When I was a young mother to five lively, competitive little boys, I thought the season would never end. The vision of them as high school students wasn’t on my radar. Nor the vision of them walking across a stage and receiving a college diploma. Certainly not the image of them standing at an altar waiting on their bride to appear. I didn’t try to see anything beyond surviving the week and getting to relax on Saturday mornings. Sweet Saturday… the only day I could linger in bed, reflecting on my week, letting the older children fend for themselves and hoping the younger ones complied. Back then, according to my journal, their behavior and my expectations sometimes failed to coincide…
October 10, 1980
Dear Journal,
I’m ready to scream! My peaceful morning isn’t happening. The older boys came into my bedroom to watch cartoons, sloshing milk from their overfull cereal bowls. My three-year-old piled on top of me, smelling like a toxic waste dump. The 13-month-old came in dragging his blanket. I made his bottle, a cup of coffee for myself, and lay back down when I heard wailing. An older brother just took away the blanket.
The next scene was the youngest on the kitchen table, sitting in his brother’s bowl of cereal. I cleaned up the mess, put him in the sink for a bath, turned away to answer the phone, and he dumped the contents of my purse into his bath water.
Soon it’s going to be lunchtime and I’ll still have breakfast mess. The older boys want to hunt this afternoon, so they’ll all leave with their dad, and I’ll have stacks of chili bowls and scattered cracker crumbs to deal with.
Will this never end?
By the end of the day, Saturdays became a blend of mud-caked boots, footballs scattered on the lawn, strewn towels left from half-washed hands, shotgun shells scattered on the floor, shotgun pellets in the carpet, runny noses and wet beds, but always spontaneous hugs and aura of contentment. The only way I survived then was to remind myself that life has its seasons. There would be a time when I could finish a telephone conversation without having to settle a dispute, and I could drink a whole cup of coffee before it got stone cold. Not always would one meal morph into the next.
Now that time is here… except when the sons come home. Suddenly I find myself in Phase Two childrearing—one even more challenging. It involves adult sons, who hardly ever come home alone. They bring others—a girlfriend, wife, or friends. They also bring little people (grandchildren), and animals (dogs). And they bring equipment: guns, fishing equipment, boots, cameras, Frisbees, footballs, critter boxes, toys.
Nobody coached me about being prepared for this season of life. Now I’m not only a mother. Now I’m wife, mother, grandmother, mother-in-law, friend, babysitter, counselor, cook and hostess. I still want everything to flow smoothly, like a well-oiled machine. I want our gatherings to look like the Norman Rockwell painting where the family is seated, everybody smiling. They don’t.
I would want folks to think our grandchildren refrain from running through the house, jumping on furniture, banging the piano, and that they leave the toys neat and towels hung up. They don’t.
Instead, our house looks like a combination hunting camp, animal shelter, and preschool. I’m challenged to try to keep everybody happy and the dogs from peeing on the planted lettuce that goes in our salads.
There are moments when things don’t look at all as I like to imagine it. There are moments when our emotional love tanks don’t get full all the way. And moments when we all have to extend grace to one another. But altogether, it’s exactly what a family is meant to be: not perfect, but striving. Apologizing. Extending grace. Covering one another’s shortcomings.
As a young mom, I fretted over whether or not I devoted too much time to our boys. The more time I spent with them, the more I wanted to spend—and the more I enjoyed them. Now I’m experiencing the principle I observed years ago…
May 14, 1985
Dear Journal,
I realize something. Children are not a part of our lives; they
are our life. When they become adults, we are rewarded the privilege of being a part of their lives.
And it’s good.