I stand in a very unique position currently. I am (most likely) in the exact center of my parenting years. I have 18 years under my belt, and I have another 18 years in which we will have children living in our home and attending High School. (While I fully realize that I will always be a momma, I am aware that my role changes drastically as my children grow-up.)
I blogged earlier this week about the struggle I am currently having in defining "parenting success." I fear that post may point unfairly toward our oldest, though it was not intended to be about her - but about me. It is true that some of my soul searching has to do with the fact that some of the choices she has made this past year are different than I would have chosen for her. However, even if she had done everything "perfectly" (whatever that even means), THIS is a struggle I would have needed to face.
You see, the goals/standards/ideals I had set to be my marker for "parenting success" were all wrong. I had chosen to base MY success on ANOTHER'S behavior. It is funny really - the ironic kind of funny, definitely not laughable! I have watched my kids through all sorts of stages, I should have collected enough evidence to realize that I can not base my personal success on their or any one else's behavior. I have survived many uncomfortable and sometimes embarrassing moments as a momma. And I never felt that that moment defined me as a good or bad, successful or unsuccessful mom.
BUT - for some reason, I had decided that once my children were old enough that I was no longer their disciplinarian, THEN their behavior would be a direct representative of my life's work. Which meant, hypothetically, if they made choices that were radically different than those I had raised them to make, I had failed.
It sounds so silly when I type it out.
Krissy chose to move out in a clean sweep. Where I had expected years of back and forth between military training and home and then college and home, she moved out less than a month after she graduated; and she may never come back for more than a night or two for the rest of her life. There was nothing gradual and gentle about it. The band-aid was ripped, and my heart was not ready.
However, what she did was not wrong.
She is a legal adult. She has every right to make choices. She has every right to make mistakes, try things, succeed, fail, try-again, succeed, fail, try-again. . . essentially that is what all adults spending their lives doing. I am VERY proud of some of her decisions.
To a large degree, the person who has failed during this transition is me.
I have failed to be prepared to let go. I have failed to set my "bar of success" properly. I made my daughter's choices all about me, when they were and are hers and hers alone.
This can not continue.
Changing a lifetime worth of thinking, even though it was subconscious thinking, is challenging to say the least! However, we will be the parents of adult children for many, many more years than we will parent them in our home. (God willing!) And I can not and will not live the rest of my life feeling responsible for each decision our kids make. It is not fair to me, more importantly, it is not fair to them.
So what is it to be a successful parent? Where can I set my bar?
As I continue to seek the Lord on this, the one thing of which I am certain is that the bar must rest on my behavior, NOT on the behavior of my children. This week I felt God challenge me to go back to the promises I made to Him when I had our children baptized. To what did He ask me to commit?
I looked up the liturgy from the RCA this morning. These are the promises we made when we had our oldest 5 baptized:
"Do you promise
to instruct these children/this child
in the truth of God’s Word,
in the way of salvation through Jesus Christ;
to pray for them, to teach them to pray; and
to train them in Christ’s way by your example,
through worship, and
in the nurture of the church? "
I notice when I re-read this that what I promised to do is - instruct, pray, and train - all things I can do. What I could do then and what I can do now has not changed. I can instruct a child of any age. I can pray for a child of any age. I can train by example a child of any age.
How that is done changes as kids age. But it can always be done.
Maybe, just maybe, the core essentials of parenting never really change? They adapt and grow, but just as the Lord never changes, the very core of parenting remains steady as well?
That bar is one for which I can continue to strive. That bar gives me hope . . . always. That bar is all about HIM and not at all about me - which is exactly as we are called to live.
Thank you, Lord Jesus, that You are our hope. Forgive me for the many times that I make life all about me. Thank you for opening my eyes and my heart to Your truth. It is all about You, Lord. Please continue to teach me, mold me, challenge me, and inspire me as a momma. Thank you for never giving up on me. Protect my children from my mistakes, Lord. Guide each of my words and thoughts and deeds that I may live a life that honors You.
