It’s our weekly accountability time;
a time after school chilling in the living room where we encourage and critique each other.
A little love and a little wounding in the name of love.
It’s a safe place where with love and humility anything can be said.
Does it hurt? like hell. Does it heal? better than aloe.
So I always go first, and I hate going first because you never know what three little people are going to say. I much prefer being last, but I am the grown up. So I went first.
In one word tell mommy one thing about me that you think is great, I asked.
I’ve asked this before and they always surprise me…
your fun, adventurous, creative, loving, wonderful, great, cooker ??? not sure about that one
the list goes on. I told them to limit it to one word, but if they can’t that’s o.k. I like to be encouraged.
I think my kids love me.
I’d like to stop there with warm fuzzies. I’m reminded of the best of me and it would be so easy to end it feelin’ so fly.
I could think of a million reasons to not go deeper.
But I want to go deeper so I hold my breath and dive in knowing my lungs will burn, my legs will cramp, my heart will explode before I get to the other side. But I dive.
Now use one word and ONLY one word to describe mommy in a way that communicates something you want me to change; something that makes you say, ‘when I’m a parent I won’t ever…’
It was the girl who spoke up and her readiness made me cringe.
I knew I had a lot of faults and weakness but I thought they might, ya know, need a nano-second or something to think up a word.
Nope, she was ready.
In her sweetest, most humble way, she said, “I know something mommy, duplicity.”
It was a weird, foggy moment looking at this 9 month old face in a big girl body, staring at me using big words that I barely know the meaning of and everything felt swirly, twirly for a moment as I tried to hear her. ” You’ve always told US to respect others with our words, actions, and attitudes; but when daddy makes you mad, you won’t even do it yourself.” Then she chuckled a nervous laugh, gasp, something I don’t exactly recall.
I wanted to justify myself.
I wanted to think she was disrespectful.
I wanted to run and hide.
I wanted to say she was wrong.
So I said something profound,
“wow”
wow is profound because you can say it the same way backwards, “wow”. It’s also a totally wicked space filler when you need to say something but your thoughts are in like say China and you need them back right now, but you can’t get to them just yet.
“so” is another great staller and when combined to make “wow, so…” you have exactly 2 seconds of time with which to pull yourself together and utter something understandable.
I went with the, “Wow, so, um, hmmmm, tell me how that makes you feel?”
and she did, they all did. They all agreed with her.
I had to confess that I’m a jerk, I need help, pray for me, just because I’m the mom & grown up doesn’t mean I know what I’m doing. I need to work on this, grow and mature, and take my own advice.
I had to say, “You are so right! I’m so wrong, will you forgive me?”
Next time I’ll take it a step further and say, ” I’m so proud of you. I”m so glad you won’t be like mommy when you grow up because your aware of these things so young. You won’t have to be 30something dealing with this…” I’ll give her hope that she doesn’t have to grow up to be like me!
Maybe, just maybe, I’m raising a psychologist here. (and she’s free)