Parents [of all shapes and sizes]

So i may not be a parent, but fortunately i know people who are. And some of them are incredibly inspirational and some of them have just about managed to stay alive [which is quite inspirational in itself]. All of them have shared their stories and ideas and strategies and created this amazing resource page which I hope will help and encourage and inspire you as a parent or friends of a parent and please feel free to use and pass on:

Parents of young children [when it has not been all that easy]

Some great questions to ask at the dinner table to enhance your meal times

Some great stories and ideas on how to raise your children as World Changers

I gave the phrase ‘To Be A Mom’ to a number of people and this is how they responded

I gave the phrase ‘To Be A Dad’ to a number of people and this is what they had to say

When your child throws a Tantrum

Taboo Topics: Parents of young children – Meet Nicolette Ferreira

Some days, as a stay-at-home mom, I literally find my self walking around the house, doing nothing… Please note: this is NOT because I am lazy or that there is nothing to being a stay-at-home mom (and part-time freelance writer, let me just add – by the way, why do I feel like I have to justify myself?!)

Anywhoo…

If I decide to sit down in front of the computer to do some writing, Alex starts climbing up my leg, crying for my attention or for me to pick him up (yes – I have tried all sorts of interesting toys to keep him busy on the floor).

Should I pick him up… he will NOT magically sit stil on my lap while I type. He will pull everything he can off the table and also try his best to play with my laptop.

So I get up from my writing and decide to sit on the couch and do some constructive reading. I promise you – sitting down on the couch is like an open invitation to your baby to come and play with mommy. He will beg and tug at your leg for you to pick him up.

Should you pick him up, there is no chance of you relaxing for even a moment – he has no idea that he can fall off the couch and he will crawl around like a cute little baboon all over the couch.

So I get up and decide to get some house work done. Disaster. As I move form room to room, for example, packing away clothes, Alex will find it most frustrating – you see: just as he gets to the room I am in, I am already on my way out again. Inconsolable tears.

I decide to stand still and do the dishes. Nope – Alex climbs up my leg crying for me to pick him up or just do something amusing.

So sometimes I find myself just lying on the floor with Alex climbing all over me – I have to do my best to not get permanently scarred or bald as he goes for my hair, my eyes and my nose.

On these days, and there are many of them, I find myself at the end of the day feeling a little unfulfilled. If you think it is easy being a stay-at-home mom – you have no idea how difficult it sometimes get.

That said… I love my Alex and I would NEVER change having him. But please, just empathise with me a little bit today.

Love, Nicolette

[to follow Nicolette’s writing, go and visit her blog Nicolette writes: Professional Freelance Writer and Stay-at-Home Mom, click here]

[For some ideas and examples on how to raise your children to be world changers, head over here]

Taboo Topics: Parents of Young Children – Meet Steve Wiens

A direct share [thankx Steve!] of the blog post: To parents of small children: Let me be the one who says it out loud [March 12, 2013]

I am in a season of my life right now where I feel bone tired almost all of the time. Ragged, how-am-I-going-to-make-it-to-the-end-of-the-day, eyes burning exhausted.

I have three boys ages 5 and under. I’m not complaining about that. Well, maybe I am a little bit. But I know that there are people who would give anything for a house full of laughter and chaos. I was that person for years and years; the pain of infertility is stabbing and throbbing and constant. I remember allowing hope to rise and then seeing it crash all around me, month after month, for seven years. I am working on another post about infertility that will come at a later date.

But right now, in my actual life, I have three boys ages five and under. There are many moments where they are utterly delightful, like last week when Isaac told my sister-in-law that “My daddy has hair all over.” Or when Elijah put a green washcloth over his chin and cheeks, and proudly declared, “Daddy! I have a beard just like you!” Or when Ben sneaks downstairs in the morning before the other boys do, smiles at me, and says, “Daddy and Ben time.”

But there are also many moments when I have no idea how I’m going to make it until their bedtime. The constant demands, the needs, and the fighting are fingernails across the chalkboard every single day.

One of my children is for sure going to be the next Steve Jobs. I now have immense empathy for his parents. He has a precise vision of what he wants — exactly that way and no other way. Sometimes it’s the way his plate needs to be centered exactly to his chair, or how his socks go on, or exactly how the picture of the pink dolphin needs to look – with brave eyes, not sad eyes, daddy! He is a laser beam, and he is not satisfied until it’s exactly right.

I have to confess that sometimes the sound of his screaming drives me to hide in the pantry. And I will neither confirm nor deny that while in there, I compulsively eat chips and/or dark chocolate.

There are people who say this to me:

“You should enjoy every moment now! They grow up so fast!”

I usually smile and give some sort of guffaw, but inside, I secretly want to hold them under water. Just for a minute or so. Just until they panic a little.

If you have friends with small children — especially if your children are now teenagers or if they’re grown – please vow to me right now that you will never say this to them. Not because it’s not true, but because it really, really doesn’t help.

We know it’s true that they grow up too fast. But feeling like I have to enjoy every moment doesn’t feel like a gift, it feels like one more thing that is impossible to do, and right now, that list is way too long. Not every moment is enjoyable as a parent; it wasn’t for you, and it isn’t for me. You just have obviously forgotten. I can forgive you for that. But if you tell me to enjoy every moment one more time, I will need to break up with you.

If you are a parent of small children, you know that there are moments of spectacular delight, and you can’t believe you get to be around these little people. But let me be the one who says the following things out loud:

You are not a terrible parent if you can’t figure out a way for your children to eat as healthy as your friend’s children do. She’s obviously using a bizarre and probably illegal form of hypnotism.

You are not a terrible parent if you yell at your kids sometimes. You have little dictators living in your house. If someone else talked to you like that, they’d be put in prison.

You are not a terrible parent if you can’t figure out how to calmly give them appropriate consequences in real time for every single act of terrorism that they so creatively devise.

You are not a terrible parent if you’d rather be at work.

You are not a terrible parent if you just can’t wait for them to go to bed.

You are not a terrible parent if the sound of their voices sometimes makes you want to drink and never stop.

You’re not a terrible parent.

You’re an actual parent with limits. You cannot do it all. We all need to admit that one of the casualties specific to our information saturated culture is that we have sky-scraper standards for parenting, where we feel like we’re failing horribly if we feed our children chicken nuggets and we let them watch TV in the morning.

One of the reasons we are so exhausted is that we are oversaturated with information about the kind of parents we should be.

So maybe it’s time to stop reading the blogs that tell you how to raise the next President who knows how to read when she’s three and who cooks, not only eats, her vegetables. Maybe it’s time to embrace being the kind of parent who says sorry when you yell. Who models what it’s like to take time for yourself. Who asks God to help you to be a better version of the person that you actually are, not for more strength to be an ideal parent.

So the next time you see your friends with small children with that foggy and desperate look in their eyes, order them a pizza and send it to their house that night. Volunteer to take their kids for a few hours so they can be alone in their own house and have sex when they’re not so tired, for heaven’s sake. Put your hand on their shoulder, look them in the eyes, and tell them that they’re doing a good job. Just don’t freak out if they start weeping uncontrollably. Most of the time, we feel like we’re botching the whole deal and our kids will turn into horrible criminals who hate us and will never want to be around us when they’re older.

You’re bone tired. I’m not sure when it’s going to get better. Today might be a good day or it might be the day that you lost it in a way that surprised even yourself.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

You’re not alone.

[for the link to Steve’s original blog post and access to his blog, click here]

[For another story of a parent of young children when it’s not so easy, meet Candi]

Taboo Topics: Parents of Young Children [Intro]

This is not a topic i have a lot of personal experience of. Or any. The beautiful Val [tbV] and my philosophy about children is that we enjoy other peoples and the opportunity to give them back to them at the end of the day. We enjoy kids but we don’t particularly want our own. But we also understand that for a lot of people [perhaps the majority of people who are married?] having children is one of the biggest things in their life, especially for many who have wanted kids their whole life, even some of them from when they were kids.

We have both babysat kids though and we have witnessed kid tantrums [with kids of strangers and also with kids of parents we know] and i was a primary school teacher and did a year’s worth of practical teaching at least and we have both been involved with kids on camps and in holiday clubs and in many other shapes and forms. We get that sometimes [hopefully mostly?] they’re amazing. They’re like little people. Oh wait that’s exactly what they are. But little people who require a lot of love and grace and energy and patience and forgiveness and a whole lot of other stuff.

And so we get that it’s not always easy. And for some of you there may be whole periods where it seems like it is never easy. There are books that have been written but there is no real users manual. Each child is different, each family circumstance is different and so there is no one-size-fits-all in any aspect of raising children. I imagine for some parents out there, parenting [or trying ones best to parent] can be a really lonely, frustrating or at times paralysing thing. People tend to brag about how amazing and well-behaved and excellent their kids are as opposed to taking joy in sharing how difficult or frustrating or hurtful their kids can be. So i thought this might be a great topic to get some stories on here. I imagine there is some help for parents of small kids in the form of books or groups or workshops, but not everyone will necessarily have access to those.

So i wanted to chat to some of the parents of young children [talking under the age of about 8 here] that i know and see if i can get anyone to share on when being a parent of a young child, or young children was not so easy and if there was a way that they managed to get through it [if they have yet] to be able to share that and hopefully give some help or encouragement to those of you out there who may be struggling. Maybe just the notion that it’s okay to struggle. You are not alone:

First up i have this most excellent letter to Parents of Small Kids by Steve Wiens

Meet my friend Candi Fourie [includes Postnatal Depression]

Meet my friend Nicolette Ferreira [juggling work at home with looking after baby]

Meet Terran and Julie [and their FIVE!] and a really HONEST, raw and rough cry out from a parent

An excellent post and series from a number of my friends with crazily creative ideas for raising young children as world changers

To wives before you were ‘Mommy’ – an important reminder to both new moms and dads, by Becky Thompson