April 17, 2003

• Knowing Me

  
  

  I'm a good Mom.  Really.  My kids are healthy, happy, growing and becoming pretty cool people that I enjoy having in my house.  I suppose that's a good thing since they are probably going to be here for at least the next decade.  But of course there's always room for improvement in my parenting.  Have you ever noticed that the day you stop trying to do better everything kind of falls apart?  Or maybe that's just me. 

  
  

  Anyway, I took a serious look at me a few years back to see what it is in my character and natural inclinations that I'm going to have to work hard to overcome if my kids are going to get as much as they deserve.  You know what I discovered?  I a smotherer.  I hover around and do entirely too much for them.  Now I'm not saying that it's wrong to be there and meet their needs, but I was doing so much that they weren't able to stretch themselves and learn new ways of being independent.  To me independence in a child signals that they aren't being "taken care of" in the way they should be.  (I didn't say it was a rational belief, just that this is the way it strikes me in my house.)  I had to make myself a rule, "Don't do things for kids that they can do for themselves."

  
  

  I'm hindered in my attempt to find balance in that I don't subscribe to the goal of raising completely independent children.  I want my kids instead to learn interdependence.  It seems to me that when I was a teen especially trying to find my own place, I had the choice of either being dependent or independent - no middle ground.  I want my kids not only to be able to feel needy - but needed.  I want them to know that our family gets stronger when they get stronger.  That they have very real and necessary strengths to bring.  A family is all about reciprocal relationships.  There isn't any point in any of us pretending like we don't need each other and I'm always puzzled by people who will say that.  "Well I don't need her, I choose to be in this relationship because I enjoy being with her, but if that ever changes . . . well, I didn't ever really need her to be a whole person."  Come on, you know people who talk like that.  I can't be the only one they move in next door to.

  
  

  I need Tim.  He provides a sense of balance to my life that I desparately need.  Without him I wouldn't be the person I am.  He smooths my rough edges and talks me down from the high ledges (is that a song or just silly).  Tim trades his labor for the money we use to buy the life we want to have.  If it weren't for him, Michael would have to go to school regardless of his learning diability because I couldn't go to work and homeschool my son at the same time.  Our family has (I think) a reputation for generosity.  I promise you that this would not be the case if it weren't for Tim's soft heart.  He is the first to notice when help is needed (and the family joke is that he sends me to do it.)  He needs me to accomplish the service he wants to provide.  I'm aware as I go to Arkansas to clean, cook, vaccuum, and care for the "old folks" in whatever capacity they need, that it's Tim who makes it possible for me to do that. 

  
  

  My kids are too young to start thinking about turning over adult responsibility to them, but you can bet that as they mature and develop their strengths, I'm going to take advantage of those strengths.  Why should I do it just because I'm the adult if they can do it better?  As an example of this, I see my friend's son who is now 15 years old.  He loves to tinker with machines.  For the past three years, he has done repairs on lawn mowers, the farm tractor, his mom's dryer, almost anything mechanical that has a problem he can fix it.  I have another friend who thinks that's terrible because his mother doesn't pay him the going rate for repair services.  Certainly his work has value.  But who is it valuable to?  Only to his mother?  I'd say that he performs a valuable function for his family.  The whole family benefits from his labor and he knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that he makes a positive contribution. 

  
  

  Now here's my secondary motive.  It's almost a given in our culture that teens will rebel against their parents.  But do you realize that this is a relatively new wrinkle in the social fabric?  Rebellious teens before the 1950's were the rare exception to the norm.  It's possible that teens were so repressed and oppressed that they never felt powerful enough to defy their parents.  But I rather doubt that's the complete explanation.  Before 1950 we were largely a rural nation.  Kids grew up on farms where their labor was necessary for the family's success and survival.  Those kids knew they were needed.  I'm not saying that was a perfect system, but there's no disputing that the differences between life then and now are real and documentable. 

  
  

  So where am I going with this?  I wnat my son to know that when his legs are finally long enough to operate the controls of the riding mower, I'm not going to pay him to "help" me.  I'm going to expect him to contribute because that's what family members do.  We each contribute our abilities and strengths to the benefit of all.  No one is more needy than the person who isn't needed.  I'm not planning to raise needy people.  Even if I have to stand in front of my mirror every day and tell myself - "A good mother lets her son make his own peanut butter sandwich."

  • 11:02 am
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