Single Parent Faith: Wisdom spoken by child

Showing posts with label Wisdom spoken by child. Show all posts

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

A Teen’s Brutal Honesty

“Pretty much all the honest truth telling in the world is done by children.” ~Oliver Wendell Holmes

Reflecting back to when my daughter was 13, I found a snapshot in time which highlights all too well how a parent has to maintain a sense of humor to withstand their kid’s gritty honesty.

One weekday morning as my daughter and I were already running late, I searched for a pair of slacks to put on. I soon realized the pickings were slim, since the day prior I forgot to pick up my clothes from the dry cleaners. I selected a pair of slacks which I had not worn for quite some time. They were purchased some 6 years prior, and they appeared obviously dated. I suppose that’s the danger in reaching deep into a clothing rack.

Paris Amidst Teen Angst

“When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished by how much he’d learned in seven years.” – Mark Twain

Recently I ran across this photo of my daughter taken during a trip to beautiful Paris, the week of her spring break. She was 14 years old at the time, already a very difficult period in teen years, which explains why her back is to me.

When I discovered her sneakily placing a call back to the U.S. to talk to a certain guy from school, it thrust me into a state of fear, disappointment and parental guilt.

Dating Service- Through the Eyes of a Child and Single Mom, Part 2

“Do not train a child to learn by force or harshness; but direct them to it by what amuses their minds, so that you may be better able to discover with accuracy the peculiar bent of the genius of each.” —Plato

Image Source: http://flic.kr/p/9srnvp

The dating service arranged a meeting for me after work, on a Friday my daughter was to be with her dad. That morning, as I was in my closet, my daughter asked, “Do you know what you’re going to wear?”

"No."

“What kind of a look are you going for? Are you going for the sexy look?”

Where does she get this stuff? I don’t use the word “sexy” with my child, but there are multiple sources in a child’s life where they can pick up all sorts of language and ideas.

We stood in my closet as she pointed and selected various items, trying to match them for me. Eventually we made a combined selection—Of course I had veto power.

Dating Service- Through the Eyes of a Child and Single Mom, Part 1

“To bring up a child in the way he should go, travel that way yourself.” —Josh Billings

During the timeframe when I was trying out the dating service that I wrote about in Stint With Dating Service, my daughter was 11 years old. I decided to use a couple of my dates as an opportunity to demonstrate what healthy dating is, with boundaries and awareness.

Image Source: http://flic.kr/p/9srpvP

First, let me say that my rule is that I only date when she is away visiting her father. I don’t get a baby sitter just for me to go out on a date. I want to minimize disruptions of her routine and I don’t want to introduce feelings of insecurity— where she feels second to a stranger in my life. She needs to always know she is first. Additionally, since most of these first dates never turn into second, had I taken precious time away from my daughter, I would have regretted it. I don’t want to date at her expense, or even at the expense of me missing out on precious moments with her.

Laying the Groundwork for Our Kids' Future Dating Habits

Image From: http://flic.kr/p/9g8gXp
© All rights reserved by brandnewkathryn

Setting an example is not the main means of influencing another, it is the only means. — Albert Einstein

My daughter was about 11 yrs old at the time, when I realized how at such a tender age, kids are already in the throes of dating. Of course in their world the decision to go out and break up occurs often all in one day. And the criteria used is very rudimentary: “Are they cute?” Or in more modern terms: “Are they hot?” which you don’t exactly expect to hear out of the mouth of your child. The criteria pretty much starts and ends there, unless we teach them differently.

For this reason, the adolescent years are definitely not too early to begin discussing the dating topic. In fact, if you don’t begin early establishing the norm of open communication, they will recoil from you more than the usual clamming up moments in their teen years. No matter what age, if your child says they are “going” with someone or that they already have, then what are you waiting for? Get started engaging them in dialogue!

Silent Treatment— Teen Moments

I’m getting the silent treatment again. I am referring to my fifteen year old daughter. Need I say more?

No matter how much time I spent attending to her needs as a baby, time I took off of work to attend her events at school, science projects I guided her through, soccer games I drove her to, talks we’ve had, I don’t get to bypass the alien stage.

There are moments when she’s my sweet girl most familiar to me, and moments where out of nowhere she’s giving me the cold shoulder. I once heard an educator refer to these teen years analogous to having ones child abducted by aliens. Truthfully, when he said that, I thought he was out of his gourd.

I thought, Hmm, maybe he doesn’t have my kid, or maybe he just isn’t as fortunate to have the close relationship my daughter and I have.

This judgment that I passed was of course based on my daughter not yet having entered this teen phase. Ah, ignorance is bliss. Now, I’m convinced they planted a chip in her, designed to test my faculties, my patience, and my sense of humor.

The thing about motherhood is not only the obvious missing manual, but also that as my child grows, so do I. This is the stress and the joy of it. Of course being a single mom adds to the stress of it.

During these moments where her hormones are playing ping-pong, I try to remember that this is only a moment in time, and moments are fleeting. Nothing highlights this more than recently while cleaning out a doll basket, I found her bathing suit from when she was 3 years old. I lifted it up by my fingertips, trying to imagine the moment when she fit into it. It seemed like yesterday.

Wasn’t it yesterday when she kissed my cheek leaving behind the sticky trace of peanut butter? Wasn’t it just last week when she was four years old, and she asked me to lift her up so she could look into her day care cubby? She reached in with her rubber band wrists, pulling out something very special she picked up for me while on the playground.

She sweetly said, “Take this to work with you Mamma, so when you miss me you can look at it and think of me.” Her tiny precious hand in mine, she unveiled a whole, unopened pecan shell.

A few weeks earlier when she had a tough time at daycare with separation in the mornings as I dropped her off, I gave her a locket with a picture of me on one side and her dad on the other. The intent was for her to look at it when she missed us. She smiled and loved looking into it often. She wore it every day until she was ready to shed it.

Now fifteen, one day soon, I know she will be ready to shed another layer of her childhood, another stage, and she will one day become a grown woman. When I look back to this moment, I wont remember me asking, “What’s wrong?” and her pat answer, “Nothing.” Instead, I’ll recall the greatest ride of my life: Motherhood.

She is God’s blessing for my life, so that I can know what it is to love another, unconditionally. No matter what the moment she’s in, sweet or alien, I have come to know that the good and the bad are here to make us better parents— better human beings. To guide a child through their anger, through their fears, through their selfishness, forces us to see a reflection of ourselves. Forces us to learn ways to still reach them through their difficult moments (and as a consequence, our difficult moments).

Like the shelled pecan, kids can go into their shells and need to know we are still there for them despite this act of alienation. It’s never personal. It’s about what’s happening inside their world, which often is more confusing to them than to us. I extend to her the life line, “When you’re ready to talk about it, I’m here, wanting to listen.”

Ella Venezia

Extracted from my older writing archives—Younger reflections of my child.

http://flic.kr/p/bkwcrU

Sunday, February 20, 2011

Thumb Drive Discovery

Cleaning out a thumb drive I haven’t used in years, I stumbled onto a word document listing my grievances about a job I held at the time. The way my mind works is that I process things by either talking it out or writing it down. In the “process” of talking or writing, I make my way to the solution. That’s what I was doing with that document.

I read through it and found I also documented what my then 12 yr old daughter interjected as I wrote.

“Mama, what you doing?”

“I’m organizing and preparing my thoughts, about a conversation I need to have with my manager.”

“Just organize and prepare to find another job, in case he fires you!”

“What?” I responded laughing, yet with the realization she might be right.

“No offense. In Legally Blonde, remember when she said ‘I can’t work with people like that.’ And he said, 'You’re right, you shouldn’t have to.' And he fired her?”

As a result of that conversation, I realized that if I was that dissatisfied, then it was time to move on.

I now have the advantage of hindsight, since this occurred some years ago. I enjoy my job much more, and I do not dread going into work like I once did. I am firmly convinced that:

A fool is one who doesn't recognize the wisdom spoken by a child.