The second time around

I remember listening to a talk years ago from a man whose father had abandoned his family when this man was still a young boy.  This man had always resented his dad for not being around for him and his brother and had a hard time forgiving him.  It wasn’t till years down the road when he had two sons of his own that he felt Heavenly Father was finally able to show him an important lesson.  This man realized his father had missed out on far more than he had.  Now that he had sons of his own to love and teach and support and care for and share experiences with, he realized all the joy his father had surrendered, and he felt sad for him.  The unyielding feelings in his heart dissipated, and he felt overwhelming gratitude for the opportunity of being a dad and compassion for his own dad who had missed out on such a choice experience in life.  But it took time to realize this.  It took becoming a dad.* That idea has stayed with me, and I’ve often wondered since if it’s better to be the kid or the parent.

Funny that kids are so anxious to grow up, to try on adult hats and roles.  I love the knowing glances between adults, willing the kids to just enjoy where they are, to soak up everything childhood has to offer without the added pressures of adulthood.  But, when prodded, I have to be honest with them; as great as it was to be a kid, I’ve found that life just keeps getting better.  As simple and carefree as it was, I’m more content and fulfilled as an adult than I ever was as a kid.  While there are so many parts that I long to go back to (naps, bubble baths, not having to think about money, dinners that appeared almost out of nowhere, field trips on the school bus, lazy Saturday mornings just reading in bed or watching cartoons, enjoying the entire month of December with no stress), there’s nothing better than watching it all over again from a grown-up perspective.

I remember a conversation a few months back with my 12 year-old son.  He casually mentioned having kids and being a dad.  Which completely melted my heart.  I love imagining him as a dad, I think he’ll be such a good one if, for no other reason, than he’s paying attention to what that means at such a young age.  He’s asked me what my favorite part about being a parent is.

What I tell him and the others is being a parent is like getting to live life over as a kid, but it’s even better because you get to see it through three sets of eyes:  the little you, the older you, and your kids.  There’s a new part of you, now that you’ve lived a little, that makes it even better than the first time around.  You can combine all your great memories from your own childhood and juxtapose them with ideas you’ve always wanted to try out, creating future memories for someone else.  There is nothing more satisfying than watching someone else’s joy.  His first time petting a goat or riding a train at the zoo or going on a roller coaster or tasting ice cream or learning to make waffles. The exhilaration of losing a first tooth, of learning to drive, of going shopping alone, of getting that first job.  The memories come washing over me, and I’m right there all over again, recalling exactly what they’re feeling, nervous but excited, anxious but ready.  I get it.  I know how to prepare them, to encourage them.  I know how this all works now, I’m elated that they’re on the starting blocks of life.  And that I get to be their coach.  A truly sublime honor.

No where is youth celebrated more than at holiday time.  It sometimes feels as if the magic of the holidays fades with the years, and I tend to agree that nothing compares with the enchantment of young belief.  Until you invest yourself in making it special for someone else.  This is one of the best parts of parenting—playing it all out behind the scenes, watching your children’s eyes light up, creating happy memories for the children in your life.  There is not much better than adding to another’s delight, not even being the recipient can compare with the joy the giver and provider feels.  Which is why so many of us encourage our older kids to do this for the younger set.  Letting them hide the Easter eggs for the littler ones, wrapping the birthday gifts with us, finding just the right candy for a brother’s package, making a card for the treat we’re going to deliver.  Getting a plate of cookies at the door is fun, but it’s more exciting to be the one to drop off the treat and run.  I know how much I love buying new jeans and socks for my kids, how fun it is to think of exactly the right game for Christmas, how much I love making their favorite cookies, how fun it is to hide their Easter baskets and give them clues to their hunt.  We look for ways to teach them to do these kinds of things for others because we know how much joy these simple experiences bring us.  The underlying truth is, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” There is nothing more satisfying than being an instrument in creating happiness for someone else, which is what parents get to do every day of their grown-up lives.

On the flip side, I completely acknowledge there is nothing worse than seeing your child with a heartache.  Most of us would gladly trade places with a son or daughter who’s feeling sick and pained, deflated and hopeless.  As distressing as some of those younger days were, it’s even more agonizing to view it all from this angle.  And yet, I’m so grateful to be the mom instead of the kid.  Not so I don’t have to suffer (heaven knows moms ache more watching their children hurt than their children ever do), but because I love being the helper, the one who tucks them in clean sheets when they’re sick and sings soft songs when they’re afraid. I love knowing how to advise a daughter in tricky friend situations and how to explain to them what love feels like.  I love being able to tell them a 58% on a test is hardly the end of the world and that you don’t have to play football to be a successful person.  As grown ups, we have the confidence and wisdom that comes with age; we can assure our kids that they have the power to get through this.  I can listen without going to pieces.  I have the perspective that comes from a longer life and I’ve seen how the downs turn into ups.  I love being the one to hold my kids when they cry, I love knowing that it will get better.  As a young person, I simply didn’t have the assurance that it would.  As a mom I know it will all work out.  That even the worst we can imagine—even if we’re talking death—is really not the end.   As hard as it is to watch them struggle, I’m so grateful to be able to support them through the rough patches.  Because my life has taught me the hard parts will make them a stronger, better version of themselves.  Their hardships will end up benefitting them, teaching them compassion and empathy, grace and tenacity.  I’m grateful for this perspective that I didn’t have when I was their age, and I love the opportunities I have to teach them.  Maybe it sounds backwards, but I cherish my role as caregiver more than I ever appreciated the care I was given as a kid.

I guess what prompted me even writing this was my own experience as a kid.  My mom—like a lot of moms—worked outside our home.  I went to a friend’s house as a baby and then day care from when I was three until I was twelve.  That was life, all we knew.  When day care was closed for Christmas or some other holiday, we’d go to various friends’ houses or to ladies in the church.  Occasionally we’d go to my grandma’s.  But mostly, day after day and year after year, we’d go to day care before and after school and during the summer and winter breaks.  It wasn’t a bad place, and we have loads of good memories.  It’s just that I always longed to be home with my mom.  I always wished she could pick us up early like some of the other moms.  I wished we had the kind of life like some of my friends whose moms were around.  Even at night she was mostly unavailable, bleaching the counters one night, coloring her hair another, visiting teaching and attending her accounting classes at the college one night, a church activity another.  We were happy, it was fine.  I just knew, if I had a choice, I wanted a different life for my kids.  I barely had the courage to hope for such a life though; it seemed so unreasonable and so unreachable, given the life I knew; and so I accepted that while other kids had their moms at home, it simply wasn’t in my deck of cards.

But it was just the other day when, after talking with a grandma friend about her life with her family, the thought came to me on the way home, “I’d rather be the mom who gets to stay home than be the kid whose mom stays home.”  It was so random, such an answer to prayer, that I started to cry.  I immediately felt an overwhelming sense of gratitude for the way my life had played out.  I realized right then that I feel exquisitely more blessed to be the one to care for my children than I think I would’ve appreciated having my mom home.  I think I would’ve taken that luxury for granted as a kid, whereas now I thank God every single day for the privilege I have.

I was looking at my son’s mission pictures on the computer earlier this week; it’s been six months since he left, and it feels like it’s finally coming together for him.  He looks and sounds so happy and at peace.  I’ll admit, tears sprang to my eyes when I read that he’s loving his mission (all in caps) and as I clicked through the pictures of him with his companions, so full of smiles and unabashed contentment.

Not being able to go on a mission is one of my top five life regrets.  I planned to go my whole teen life, I bought luggage and clothes, even submitted my application.  It wasn’t meant to be.  I’ve lived with that little heartache for over twenty years, and even though I know and understand we all have different paths, I still have always wondered why it wasn’t for me.  And I’ve always felt a little sad about it.

But as I gazed into my son’s familiar eyes and saw his cheerful countenance, the thought came to me, just as it did the other day,  “I would rather have my son on a mission than to have gone on one myself.”  It surprised me because I never thought anything could fill in that empty space in my heart, the space reserved with a label, Where my mission would’ve gone.  But I should’ve seen it coming.

In so many ways, all my unfulfilled dreams are coming true.  Not that we’re forcing the kids to become the athletes or pianists we never were, not that kind of dream.  More that the sleepy days of my own childhood have sprung to life all over again; it’s a thrill to relive some of the best parts of life over and over with our own kids and to see how God has filled in the perceived gaps of my own childhood in His customary wise manner.

Carving pumpkins and cooking the seeds, dyeing eggs (but being able to share some cool tricks I’ve learned over the years), carrying on the tradition of Christmas cookies (but now making the mocha ones like my mom always made as well as the round sugar ones with sprinkles that we never had time for when I was a kid), proms (listening in on the creative ways to ask each other, my sons making dinner plans—it’s even more fun than when I would go dress shopping for myself), camping on the same Jack’s Fork River with our kids that Todd camped beside with his family when he was little, walking on the same pier with my kids as I walked on with my grandma in Point Loma, re-reading familiar classics like Mike Mulligan and Make Way for Ducklings and all the Amelia Bedelia stories I used to love as a kid, squealing (inside) with delight when they love Beverly Cleary as much as I did, cuddling up with Little House on the Prairie and Where the Red Fern Grows but knowing now how the moms—as well as the kids—in the stories all feel.  A resurrection of my youth after a long slumber, similar to what I imagine I’ll feel again as a grandma.

What seems to be happening is that all the empty squares from my younger years are filling in, not that my mom is all of a sudden a stay at home mom or that she finally adopted the big brother I always wanted, not exactly.  As a mom now, I see how some of those longings are being realized, but in ways I never expected.  Who knew I’d have sons of my own someday and that they’d bring more joy than even a brother could?  Who knew someday I’d be able to stay home and make cinnamon rolls and Valentine’s Day cards with my kids?  Who knew I’d be able to read all the same kids books and play the same board games with my own kids that entertained me in day care all those years ago?  Who knew I’d eventually have a piano in my home and that I’d have the kind of family who would sing along?  Who knew anything could be better than being a kid?

I’m just saying that, as trying as it is to be the adult, it’s not all over once we grow up.  Unexpectedly, it’s surpassed the joy I felt as kid. In a way, we get to do it all over (remember Clue and Mastermind, hula hoops and Four Square??), but we are also in the driver’s seat now, we get to play a huge part in making memories our kids will file away for the rest of their lives.  We finally get to pass on all the wisdom we’ve amassed (through our own blunders or learning from others) to help our kids navigate the obstacles of life.  We see how unanswered petitions and prayers were not necessarily no’s, but more of a, “Hang on, I’ve got something better in mind.”  It wasn’t until I became a parent myself that I started to understand that along with all the responsibilities and expectations that come with growing up, we are compensated a hundred-fold.  Despite the exhaustion and uncertainty about how I’m doing, my joy as a parent knows no bounds and I unequivocally have to say I’d rather be the mom than the kid.  It has been so much better the second time around.

* S. Michael Wilcox, 2005 Education Week, When My Prayers Feel Unanswered