone with him.  We had been married a year and if we hadn’t had Collin right away, I doubt I would have stayed.  He was only diagnosed when he nearly died.  If I hadn’t been there to call 911, it could have been days before someone found him.  So, Collin kept us together which ended up saving his dad’s life.

    Michaela was the one child I that was my idea.  This time I was the one to talk the qxh (quasi-ex-husband) into having another kid.  He was ready to be done, but I really wanted a little girl.  Believe it or not, but I had never had any intention of being a parent and it had rather disrupted everything else I had wanted to do with my life.  So I figured that as long as I was going to be a parent, I at least wanted to try for a girl.  Against his better judgment, the qxh went along to make me happy.  When Michaela was a few months old, he came and thanked me.  “She’s my heart,” he said, “I can’t believe I didn’t think I needed her.”  The qxh had all sort of very retrograde ideas about how to raise boys – many of which revolved around putting as much parental inflicted suffering on a kid as he can take in order to train him for the rigors of manhood.  But with girls, he took a cue from Chris Rock: “my job is to keep her off the [stripper's] pole!“  The qxh sees a father’s job as demonstrating to his daughter how she should expect to be treated.  So Michaela was the one who helped him find a much softer, gentler and more patient side than he had been working from before she was born.  Which made all of our lives more pleasant.

    Sophia is my second daughter.  She was all the qxh’s idea.  There is an almost 6 year gap between Collin and Michaela and the qxh wanted Michaela to have a sibling to play with.  Two weeks later, Sophia was on her way.  Sophia was the child we had no real reason for having.  Most likely in the scheme of things, having Sophia meant that Michaela wouldn’t be completely ruined by being her father’s only daughter!  But when we tell Sophia her story, we tell her that she was the baby we had for the fun of it.  It was a gamble, but it paid off.

    And then there’s my baby, Olivia.  She has a strange story that I’m glad I don’t have to try and explain to her yet.  Just over three years ago, the weirdest thing kept happening.  My four kids would all be in a room with me and I would count them because I thought someone was missing.  I told a friend who has 5 kids about it and she immediately responded, “uh-oh.”  (Many people assume that large families are a sign of contraceptive issues, but it really comes from a completely different mindset towards having children.  Among those who have large families, this sense that someone is missing is often given as part of their reason for having another child.)  Shortly after that, the qxh came out of no where and announced that he had no idea why but he was suddenly gripped with a desire to, um, do his part to assist in the creation of a new Trotter.  And I said, “well see – that’s strange, because I have had this odd sensation of someone being missing.”  Weird, right?

    So we talked about it for a couple of weeks and I came to the firm conclusion that having another baby was a really, really bad idea.  My husband was sick of being the sole breadwinner and our youngest was starting preschool that fall so I could start working on building something myself to contribute to the family finances.  And my then 13 year old stepson was coming to live with us, so I would be going from having 4 kids to 6 in a very short time.  And babies are sooooo much WORK.  We didn’t even have a vehicle big enough for all of us as it was!  Bad, bad, bad idea.

    However, a couple of weeks later, I was complaining to God (yes, I complain to God a lot.  That way everyone else doesn’t have to listen to it!).  “Where’s my joy?” I demanded.  And clear as anything the words, “she’s here with me.  Waiting.” just popped to the front of my head.  I knew immediately that this was about that bad baby idea.  So, I told God that I thought it was a really, really, really bad idea and I wasn’t going to do anything to help bring it to fruition, but if it was really what he wanted and it was that important, that I would trust him.  6 weeks later on the first day my period was late, I didn’t need a pregnancy test.  I knew.  I had been forwarned.

    The next 8 months ended up being a nightmare for so many reasons that I began to hope that the baby (due at New Year’s) wouldn’t come until January just so she wouldn’t be associated with 2009.  Turns out 2010 was even worse, so 6 of one, half-dozen of another.  The pregnancy was difficult, I had become depresses which made life very unenjoyable and there were some really serious family problems that came up that fall.

    When the baby did make her appearance, it was just after Christmas.  I was in labor for nearly 48 hours and I’m certain that my ambivalence about having another child contributed greatly to the long-drawn out ordeal.  I knew she was “sunny side up” (facing the wrong way – face up) and that I should have been doing things to help turn her, but the nurses and doctors didn’t believe me so I pretended not to know either.  It wasn’t until the doctor used a suctioning device to assist with the delivery that he realized that I was right - she was facing the wrong way.  It seems her nose seemed to had gotten caught on the way out.  We named her Olivia Joy.

    And of course, I love her.  I still think it was a really bad idea to have a baby just then.  And it was really confusing.  It seemed so clear to me that God intended her to be here.  So, why would he send her into a family that was falling apart the way ours suddenly was?  Sometimes I would think that Olivia’s existence must mean that things were going to work out and we were going to pull through.  Unfortunately, everything worked out much worse than I had been afraid of when I decided that having another baby was a bad idea.

    Now she’s two and she’s gotten to be my little buddy.  She’s a very sweet, loving little thing.  Although she climbs like a monkey and is into absolutely everything.  (Like pouring salt into the sugar.  Or into the soup minutes before I was going to serve it.  We are now keeping the salt on top of the fridge.  She’s been trying to figure out how to stack chairs up to reach it, but so far, no dice.)  When I was at my lowest, she would come and shove my head off my pillow and say, “get up!”  At which point I would have to get up because what kind of shlub mom am I if my toddler’s forcibly trying to get me out of bed?  It still doesn’t make any sense to me that it was so important for her to be here, especially at such an inopportune time.  I’m sure it will all be clearer later.  Right now it’s probably enough that I know she was purposed to be here.

    And really, that’s why I tell my kids these stories about themselves.  I want them to know that they have a purpose for being here.  I want them to understand how important they – and all people – are just through their existence.  And researchers know that people who see their lives as an unfolding story rather than a conglomeration of events and periods in one’s life are happier and more fulfilled.  I want my kids to know how to create their own stories and claim their credit in the world.  I always think these stories we tell our kids about themselves are like a little building block we can give them to get them started.

    Do you have any interesting stories to share about your kid’s effect on your world?  Do you tell them to your kids?

  • 414612_4359910869558_2071656243_o

    For the Woman at the Post Office Who is Reporting Me for Child Abuse

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    I gave her my name, so I’m kind of hoping she googles me. Cuz that’s how cool I am – if you google my name, it brings ya here. As long as the cops never figure that out, I’m good. ;p

    Anyhow, the reason I hope she googles me and finds this is because like her, I care very much about the proper treatment of children. In fact, I care so much about it that I even care about the damage which is done by those who see something very good – caring about how kids are treated – as an opportunity to tear vulnerable people down, be self-righteous and judgmental. (Sound familiar? It’s ugly behavior outside of a Christian context as well!)

    So what happened was I was at the post office with my 3 year old daughter Olivia. The one who was walking at 8 1/2 months. The one who we couldn’t let Great Grandma hold when she met her at 5 months because she was too squirmy for an old woman to hang onto. The one who can scale our refrigerator by holding the handles. The one who can hoist herself up to your waist and onto your back and onto your shoulders all by herself as you struggle to peel her off before she’s sitting on your head like an ill behaved cat. She climbs on counters and tries to launch herself onto your back as you pass by. That one. Up there in the picture looking all abused. Because she got into my lipstick and gave herself a plum unibrow.

    So anyways, I admit that I give my kids a free-er reign than a lot of people. I won’t let them be excessively loud or climb things or tear anything up. But I do let them move around freely as long as I can keep an eye on them. So Olivia, being Olivia was being extra squirrelly and trying to play “keep away from mom”. I’m 100% certain a few people were wondering why I didn’t grab her and get her under control. But she wasn’t being bad or hurting herself or being a nuisance. Plus she is very, very strong and can throw her body weight around like a pro. So I waited until I was at the counter to force her to stand by me. She got away a couple of times and I just calmly brought her back. But when she stuck her head between my legs, I took the chance to catch her and tightened my legs so she couldn’t easily pull her head back out. Trapped! Bwahahaha! Evil mommy strikes again!

    So anyways, I honestly wasn’t paying as much attention to her as it sounds. I have 5 kids. I’m on autopilot and talking with the postperson anyways. Olivia made a very half hearted attempt or two to escape, but mostly settled down to look around from her novel position. She’s really strong – if she had really wanted to, she could have escaped. So, I was a bit surprised to here a voice behind me say, “am I really seeing you restrain you child by holding her head between your knees?” I turned around to the fashionably dressed woman who spoke and said, “yes. Absolutely.” At which point she told me that she was a mandatory reporter and had to report me. I told her to go ahead. In fact, later after getting Olivia into her coat, hat and gloves (she was doing her limp noodle routine), and picking her up off the ground where she was doing her dead weight routine and slinging her over my shoulder because she was doing her “I’m going to throw my weight around with great force and see if I can tip you over” routine, I went over to the woman and gave her my name and address. She said thank you. And like I said, I do hope she looks my name up because I wasn’t going to force Olivia to wait while I explained some things to her.

    I want her to know that I know something about child abuse and the damage it causes. My husband was brutally abused as child. I spent 3 1/2 year volunteering with boys in prison – all of whom had been abused. I know quite vividly the damage it causes. And I also know how hard it is to overcome and not pass on to your own children. Parenting is hard. Parenting when your only example is to use violence to control your children is immeasurably more difficult. You don’t know who you are talking to. You don’t know how much effort has gone into raising our kids without relying on violence and authoritarian control. If this woman had a brain in her head, she would have observed that I was not angry, I had not raised my voice or even been irritable, I certainly didn’t pinch, hit, smack or otherwise accost my daughter, shame her or scare her. She clearly wasn’t in any distress. I was being a good parent to a challenging, hyper-squirmy child.

    This woman, on the other hand, was very deliberately trying to shame me. If I were a bit younger, a bit less experienced or unsure of myself or otherwise vulnerable, she would have succeeded in causing me shame. A shamed parent is no better than a shamed child. It’s a potentially harmful thing to do to a person. And if a parent is harmed and feels shame, guess who ends up paying the price? The kid. Shaming a parent in public is the opposite of helping a kid. You might as well walk up to a kid and stomp on their toes for all the good it does. If you are really that concerned about a child’s wellbeing, you offer to help the parent. You could say, “boy she looks like a real handful. Would you like me to amuse her while you finish what you’re doing?” When you just want to be indignant and self-righteous, you do what this woman did.

    And when someone does something like what this woman did today – publicly reprimand and threaten a parent engaged in nothing more serious than restraining their child – it doesn’t just affect that parent and that child. Other people saw it. A man came up to me in the parking lot outside the post office to tell me that I did nothing wrong and express how angry he was at this woman. As he talked phrases like “bleeding heart liberals who think they know every damn thing” came out of his mouth. Do you suppose that the next time he runs into someone talking about the benefits of gentle parenting, he’s going to be more or less open to the idea? Do you suppose that his obvious disdain for “bleeding heart liberals” became more or less entrenched today? Do you suppose his trust in his fellow citizens and our government’s ability to deal with abusive parents was strengthened or weakened a bit today?

    Not only is shaming a parent and threatening them wrong and potentially damaging to the parent and their child, it helps to rip this already fragile fabric of our society apart just a little bit more. It makes us believe that our neighbors are not only idiots, but dangerous to our wellbeing. With your “mandatory reporter” status announced, it creates the impression that our government is a danger to parents and children rather than a support. There is no good thing which can come from what this woman did today.

    So, if the woman who saw me at the post office today and was so appalled at my treatment of my daughter did look up my name and find this, please, look around my blog. Here’s the link to my page on “Spiritual Parenting”, in fact. And if you want to contact child services and tell them that this Christian mom who advocates gentle parenting and is working hard with her husband to break numerous generational curses for their kid’s sake needs to dealt with, go right ahead. I have nothing to fear. You, on the other hand, will have exposed yourself as arrogant, foolish and one of the people responsible for making this world I’m raising my kids in a worse place for all of us.

  • Do You Treat God Like Old Aunt Myrtle?

    Do You Treat God Like Old Aunt Myrtle?

    December 18, 2012

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    “Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child will not enter it at all.” Luke 18:17

    When ever I have hear this verse taught the point is pretty much the same: we should have a child like trust.  What does that even mean?  It gives me a vision of children sitting around gazing up at us with trusting goo-goo eye all day.  As if.  Obedience?  Ever known any real-live children?

    Become like little children.  Perhaps Jesus meant this comment more literally than we usually take it.  I happen to know a thing or two about children and off the top of my head, here’s a quick list of typical behaviors:

    • They bring you their boo-boos to fix
    • They follow you around chattering about any little thing they can think of, just to be with you
    • They ask questions – lots and lots of questions
    • They test boundaries
    • They look to you to show them who they are
    • They sometimes have to learn things the hard way
    • They like to make you laugh
    • They seek you out when they are lonely, bored, restless
    • They like to learn more about you and your life
    • They ask more questions Continue reading »
  • pmsangel

    PMS, Reinterpreted

    September 28, 2012

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    Do women tend to have higher natural emotional intelligence (EQ) than men? Most people think so although research hasn’t settled the argument yet. But if women do have higher EQ, I think I know the reason: PMS. (Men, you need to hear this, so don’t check out on me now!)

    There’s this weird thing which happens with PMS. Every month you have a day or two where you are completely convinced that your life is awful, with no redeeming qualities, hardly worth living. You will find yourself collecting evidence to support this perspective. The money problems. The kid’s dirty clothes. That hole in the wall that’s needed patching for as long as the baby’s been alive. It’s all your fault, evidence of your failure. And it’s hopeless. You know for a fact that all those people saying things like “you don’t lose until you quit” are delusional unicorn-friending idiots. At some point you start to understand women who abandon their kids to smoke meth in a motel outside of Vegas with a truck driver. It makes perfect sense in fact.

    But here’s the thing: while you are busy wondering if you actually have the cajones to go to the local truck stop and start talking up potential new boyfriends, it never, ever occurs to you that any of this is anything but gospel truth. It’s not until the next day when you discover for a fact that you are not pregnant that you realize – it’s just hormones! It’s not actually real. Continue reading »

  • CalvinSnowflake

    Smart Kids Being Dumb

    June 6, 2012

    17 Comments

    I homeschooled my two boys, Noah (17) and Collin (13) from 2003 to 2009 before putting them in school. The school thing did not go well. Collin got on the B honor roll once which was the extent of either of their success with the whole thing. Noah seemed to think that not getting straight Fs was a high enough goal for him. Collin was bullied by both students and teachers. Noah contented himself with trying to make everyone scared of him so they would leave him alone. This last year I allowed them both to start doing online schooling which came with its own new set of problems, but they are finally getting the hang of it. Of course, for those who always KNEW I was making a mistake with homeschooling them, their lack of performance is proof-positive that homeschooling them was a horrible mistake which has most likely ruined their ability to become productive human beings who don’t live in someone’s basement playing video games.
    If I had it to do all over again, I would never have put them in school. I would have gone straight to online schools once I could no longer continue homeschooling them myself. Noah had been on track to finish high school a year early had we continued homeschooling and now will barely eek out graduating. Collin discovered that he really was smarter than most people, including a lot of adults, and became nearly insufferable. After being in school, both of them are extremely concerned about the moral and intellectual development of their younger sisters who are just finishing kindergarten and 1st grade this week. They were not impressed with the end result of the school system to say the least.
  • cheerleader

    Sometimes You Just Have To Be Your Own Cheerleader!

    May 20, 2012

    4 Comments

    Dearest Rebecca,

    Hi! I’ve heard that you’ve been having a hard time lately so I thought you could use some encouragement. I know that between being sick and hating housework and wishing you could have just one full child free day and night every couple of years, you feel like you’re drowning and can’t hold things together. Heck, I hear that you even lost your purse last week after leaving it on the top of the car. What a bummer! But, you know, shit happens. Shake it off. No use crying over spilt milk and all that. I mean look at all the things you’re juggling. You’ve got 5 kids. Everyday you make sure people are wearing clean clothes and sleeping on clean sheets and some days your own clothes are even clean. You check backpacks and harass errant students and sometimes even remember girl scout meetings before they start. Continue reading »

  • Wanna protect that kid? Get him some lip balm!

    Why My Kindergartener Will Not Be Getting Fingerprinted

    May 3, 2012

    4 Comments

    My Sophia is upset. You see, today at school the local police will be taking the fingerprints of all kindergarteners whose parents signed a permission slip for them to do so. Her father and I have not and will not grant permission for her fingerprints to be taken. Which means that Sophia will be left sitting somewhere by herself while the rest of the kids get inked up. And she doesn’t want to be made to left out like that. I guess that this will just have to be an early lesson in the importance of standing up for something you believe in – even if it means being the only one left out.

    There are several reasons that I won’t consider allowing the police to take my children’s fingerprints. First being that there is just no reason to. The police and school say this as a safety precaution, but taking a kid’s fingerprints doesn’t protect them from any harm. There’s not one terrible event which could be prevented by having my kid’s handprint on file. Even if something really awful were to happen to her, fingerprints could only help police to make an identification. But even then, this would only help if she were still alive or her body had been found within a relatively short time of death before decay set in. And even if that were the case, other means of identification like pictures and DNA can be used. So, the practical value of having her fingerprints on file is pretty much nil.

    Even more than that, I think that the whole notion that it is reasonable or responsible to to keep her fingerprints on file “just in case” is corrosive in and of itself. You would never know it from watching the news or observing many parents, but our kids are safer today than they have been in decades. Crime – including crimes against children - have dropped precipitously from their high points in the early 90s. Yet rather than celebrating the fact that we live in a time where our children are so safe, we live in fear. And we pass that fear on to our kids.

    Kids don’t have access to crime statistics, but they are sharp enough to understand that if we are taking their fingerprints “just in case”, it’s because there is a real chance that they will be needed. And yes, terrible things do happen. But close to 95% of violence against children occurs at the hands of people they know – often in their own homes. The chances of any particular child being the victim of crime in any other context are vanishingly remote. To put this into perspective, more than three times as many people are struck by lightning each year in the USA than there are children kidnapped by strangers each year. To make plans for this sort of “just in case” event would be much like buying clothing designed to conduct electricity in the event of a lightning strike. It happens, but not so often that we prepare for it!

    And this fear that we have about our kid’s safety isn’t harmless. Aside from the anxiety, we have a very real childhood obesity epidemic. But fear of crime against children plays a major role in keeping kids indoors, away from playgrounds or taking long walks and bike rides. Even those parents who don’t live in fear for their child’s safety must worry that if they allow their child outside without a keeper neighbors will talk and CPS might even be called.

    My brothers and sisters and I used to wander all over town and the neighbors never thought it was a problem! Well, there was that one time my mom got a call telling her that I was sitting on my bike on the corner eating candy – a sure sign I wasn’t supposed to have candy and had probably stolen coins to buy it with. But even though I was statistically more likely to have been the victim of crime as a child back in the 80s than my kids are today, no one thought my mother was negligent or putting us in danger to let us walk to the park by ourselves.

    I want my kids to grow up to be strong, confident people who can move through their world freely, not afraid of shadows and boogey-men because my fear kept them from being given the chance to learn basic competence. So, I am philosophically and morally opposed to behaving as if my children are in ever-present danger. Heck, I even encourage my kids to talk to people while out and about. Because it’s good for them and our communities to be able to carry on friendly conversations with people they meet. They just can’t go anywhere with anyone -even a friend – without talking with me directly.

    I know, I’m a terrible mother. But I’d rather be a terrible mother with competent kids than a “good” mother whose kids never get to practice being independent or taking small risks. I do not want my kids living in fear or thinking that it is normal to arrange life out of fear of things that could, but almost certainly won’t happen.

    The reality is that terrible things happen. Terrible things will always happen. It’s part of life. I’m not super-human. I’m not God. I can take reasonable precautions against predictable tragedies, but I will never be able to make my kids or myself completely safe. It’s not my job and trying to do so is itself quite predictably harmful.

    Besides, I prefer to direct my paranoia towards more realistic targets. For example, the real reason the police want everyone’s fingerprints on file has nothing to do with child safety – that’s just an easy, guilt-laden cover. They know perfectly well that there’s pretty much no practical safety-related reason to fingerprint 5 year olds. The fact of the matter is that the most likely use of my kid’s fingerprints would be to catch her if she were to commit a crime in ten years. Or if she were present in a place where a crime was committed – perhaps not even when it was committed! Innocent people have been convicted on less. Or they may be used by an identity thief looking for a way to get through biometric security. Or even for an out-of-control government keeping an increasingly unruly populace under its thumb so that the rich can live in peace. Maybe it’s not a real threat today. But how about ten years from now? Twenty? God willing, she has the genes to still be kicking around in 80 or 90 years and there’s no way that I can guess what will be going on then. I mean, good heavens – there could be a Marxist Kenyan bent on destroying all that is good and holy in office by then – bwahahaha! But whatever happens, it won’t involve a set of fingerprints kept on file from when she was 5.

  • Wasn't Noah Cute?

    Children: What’s the return on investment?

    February 25, 2012

    5 Comments

    Wasn't Noah Cute?

    I clipped this essay out of the local paper 10 years ago and don’t know who the original author is, but wanted to share:

    For all parents and grandparents . . .

    The government recently calculated the cost of raising a child from birth to 18 and came up with $160,140. This does not touch college tuition.

    For those with kids, that figure leads to wild fantasies about all the money we could have banked if not for (insert child’s name here). For others, that number might confirm the decision to remain childless.

    But $160,140 isn’t so bad if you break it down. It translates into $8,896.66 a year, $741.38 a month, or $171.08 a week. That’s a mere $24.44 a day – just over $1 an hour.

    Still, you might think the best financial advice says don’t have children if you want to be “rich”. It is just the opposite.

    What do you get for your $160,140?

    Naming rights. First, middle and last.

    Glimpses of God every day.

    Giggles under the covers every night.

    More love than your heart can hold.

    Butterfly kisses and velcro hugs.

    Endless wonder over rocks, ants, clouds and warm cookies.

    A hand to hold, usually covered with jam.

    A partner for blowing bubbles, flying kits, building sandcastles and skipping down the sidewalk in the pouring rain.

    Someone to laugh yourself silly with no matter what the boss said or how your stocks performed that day.

    For $160,140 you never have to grow up. You get to finger-pain, carve pumpkins, play hide-and-seek, catch lightning bugs, and never stop believing in Santa Claus.

    You have an excuse to keep reading the Adventures of Piglet and Pooh, watching Saturday morning cartoons, going to Disney movies and wishing on stars.

    You get to frame rainbows, hearts and flowers under refrigerator magnets and collect spray painted noodle wreaths for Christmas, handprints set in clay for Mother’s Day and cards with backward letters for Father’s Day.

    For $160, 140 there is no greater bang for your buck. You get to be a hero just for retrieving a Frisbee off the garage roof, taking the training wheels off the bike, removing a splinter, filling the wading pool, coaxing a wad of gum out of bangs, and coaching a baseball team that never wins but always gets treated to ice cream regardless.

    You get a front row seat to history to witness the first step, first word, first bra, first date, and first time behind the wheel.

    You get to be immortal. You get another branch on your family tree, and if you’re lucky, a long list of limbs in your obituary called grandchildren.

    You get an education in psychology, nursing, criminal justice, communications and human sexuality that no college can match.

    In the eyes of a child, you rank right up there with God.

    You have all the power to heal a boo boo, scare away the monsters under the bed, patch a broken heart, police a slumber party, ground them forever, and love them without limits so one day they will, like you, love without counting the cost.

  • encouragement

    Raise a child up and whaaaaa?

    February 3, 2012

    1 Comment

    Train a child up in the way that he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it. ~ Proverbs 22:6

    Awww, isn't he just precious? Bless his heart.

    This is a much used and much abused scripture verse when it comes to parenting.  Many parents hold onto it while raising their kids and think it means “If I teach him right from wrong, he’ll stay on the straight and narrow.”  These same parents all too often find themselves wondering if maybe this was one of those bible verses which shouldn’t be taken too literally some years later.  Sometimes it can be the source of a great deal of heartache.  But there are several problems with the way this verse is often read.

    First of all, there’s the “in the way that he should go” issue.  I have written before about how our children come with their own personalities, needs and journeys to walk.  Teaching kids right and wrong is a small part of parenting.  It simply says “this is how people should behave.” That’s an entirely different issue than actually raising a kid.  To raise a kid, we need to show them ”here’s how to walk the path you will need to walk.” 

    The word “way” – Hebrew darkow – indicates a path or journey.  When used in reference to God it indicates his way of doing things.  We will each have our own way of doing what God requires of us.  This is what we need to prepared for.  Simply exhorting good behavior and punishing bad isn’t going to cut it, imo.

    Secondly, it should be noted that the promise’s fulfillment is “when he is old”.  Continue reading »