Every Friday my syndicated column appears in a bunch of newspapers in southeastern Ontario. Here's this week's!
I have incredible vision. I can see things that nobody else in my family can. If clean, folded laundry is sitting on the stairs, waiting to be transported into the owners’ rooms, I am the only person residing in our home who can detect that laundry. If there are dishes in the upstairs hall, waiting to be transported into the kitchen and then placed into our very convenient dishwasher, I am also the only person whose eyes pick up on the presence of these glasses and plates. My children missed that genetic trait, as my husband apparently also lacks it.
I find it easy to see the things that my kids miss, and if you’re a parent, you probably can name a ton of things your kids do that bug you, too. And because we’re the parents, it’s easy to order our kids around to fix these flaws. We’re louder, we’re bigger, and we control the chocolate. What’s harder is allowing our kids the freedom, with respect, to call us on things that we do wrong.
In our house, everybody knows my biggest fault. When I’m stressed, I believe it’s my God-given right to make sure that everybody is stressed right along with me. I take that “if Mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy” saying to ridiculous extremes, interpreting every smile as an affront to me if my blood pressure happens to be elevated. In my more lucid moments, I allow everyone to laugh with me about this. And that makes my dysfunctional behaviour, when it occurs, a little easier to take.
I don’t think perfect families exist, but I think healthy families do. And that’s one of the key criteria of a healthy family: being able to speak the truth. The real test of a healthy family doesn’t lie in parents’ 20/20 vision, but in whether parents help their children develop good vision, too. Sure we notice the things they do wrong, but do we let them acknowledge that we, their parents, aren’t perfect, either? Unfortunately, many families like to maintain the illusion of perfection, even if that means denying the truth.
In families where children aren’t allowed to notice flaws, it’s not as if the kids suddenly grow blind to them. They’re just not allowed to do anything about it, or parents subject them to the silent treatment, yell at them or belittle them. Most kids, when experiencing this kind of rejection, run in the other direction, deciding to never question their parents again. They want to be loved, and if being loved means not noticing when others are wrong, then that’s what they’ll do.
Children in families like these grow up learning not to trust their own instincts. To make it even worse, they often have very conflicting feelings about their parents which can never really be resolved, because until you can admit that your parents did wrong, you can’t forgive them for that wrong.
That’s why we need to let our kids work on their vision. They need to be allowed not just to see our imperfections, but also to name them. Of course kids still need to respect us and defer to our authority, which is legitimate. You are the parent, not the best friend. But to imagine that kids will idolize us and never notice anything wrong is doing them a grave disservice. It’s asking them to pretend the world is different from the way it actually is. It’s raising our kids to be liars. And as the old saying goes, it is the truth that sets us free. Even if the truth hurts.
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I really love my daughters. They are wonderful Christian girls who love life, love God, and love each other. That does not mean that they don't fight; but they are good girls.
My oldest daughter Rebecca (now 15) blogs at a homeschool site, and even though I don't spy on her too much, I do occasionally read her posts. Here's what she said recently:
Hey girlies! I found this amazing little note on Facebook from my friend Joanna who found it somewhere, and I love it! I'm going to post it for all you beautiful girls right now (and all the guys who are reading, but I don't think there are many.):
Girls are like apples...the best ones are at the top of the trees. The boys don't want to reach for the good ones because they are afraid of falling and getting hurt. Instead, they just get the rotten apples that are on the ground that aren't as good, but easy. So the apples at the top think there is something wrong with them, when, in reality, they are amazing. They just have to wait for the right boy to come along, the one who's brave enough to climb all the way to the top of the tree...
Isn't that encouraging? It made my day to read it. ;)
Now we're going to talk about what it means to be an apple on the top of the tree. I'm going to list some qualities that I think are important:
* Must honour both God and her Christian brothers in what she wears and how she acts * Respects her mother and father * Doesn't put others down by her words, but builds them up so that they can join her at the top of the tree * Is patient when things don't go her way (working on this...) * Understands that her purity is not a thing to give away freely, but a priceless gift addressed only to her future husband * Understands the difference between vanity and looking pretty. * Love the Lord her God with all her mind, heart, soul, and strength, and will not let anything get betwen them.
Isn't that great? I like that part on honouring her parents, too.
Right now this is what Rebecca believes, and she preaches it to every teen she knows. My 12-year-old recently talked another 12-year-old boy out of dating, telling him he was being ridiculous. That little boy now follows her around like a puppy dog, but he swears he doesn't want to date. He just wants to see life a little differently.
I'm not sure I can give you any words of wisdom on how to raise girls who don't want to date until they're old enough, because I think much of the way my girls have turned out is due to God, and not to me. I did give Rebecca Josh Harris' book I Kissed Dating Good-Bye when she was 13, and that has really shaped her thinking. It is a marvelous book; read it first yourself and give it a chance. I didn't believe him at all until I was halfway through, but then he won me over.
One thing that is absolutely crucial, though, is creating a warm and loving family environment so that kids get the affection and time they need from their parents. Then they're less likely to need it from the opposite sex at 15 or 16. Especially for girls, dads are important. Encourage your hubby to take some time every week to connect one-on-one with your teen daughters. They do need that input from another male, and the feeling that they are pretty, valued, and important. The girls that I often see the most worried about guys tend to also be the ones with the worst relationships with their dads (and I know that was the case with me when I was a teenager! I was completely boy crazy!).
Finally, know who their friends are. Make your house the hangout. Volunteer at youth group. Insert yourself into their lives. The more you're there, the more they can talk to you, and the less likely they are to make really bad decisions.
Teach them that God has a plan, and that His plan can't be hurried. Stress, too, that the plan won't include godly romantic relationships until they're older anyway, and able to marry. So spend the teen years loving God and getting to know Him, and you'll do ever so much better later on!
Wifey Wednesday: What I Wish I Had Known Back Then
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
It's Wednesday, the day that we talk marriage! I introduce a topic, and you all either comment, or write your own Wifey Wednesday post and then come back here and link up in the Mcklinky below!
I've been reading a bunch of the Wifey Wednesday posts, and the links provided by many of you, and I see that many of my readers are early in their marriages. They're new brides, some of whom have babies. But marriage is something they're still getting adjusted to.
And so I thought I'd write a post now on what I wish I had known back when I was a new bride.
I wish I had known that sex does get better. You have decades to practice. Spend more time laughing about it and less time stressing about it.
I wish I had known that the fights that we have don't mean that the relationship is at stake, or that he doesn't love me anymore. It just means we're getting adjusted to each other, and we're learning how to compromise and communicate. Take the long term view. Things do get better!
I wish I had been told to be better friends. I wish we had started biking together back then (it's hard to take up biking now, when you're almost 40), or cross country skiing, or something active. I wish we had DONE more things together instead of simply watching TV. You need those activities where you have fun together and get active together. It makes the rest of your life so much healthier. So don't stop being friends.
I wish we had been more consistent with praying together. We're getting there now, but if we had been doing it first thing, I bet some of those early disagreements wouldn't have been so intense.
I wish I could have seen how fun it was to walk side by side, day after day, and become so much like each other it's scary. The idea of changing to become more like him would have, at the time, seemed like I was giving up my identity. But instead it's just a function of marriage, and it's a neat one. You change each other, and that's good. So don't stress about it!
I wish I had realized that even though those grey sweat pants he wore were the ugliest thing in the world, they meant something to him. It's fine to try to make your husband look snazzier, but don't do it all at once. And most of all, don't throw out everything you think is ugly and give it to Goodwill without telling him. Just a tip.
I wish I could have seen how great his mother was, even in those early days. I was so attached to my family when we were first married that it felt like an issue of loyalty to think that my family was better than his. In hindsight, we often have more fun with his extended family than we do with my extended family. We both have awesome mothers, and it's okay to love them both, even at the beginning.
I wish that I could have made more of an effort to figure out what made him tick, rather than focusing on what makes me tick, and how come he doesn't get it? I wish I could have stepped outside of my fragile psyche and saw that my husband was struggling, too--in school, in our relationship, in church. I wish I could have been a support to him, instead of insisting that he support me first and foremost. We were both so insecure when we married that we leaned on each other for too much, without being able to give. I wish I could have seen that in giving, you gain strength.
Most of all, I wish I could have seen that marriage isn't like dating. You don't have to be insecure anymore. He has promised to be there for life, and he means it. So trust him. If he's abrupt with you one day, blow it off. Don't make everything like that into a big issue. He's there. He adores you. He's going to stick with you. So grow together, don't always be second guessing him. You have decades to practice at this marriage thing, so laugh, talk, joke, and every now and then, have a water fight.
What do you wish you had known? Let me know in the comments, or leave a link in the Mcklinky!
I don't usually mention politics in this blog, but I just have to talk about something or I will just burst.
As many of you know, I am Canadian. And up here in Canada, the opposition Liberals and NDP are making a huge issue out of the fact that some prisoners that we captured in Afghanistan were ALLEGEDLY handed over to the Afghan army, where they were tortured.
I don't agree with torture, but here's what I don't get: What would the Liberals rather we do instead? We can't keep them ourselves if they're dangerous, because the Liberals are also against Guantanamo Bay like facilities. We can't release them, because they're really dangerous. And the Liberals don't want us to stay in Afghanistan. They want us to get out. Which means that the Afghan army is going to have to be looking after these prisoners anyway.
I just don't like it when people criticize something when they don't have any better ideas. Our troops are doing an amazing job in Afghanistan (I have several friends who are over there right now). They deserve our thanks, not the defense critic of our nation calling them "war criminals".
And now, an end to my political time-out. I promise not to stray too far into politics again soon!
In this post, Cassandra says that often it's only when looking back that she can see how God had faithfully led her, and I agree. She says:
It's usually easier for me to see in hindsight that God was guiding me. Is that the way it works for you? I find it's like climbing a steep cliff. I feel the strained muscles, the shortness of breath, the sweat on my brow. Then I pause, turn, and look back.
The view fills me with astonishment. Oh, I can see where he was with me, how he guided me and protected me. How surely he watched over my steps! What dangers he led me around! There were hints of his voice, which I saw dimly then, but now they sparkle like jeweled lakes in the light of the alpine sun.
I'm like that, too. It's not always as I'm walking forward that I hear God. It's often when I take time to stop and think and then I see how He was telling me things.
That's often the case with my writing. I'll pray and pray and ask God to show me something I should talk about in a book, and nothing will come. And then one day, I'll sit down and a book proposal will flow right out of me, and I'll wonder where it came from. And then I look back and I can see all the different people He put into my life, the radio snippets I heard, the newspaper articles that got me thinking, and the Bible passages that held me captive that started my thinking in a certain direction. But it's not until afterwards that it all comes together.
I think we misunderstand what God's voice is supposed to sound like. There are a few times in my life when I have actually heard God speak to me (I talk about those times in my audio download, "Getting Rid of the Guilt"). They were very specific things at very important junctures in my life. But there were 3 times in total when I heard specific words. Other than that, God gently guides us in all sorts of ways.
So often we're waiting for a thunderbolt, and we feel paralyzed until it comes. But I think we need to walk forward in faith, knowing that God will steer us.
When our son was sick, my husband agonized about certain medical decisions we might be forced to make. What if we had to choose between surgery and just letting him go (if surgery would be horrific for him, and likely have little impact?) Should we put him on the heart transplant list? What should we do? He didn't want to do the wrong thing, and he was so desperately trying to hear God.
Our minister took us aside and said very firmly to Keith, "If God has a specific path He wants you to take, who is most invested in you figuring that out? God or you?"
"God," Keith admitted.
"Then don't you think He's big enough to show you when the time is right?"
That minister was right. If God has something specific He wants you to do, He will show you. What we need to do, I think, are two things:
1. Walk forward, as much as we can, in His Spirit. Read the Word, do what we know is right, and pray.
2. Take some time to listen and think. Let God guide you. Take some time to look back over the last few weeks or months and see where you have already been. Look around you. Open your eyes. Don't let life pass you by so quickly.
God does speak, and He does lead us, but often we miss it because it doesn't usually do it audibly. He does it gently, and unless we take those times to look, we'll miss the wonder of what has happened in our lives.
Don't beat yourself up if you're having trouble hearing God's voice. I think He wants you to press ahead anyway, and if you need to make a U-turn, He'll tell you. Just make sure you always have time to listen and look. That's when you'll see the patterns of what He is already doing and where He is already leading, which we often miss in the busy-ness of our lives.
Cleaning with toddlers in the home is like trying to drain the Pacific Ocean. You can work and work and work and never see a dent!
Have you ever spent twenty minutes vacuuming, only to turn around and find that a two-year-old has been following behind, munching on crackers all the while? Housework is a never ending chore. When my children were small, cleaning was almost impossible because:
1. The kids would roll around on the bed as soon as I started to make it.
2. They would pile the clean laundry in the living room up like a pile of leaves and jump in it.
3. They would write on the walls.
4. When I told them to clean off the walls they would also use the soapy water on all the books in the bookshelves.
5. When I took the markers away they would paint on each other with sunscreen.
6. They dropped popsicles on the couches.
7. They hid apple cores behind furniture.
What's the point of cleaning when that's going on around you?
And toddlers also have a sixth sense whenever water is involved. If you pull out a mop, they will come running and want to help. And what do we do? We send them away so we can just get it done.
Wrong.
The emphasis on keeping a clean home is misplaced. When kids are small, perfect will be difficult to achieve. But what we can do is make it more likely that the house will stay clean as they grow. And make it more likely that our children will be able to clean when they are older!
Life is chaotic when the kids are little, but let's harness the energy they do have, and the instinct to explore and learn new skills, and teach them to clean now. Here's how:
Let Them Do a Portion of Your Job If you're mopping, hand them a wet cloth and ask them to clean a part of the floor, or the bottom of the fridge door. If you're folding laundry, have them do the facecloths and the dishcloths. And teach them to do it in halves!
If you're using a chemical cleaner, fill a spray bottle with water and let them "clean" the bottom of some kitchen cabinets. Train them to start doing these jobs, and by the time they're 3 or 4 they'll actually be proficient at it!
Give Them Their Own Specfic Tasks Even a 3-year-old can dust a coffee table! A toddler at that age can also learn to put toys in a toybox, or clothes in a hamper. Instead of doing all the cleaning for them, have them do a specific job that is at their level, easy, and fast.
Keep Track of Their Chores On a prominent place in your home, such as the fridge, keep a list of their little jobs, and add stickers each time they are completed. Give positive feedback for when the children complete their chores. Amazingly, the more they do, the more they will want to do.
Make Chores Routine If chores become routine for a child, similar to brushing their teeth before they go to bed, they are more likely to do them without complaint. So have a clean-up time at the same time everyday, such as right before dinner or right before naptime. If you've assigned chores like folding the facecloths, matching the socks, or dusting the baseboards, give one to them each day. Children are far more likely to participate readily at three or four if it is something done on a daily basis, rather than on a weekly basis.
Your home will not be perfect when the children are little, but perfect is not the aim in parenting. Raising independent, capable children is. So start them cleaning when they're young, and they'll be more likely to help you later. And more likely to grow into responsible adults!
Instead of bemoaning the fact you don't have time to clean, take the time to train your kids. You just may find that cleaning is not such a chore after all.
I've got some prizes of my own to tell you about, and then one that I get to give to a lucky winner! Read to the end to find out how you can win a free copy of one my books!
First, my friend Terry from Breathing Grace gave me an award for being a Beautiful Blogger! Thanks, Terry! I now get to give the award back to seven other bloggers who I read faithfully, who make me think, or who just provide awesome content!
I need to give it back to Terry, because she is such a godly woman and writes amazingly well thought out posts! If you haven't bookmarked her, you need to!
Next is Teri-Lynne (guess I have a thing for Terrys!) at Pleasing to You, who writes very intelligently and insightfully about things of faith.
Courtney is one of my young readers, and frequent contributors to Wifey Wednesday, who blogs frequently about what it means to be newly married and newly mom. She's working through things that many twenty-somethings can relate to, and while she's moving right now and has guest posts up, you'll appreciate reading some of her older stuff!
Barbara at MommyLife updates frequently and often with plenty of humour! A Catholic blogger with a ton of kids, she's bright and loving and inspirational. Maybe I'm partial to her because of her kids with Down Syndrome (our son was a Down's baby).
Christie, another Catholic blogger, writes about anything and everything at Garden of Holiness. What I really appreciate are her marriage posts. Scan the archives for them, and then breathe them in. They're lovely.
Donetta at My Quiet Corner tries to find peace there in her busy family with health concerns.
And now I have to tell you seven random things about myself, so here goes:
1. I am trying to break my Diet Pepsi habit. It's not going well. 2. I used to hate my oily skin. Now I love it. Almost 40 and no wrinkles! 3. I don't actually know what my natural hair colour is anymore. In the last year I've been a blonde, brunette, and a redhead! 4. I love lipstick. Absolutely love it. It makes me feel so feminine! (and my hubby loves leaving the house with kiss marks on his cheek). 5. I still fight with my husband sometimes. The difference is that now we pray about it and work it out. 6. I am incapable of growing grass. Whenever I move into a new house, the grass automatically dies. 7. My 12-year-old daughter makes the best chocolate chip cookies in the world. Jealous yet?
I've also been named one of the top 100 Christian women's blogs by A Woman Inspired! See the list here!
Now, do you want to win something? You can! Every month I award a book to the blog that sent me the most new readers in the previous month. The only conditions? They have to have me on their blogroll or their Google reader list on the sidebar. And you can't win twice, so the blogs that win now aren't overly big. They're just women blogging, just like you. For February, the winner is:
Ria from Life as a Wife! She's a newlywed writing about the transition to being married, and she's awesome! Thanks, Ria! She gets to choose from one of my books, which I'll mail to her for free!
You could be the winner for March! Just put me on your blogroll, and next month I could be sending you a book!
That's about it for prizes for this weekend. Hope you're a winner soon!
I'm trying to post quick intimacy tips on Fridays, when I remember, to inspire you all to pucker up before the weekend!
So here's this weekend's challenge: gross your kids out! That's right: kiss in front of them, hug in front of them, pat your hubby on the behind! Make your kids moan in agony. They secretly love it, anyway. I know my nieces and nephews, who have parents who are divorced, actually like to see Keith and me hug and kiss!
My youngest daughter always says, "EEEwwwwwww!", but then she stands there and watches. They like to see their parents kiss. So tonight, when your hubby gets home, greet him at the door and lay a big one on him, with the kids right there. And tell the kids how much you like kissing Daddy. It'll make him feel like a million bucks!
Want more intimacy tips on how to get in the mood? Listen to Sheila's audio download, Honey, I Don't Have a Headache Tonight! Filled with lots of laughs and practical tips to boost your marriage! Download it now!
Every Friday my syndicated column appears in a bunch of newspapers in southeastern Ontario. Here's this week's! It's based on a blog post I wrote a week ago. I tried to make it more secular, and see if you think I did a good job:
Ever since the earthquake struck Haiti my family has been busy raising money. My daughters have baby-sat and helped at bake sales; we’ve mailed off cheques. So please understand, what follows is not mean to discourage anyone's fundraising efforts.
Nevertheless, I have to admit to finding the remake of “We Are The World” strange. I first heard the original song in the mid-80s when celebrities joined together to rescue Ethiopia. Now it’s out again as singers croon for Haiti. Their hearts, I believe, are in the right place.
However, as I listen to the “we are the children” chorus, I am struck by something. It’s actually a grammar query, but I have faith that you can figure it out. Sing the chorus to yourself, and then answer this question: who is the subject in the majority of phrases?
It's "we". The song is supposed to be about people who are suffering, but instead it's actually a song about how we feel about the people who are suffering, and how we can make a difference, and how we feel about the fact that we can make a difference. It's a song glorifying us!
Does anyone else find that a bit jarring? First of all, we aren’t the children. I think the point they're poetically trying to make is that those children are no different from us, so we should give. Yet would it matter if they were different from us? Shouldn't we give anyway? No matter which way you look at it, the reference point in this song is us, not those who need help.
We’re the ones who make a better day, just you and me! We can sing about ourselves and feel better about ourselves because we care about others who are just like ourselves.
It's a perfect metaphor for what has happened in our society over the last few decades. As the idea of objective truth has grown passé, it's been replaced by the ultimate idea that our feelings are the proper arbiter for the goodness or rightness of anything. Truth is what feels right to us.
At one point, people believed in a higher morality, even if they themselves weren't religious. People gave generously, or volunteered, or lent a hand, because it was the right thing to do. They didn't have to be convinced to do it because it would make them feel good about themselves; they did it simply because it was the right thing to do, and doing the right thing mattered.
We no longer believe in "the right thing" as much as we believe in "the right thing for me". I am the reference point, and everything revolves around me. We aren't then honouring the poor in Haiti; we're actually diminishing their humanity by saying they aren't important in and of themselves; they're only important inasmuch as they remind us of ourselves. We can only have sympathy for those who are like us, because our world has been reduced to what we want and what we think.
Even worse, if it's really about us, and we decide we don't want to do the right thing, who’s to say that’s wrong? If we don’t want to stay married, or be bothered to be good parents, or care for our parents or neighbours, then that’s our prerogative!
The world is bigger than you and me. Yes, it’s noble to give because we think of people as just like us. But isn’t it nobler to give simply because it’s the right thing to do, regardless of how it reflects on us? When we stop looking so much at ourselves, and start looking at others, perhaps then we will make a brighter day, and a brighter world.
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Are you frustrated by the fact that your home is out of control, and no one else seems to want to help get it back into control? Has life become chaotic, and you feel like you bear that burden alone?
That's the life of most women these days. And I don't think it should be! My philosphy in my book To Love, Honor and Vacuum--and in this To Love, Honor and Vacuum blog--is that everybody should grow closer to God, and that means that everybody should learn to show love, should bear their own load, and should be responsible.
Including your kids.
So how do you do that? You can yell, which doesn't work, or you can institute conseqeunces. Sometimes, though, consequences are difficult to figure out. And it's hard to be consistent. I thought today I'd publish one of the consequence ideas I had in my book, and then ask you to add your own!
Don't Pick Up Things Off of the Floor
Rationale: Picking up toys and clothes that family emmbers leave lying around in common areas (not bedrooms if this is agreed upon) teaches them that others will step in when they are irresponsible.
Consequence: Some families have a "jubilee" basket, similar to the jubilee in the Old Testament, where all land is returned to its original owner after a set time. In the same way, after children leave for school in the morning, or after they begin work (if they're homeschooled), or go out to play, you pick up everything left in common areas and leave it in a basket in a closet. You can return them on Sunday, or the owner can redeem them prior to that for a dime or a quarter or whatever you think is appropriate.
On occasion, our family has had to do something more drastic. After repeatedly asking the kids to clean the playroom, or their bedroom, to no avail, we've hauled out the garbage bags and filled them with toys for the Salvation Army. If they had too many toys to keep tidy, then some had to do! Sometimes the kids helped us weed through, and other times they wailed on the sidelines as we confiscated stuffed animals they hadn't looked at twice in two years. But when there are fewer toys, it's much easier to clean up, and children are less likely to be overwhelmed by the task.
The jubilee system is one of those things that doesn't need to be used very long. It puts fear into children, and pretty soon they stop leaving stuff around!
What do you do for consequence based discipline in your home? Leave a comment, and share it with us!
And don't forget to check out To Love, Honor and Vacuum! Get an autographed copy from me here, or order from Amazon!
About Me: I'm a Christian author of a bunch of books, and a frequent speaker to women's groups and marriage conferences. Best of all, I love homeschooling my daughters, Rebecca and Katie. And I love to knit. Preferably simultaneously.
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