I recently posted a parenting article, one that I found
insightful and encouraging, to find myself in the midst of a battle of who’s
style is better. As the conversation got hotter and hotter (and my stomach got
tighter and tighter) and the judgments were flying across the internet, I found
myself actually shocked that this was occurring. It was a simple article. Well,
what I believed to be a simple article – turns out it wasn’t so simple. The
conversation is over and my head is still spinning and my heart still hurting.
What it had turned into was not what I had intended, but it got me thinking and
wanting to discuss why we do what we
do with our daughter.
Both my husband and I are thinkers. We process and weigh the
options before making decisions (my husband more so than me – to him I
sometimes seem like a “whim” kind of person!). We take notes, ask questions,
listen to what others have to say on the matter and then make what we believe
is an educated decision. We don’t do anything lightly, but desire to live with purpose.
If there isn’t a reason behind our actions we seek to find it. It may sound
rather limiting to those who do like to live on their “whims,” but we’re quite
happy and don’t feel like we’re missing out on life in any way.
This rhythm of ours has certainly influenced our parenting
style. My husband teases me about needing to read 50 books or articles on one
subject in child-rearing. I’m not quite that bad, but I do like to read a lot
and get ideas – especially when my brain is blank. We don’t know what we’re
doing, having never been here before, and think it’s rather illogical to not
rely on the wisdom of those who have walked this road before. We are blessed to
have both sets of parents fully available to answer our questions and give us
their honest opinion in things and then support us in whatever we choose to do
with our daughter. There’s nothing that warms a parents’ heart more than to
hear one’s own parent say, “We think you’re doing an amazing job.”
We both have family histories of emotional, verbal and physical abuse, generations
passing it down to one another in one form or another. Both of our mothers and
fathers chose to break that mold. The baggage they carried from their
childhoods and took with them into their own child-rearing has left their
hearts heavy with wishing they had known more. Known how to give more grace.
Known how to love more freely. Taken the time to hold and interact with their
children more often instead of spending so much time on unimportant things (like
housework). Known there were other ways
to discipline and teach. We’ve had many conversations over the years as they’ve
discussed how they would do things differently. When my husband and I started to
discuss starting our own family we took our parents’ regrets to mind.
This is why we hold our daughter and have rocked her to
sleep since she was an infant (although, these days it’s more of doing so at
her request because she doesn’t always want us to hold her that long anymore).
This is why we speak kindly to her and do not raise our voices. This is why we
choose to respect her as her own person, giving her the freedom to discover who
she is while in the safety of a secure environment. This is why we speak words
of praise in our family. This is why we focus our discipline towards
encouragement rather than punishment. This generational tradition towards
emotionally scarring our own is our motivation to do differently.
We are blessed to be able to see the hand of the Lord as He
has redeemed what was ugly and abusive in our family’s histories to make
something new and beautiful today. The confidence and joy that oozes out of my
daughter is a reality because of the grace of God. We are thankful that He
chose to break the hurtful habits by drawing our parents’ hearts to Himself. We
cherish where we are and making the decisions we are making because we see the
redemption with our own eyes and hear it in our parents’ voices when they
speak. This is the joy that we all share together. Those who endured the pain
and have been broken free get to see the beauty from those ashes.
And she is a beautiful sight to behold!
It’s not always easy to give grace and love
twenty-four-seven, especially when we each have a flesh to deal with. But,
despite our shortcomings, the Lord has given us the pleasure of seeing some of
the fruit of our labors already – and we’re only 2 ½ years into this journey.
We have a daughter who is kind-hearted, emotionally mature for someone so young,
loving towards others, positive, obedient, full of life, creative, independent,
courageous, intelligent, easy-going and quite silly. We enjoy being around her
and sharing in the goodness of our Lord to give us such a life as this. It has
come at great cost and we will never forget that – it’s the cost that makes our
eyes and hearts see the richness of these moments.
So, this is why we do what we do. This is why we live how we
live. Because we have been redeemed and set free to enjoy this goodness from
our Loving Father.
