A Frank and Honest Post about Parenting

This post is for you, Sheri.

A friend of mine suggested the other day that I write about being an easy going, happy, content parent instead of a frazzled, freaked out mess of a mom to three kids.

Well, I'm clearly not a mother, but I'll do my best.

I know she was (at least) half kidding, but the undertone of desperation was clear. It's a feeling I understand well. So I decided to ask myself how I feel about parenting.

You've been warned.

Here's the truth: sometimes being a parent sucks.

Sometimes, despite all that you try to do, your kids are brats, and the sink is full of dirty dishes, and something's burning, and the laundry is piling up, and you are under appreciated. You really are.

Here's another truth: sometimes you suck as a parent too.

You forget parties and homework and dinner. Sometimes you punish, rather than instruct. You yell like a crazy person. You say things that you know you shouldn't. You belittle your children in ways that you never thought you would. You lash out irrationally. It's like an out of body experience -- you're standing there watching a maniac, who looks just like you, raging at your children. And you can't stop it. Sometimes you behave far worse than the children you're trying to raise into well functioning members of society.

And, it's okay.

Here's why:

I believe that we, as parents, get it right far more often than we get it wrong -- but for some reason it's the tough moments that register and pop back up, over and over again, in our memory. So, if you're freaked out and frazzled, you're just like everyone else.

Part of the problem -- a big part -- as I see it, is that we live in the age of uber parenting. Parents today seem to be in constant competition with one another -- a kind of passive/aggressive one-upping each other. It's not that we tell people that they are doing anything wrong, but in this age of share all social media, we all know what the other is doing.

But we don't really, do we? We live in a customizable world. We can listen to the exact song we want to listen to, watch television without those pesky commercials, get our food prepared EXACTLY the way we want it, we can take a thousand pictures, and delete all but one, and through the help of social media, like Facebook, we can even customize the image we present to the world. And most of us leave out the less savory stuff.

So, what does this have to do with parenting?

I think it's some kind of social pressure akin to peer pressure -- keeping up with the Joneses. Something inside of us thirsts to be the best -- or at least as good as everyone else. The problem is, most of us aren't as good at parenting as we'd like everyone else to think (or as we lead them to believe).

Another sign of the uber parent -- and a symptom of the customizable world -- is a feeling that your child is somehow more special than all the other millions of kids out there, and you're going to structure every second of their lives, to maximize their "specialness". You're going to give them every opportunity, and more -- even if it kills you. Because that's what good parents do. Or so we are told.

To a greater or lesser extent we all do this. We brought these children into the world. We are responsible for them. In a very real sense, we have chosen to dedicate a couple of decades of our lives to primarily raising children. But where does the easy going, happy and content part come in?

Do we have to wait for the kids to move out?

I wouldn't count on that -- it seems the trend lately is for the kids to move right back in after they realize that their hand is no longer being held (another result of the hovering parent).

First of all, ask yourself a couple of questions:

Do you love your children? Of course you do.

Do your children KNOW that you love them? I'll bet they do.

Would you give your life for your children? I've got news for you -- that's exactly what parenting is.

So, let some of the other stuff roll off your back.

If your child is not functioning on the same level as some other kid, it's not a judgment on your parenting abilities. And if someone is judging you on that kind of thing, you're hanging out with the wrong crowd.

If your kids misbehave, correct it, and get over it.

It's going to happen again. I guarantee it.

If you misbehave as a parent, correct it and get over it.

It's going to happen again. I guarantee that too.

Don't kill yourself parenting, that does no one any good. If we structure our children's lives a little less, something amazing is going to happen -- their brains will engage and they will succeed. They're marvelous little miracles that way.

And when the beautiful moments come (and if you're watching for them, you'll see that they come more often than you realized) --  the whispered I love you's and the pleases and thank you's and toothless smiles and the late night talks and the driving lessons and the recitals and soccer games and the hero worship and the vacations and the games and the sprinklers and the holding little hands and the home made cards and the butterfly kisses and the happy laughter-- embrace them.

And know that this is the real evidence of what kind of parent you are.

You're doing just fine.

Photostory Friday: Weeds

Hosted by Cecily and Lolli

 I take a lot of pictures of  flowers.

But, sometimes I take pictures of weeds too. And every time I do, I wonder at the natural beauty of weeds -- I also wonder what makes a weed a weed?

Photographing weeds is a very deliberate process for me. Taking pictures of flowers is easy. Flowers were made to have their pictures taken. But weeds are a different story. Weeds require more effort on my part. They require patience, and setting aside some preconceived notions about beauty. 

Weeds have taught me to look closer. They have taught me to expect the unexpected -- that changing your perspective changes your experience. They have taught me that this world is a spectacular show. They have shown me that if you go searching for beauty, you will find it. 

But, mostly, photographing weeds has shown me that if you treat something as though it has value, it will, eventually, become something valuable. 

I suppose there's a lesson here somewhere...

Letting others think for you...

I committed myself to blogging for the entire month of June, and after five days I've run out of topics. So, I turned -- where else? -- to a random blog topic generator.

Did you know there was such a thing as a random blog topic generator?

I didn't either, but I thought what the heck, maybe I'll let this RBTG give me five topics to write about tonight. Here they are, just as they generated:

1. Getting your license

I assume this means your driver's license -- which is the only license I have anyway. This took me back twenty four years, to the time of Driver's Ed. You remember Driver's Ed -- the class taught by the basketball coach? The class with the simulators and the gory movies with the great titles (Highways of Agony, Wheels of Tragedy, Mechanized Death...).

When I was sixteen, sixteen seemed like a perfectly reasonable age to allow responsible young men and women to take four thousand pound death machines on to the highways and byways of America.

(When I was sixteen, I also once ate a whole bottle of jalapeno peppers to impress a girl -- she was impressed with how much time I spent in the bathroom that night)

My first day in Driver's Ed, the Coach decided to take three of us out driving in the School's Ford Pinto (talk about mechanized death).

On the highway.

And I was first.

 I had never done more than back our family car out of the garage, but the coach coaxed me out on to the highway east of Skyline High School, in Salt Lake, pointed me up Parley's Canyon, and promptly fell asleep.

I've since decided that the only way to survive as a Driver's Ed instructor, would be to be heavily addicted to muscle relaxants.

I drove twenty miles, to the Park City Ski Resort, before he woke up.

That went a little long -- I'll breeze through the last four:

2. Analog Synthesizers

We also call these pianos.

3. Things that you think you should not be subject to

Here's my top 5:

-- Gravity
-- Inertia
-- Primogeniture
-- Alien Abduction/Anal probing/ Men in Black Flashy Thing
-- Ear Hair

4. Cutting People in Line

That's really what it said.

I assume it was supposed to say People Who Cut in Line.

I can't really argue both sides here, as a rule I'm generally opposed to people who cut in line, but not nearly as opposed as I am to cutting people in line. I stand in lines sometimes, and I don't want to have to cut anyone, and I REALLY don't want to be cut myself. Is this a fad? Have I missed something?

5. Eukaryotic Organisms

This was going to be a much more interesting topic until I realized I had misread BOTH words.

(Incidentally, a Eukaryotic Organism is an organism whose cells contain complex structures, enclosed within membranes. YOU are a Eukaryotic Organism. Well, most of you.)


Tomorrow night: Photostory Friday (yes, on Thursday. Get over it.)

Ten To-do's in June

So, through a blog friend of a blog friend, I stumbled across Mamakat and her weekly writing workshop, where she tosses out a few writing prompts each week, and bloggers gather together to see what each other have to say (does that sentence make sense?).

Well, I thought, that's right up my alley...

So, here goes:

Ten To-do's in June

(This is also right up my alley -- I'm a list guy. At any given time I have five to seven lists in my back pocket. I can't remember what's on them but whatever it is, it's important -- or I wouldn't have written it down. Duh.)

1. Plant the Garden.

(I can do better than that)

2. Learn to play one song perfectly on my ukulele.

(I have a theory that ukulele music makes people smile, and smiles fix just about anything. Except cars.)

3. Go somewhere beautiful.

(I live in Utah, where beauty abounds)

4. Mark the anniversary of the day I proposed.

(Check)

5. Love my wife more tomorrow than I did today.

(That's a tall order)

6. Take someone's breath away.

(Truthfully, the one whose breath I've taken away most often is my own -- Life amazes me)

7. Honor the memory of my father, and the life of my son.

(The two never met. My dad passed away six months before my son was born, but I feel him -- I really do -- when Matthew and I play catch, or shoot baskets. I feel his approval. I feel a circle completing)

8. Start writing that book.

(You know, that book that's been writing itself in your head for ten years. That homage to your hometown. That love letter to your generation. That book where you reveal all the things you did that will give your mother a retroactive heart attack).

9. Follow my own advice to my children: Get to know my world. Hold it, taste it, feel it, take it apart, put it back together (disregard the left over pieces), conquer it, stand in awe of it.

(Time's ticking, and there's so much to see)

10. Stain the fence.

(I may not get to this one)

A first hand account of contentment...

It's cooling off, and I'm gazing westward. 

The sky is lit like an impressionist painting. Colors everywhere, shooting off in rays of light.

I can hear at least four different kinds of birds, that I can't identify. 

Bird calls, that's a gap in my knowledge that I'll fill some day. I'd rather know bird calls than know French. 

I don't know either. 

I can feel the tenseness leaving my shoulders. I feel light, like I'm floating. Like I'm filled with helium. I have too many cares tonight. I brought the office home, but now it's floating away. I can barely feel my body -- I'm not sure how I keep typing...

I can feel the heat radiating off of my arms. I feel like I haven't blinked for hours. I'm not sure I can anymore. I don't want to miss anything. God is painting tonight. 

I can't remember what I was so tense about. Frankly, I'm not sure I can remember my own name at this point. 

The reds are getting redder. The sky reminds me of cotton candy and rainbow sherbet. 

If you set cotton candy and sherbet on fire. 

I can no longer feel the heat. I'm so cool, the mosquitos can't find me. 

I think I'm still breathing.

Is this nirvana?

No, I'm pretty sure it's still Farmington. 

Pretty sure. 

I can't tell where the sky ends. 

I know this feeling. It's happiness. It's beauty. It's all the things I live for. 

I wish I had my ukulele.

The sky is lit like an expensive sapphire now. The blue is deep and brilliant. The remaining sunlit clouds are the deepest yet -- they linger like the last dying coals of a campfire. 

I don't know how long I've been here, and I know the spell is about to break, but it's good to have seen the masterpiece. It's good to be present in the moment. 

I am content. 

The Bouquet of My Life

June 3, 1994.

I asked.

She said yes.

I don't remember everything that ever happened to me, but I remember that date. That was the day that my life began. That was the day that Sharon, in a momentary lapse of reason, agreed to marry me.

I remember this day every year, and I try to commemorate it in some way. One year it was a door knob (Tom Sawyer's engagement ring to Becky Thatchter). One year it was a ring with the inscription "My life would suck without you." Last year it was an Irish Claddagh ring.

I take great pleasure in remembering this day each year, and even more pleasure in the fact that Sharon seems to forget it. Truthfully, I think she just humors me now :)

Sharon remembers the important dates -- birthdays, holidays, the anniversary of our marriage.

But I remember this day -- the day of the promise before the promise.

This year it's flowers -- eighteen different flowers to be exact...

Here's why:

These flowers are my way of painting a portrait of my life with Sharon. Each blossom is a year of our lives. 

Some years have been big and bold. The year we were married. The years that our children were born.

Some years have been smaller. They are not as vibrant or showy. The years we have paid the bills, gone to work, cleaned the house and raised the kids.

Only one flower has thorns.

Sharon and I have had our ups and downs, as any couple will -- times where we don't always see eye to eye -- but we've had fewer than most, I think. But one year bled us like no other....

2009

The year Sharon's doctor said cancer.

But, even then, things turned out for the best. Sharon is cancer free today (and hopefully forever after), and going through that experience helped us to strip away a lot of non essential things in our lives, and of course to learn to stop and smell the roses.

The most dangerous flower is also the most fragrant.

Rose is the scent of life to me.

Large or small, vibrant or subdued, every year that Sharon has been in my life has been beautiful. And I find that as I sit here trying to recall which years were which, I can't do it. They're all jammed into one bright and beautiful arrangement, bursting at the seams, growing in every direction, overlapping one another.

And Sharon is the sunlight and the water -- the nourishing force -- that gives life and color to the bouquet of happiness and contentment that is my life.

I love you Sharon.

Thank you for saying yes.

366: Week 22

Day 149

May 27: I know I started last week off with a picture of Ethan as well, but the truth is, if we go to Ethan's house, the picture of the day is going to be Ethan.

It's a commandment.

Here he is with his good buddy, Grandpa.

Day 150

May 28: We took a walk through all the beautiful new developments in downtown Salt Lake City, on Memorial Day. There are some amazing new things to do and see in the City Creek Center, but there is something to be said for old beauty as well. I can never pass the crown jewel of the city -- the Salt Lake Temple -- without taking a quick picture.

Day 151

May 29: Want a tip on taking pictures of the moon? Shoot it in the blue, when it shows up in the afternoon sky, then drop the exposure until the sky goes black.

I find when I try to shoot the moon at night, it's too bright to get any definition.

Day 152

May 30: Here is Jordan admiring her handiwork. She was on the Junior High Yearbook staff this year. More than that, she was the chief photographer -- the only one allowed to use the BIG camera. Guess who took the first picture in the book?

She is very proud of herself.

Don't tell her, but I'm even more proud of her.

Eh, go ahead and tell her.

Day 153

May 31: I have an iPod Touch that does all of the cool stuff -- game, videos, browsing the internet, music...

But this little iPod shuffle is my work horse. This is where I load my books. As an autodidact (one who self educates), I get most of my information from audio books. In just the last month or so, I have spent time with the American Revolution, Plato, Socrates, Thoreau, Twain. and the WWI roots of the conflict in the Middle East.

Oh, and Joan of Arc and Cleopatra.

I love this little guy.

Day 154

June 1: The overpass near my house.

10:30 pm

Where are all these people going?

Day 155

June 2: Boart Longyear Day at the Hogle Zoo.

The company I work for rents out our zoo once a year, and we have the chance to go to the zoo after it has closed to the general public. Today we saw the baby elephant (and his possibly newly pregnant mommy...), as well as the other new additions to our zoo (a polar bear, three grizzlies, three seals and a sea lion -- we haven't had any of these animals in close to a decade).

One of the perks of this trip is the chance to ride the Zoo Carousel, as much as we would like. Here's a shot of my little tiger riding her own tiger.

I was on the giant praying mantis, racing a turtle and a turkey.

I won.

What a great day.