To my daughter when she is a mother

Dear Daughter,

At the time I am writing this, you are a still a teen yourself. When you finally read it, you may be a mother with a teen of your own. It will be like a picture from your past that will bring perspective for that time.

Have you felt the joy and the fear of nurturing a new life? Your new life awed me. Still, your innocence scared me; I was afraid I would mess you up.

Despite my fears, you learned to stand, supported by my nurturing. Eventually you began to walk, and so did I. We both grew confident—me in teaching, you in learning. I feared again when you started to run, until I saw that you were following my lead. Each new experience has taught us together in this way.

Now, you are a teen. Everyone says it will all be different. It is, and it should be, but not in a negative way, as they imply.

The difference I sensed is that you’re in the midst of growing up to be responsible. It is just a short time—probably before you or I are even ready—until you leave our home. When Dad and I talked to you about this, I hoped it sounded like we were expressing our trust in you.

I was really relinquishing my control.

You see, handing you responsibility was the stressor point that caused me to falter as a mother. When it didn’t feel like you had received the assignment or knowledge that I was giving, I would become frustrated, anxious, and impatient. I may have been delegating responsibility to you, but I was not trusting that you had received it. Many times I would ask myself, “Have I fully communicated so that she will succeed in this task?”

Then I finally understood that the vital communication tool I use myself is one that I have also taught you to use. If God can communicate your needs to me, can He not communicate them to you?

After that conversation together, it was time to rearrange the spaces in our home, literally and figuratively. My desk has always been at the center of wherever you and your siblings spent the most time. At first that was your playroom. Then it became your learning center with projects and stories. It moved on to be your homework zone. Now, my desk is in a separate room. You will still need me close, but further away so you may practice on your own without my constant supervision.

Remember when I taught you to make pancakes? We did it together a few times. Then I left the kitchen so you could work without my little corrections. You still came to me when you had questions about how hot to heat the griddle or how much batter to use. Being a teenager will be like that. As you use your own initiative to grow, I know you will still come to me, and we will connect through conversation.

I love how you have rearranged, cleaned and organized your room, too. You made it your own because the desire to do so was yours. You also shared your feelings that you have found a way to be more aware of God’s help and encouragement. You seem enlivened by the endeavor to create your present and your future on what you are learning in your heart. I know you are feeling your own sense of responsibility, and you are listening. The conversion of your room is only the symbolic evidence of a greater change in you.

Recognizing this in you brings a greater change in me. Now, I am learning to trust God, that He will guide you, too, as He has guided me to see what changes were necessary. Thank you for being patient with me while I learned the trust part of parenting.

Teresa Hirst lives in Minnesota with her husband and three children. In addition to loving her family with good food and conversation, she likes reading, writing, and Finding What Inspires at http://www.tjhirst.com, where you can connect with her.

Nod, be present, and listen

When my sons were taking piano lessons, I decided to steal the motivational technique of my first teacher, Mrs. Childs, and reward them with a candy bar whenever they memorized a piece. For me, chocolate has always been wildly motivating; perhaps this is why, according to my mother, no one ever had to nag me to practice.

At the time of this story, my sons were seven and ten, my father had just died, and my mother was dying. I felt that I was failing her–and everyone else in my life–in a multitude of ways on a daily, even hourly, basis, and was so desperate for solace that I decided to make one last attempt at psychotherapy. In the Midwest, where I was raised, the accepted credo is “If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.” Hardly an attitude that fosters the kind of work that needs to occur in a therapist’s office.

This therapist, however, was different. Her technique was unusual. She’d get me talking–they all do that–but when I let my guard down and became loose-lipped enough to let slip with something honest, something vaguely not-nice, i.e. “I’m mad at her,” the therapist had me repeat more potent versions of that statement (“I’m angry at my mother for getting cancer,” or “I’m so mad at you, Mom, for dying!” etc.) over and over again, while at the same time making little tapping motions on the backs of my hands, the top of my head, the center of my chest. I’d cry. I’d feel crummy for awhile. But through the course of the session, eventually I’d move through and beyond that not-nice feeling to a place of calm, a place where – for some reason – I could at least function. It helped.

One afternoon, when my eldest son Noah failed to demonstrate that he’d memorized “Bill Grogan’s Goat,” he was told that chocolate would not be forthcoming – not today anyway, but surely tomorrow, because he almost had it, just a couple of notes, a little bit more practice, he was so close!

He burst into tears.

“What?” I cried. My son’s response was so sudden, so out of proportion that I wondered if he’d physically hurt himself. “What’s wrong, honey?”

“It’s not fair!” he wailed, shrugging off my attempts to hug him. “It’s not fair…”

Exacerbating Noah’s misery was the fact that his brother Sam had already finished his practice session and–having successfully memorized “Go Tell Aunt Rhody”–was sitting a few feet away on the sofa, blithely consuming his Almond Joy. I wish I could say that I had the good sense to ask him to remove himself to the kitchen. Maybe I did. I don’t remember.

After telling Noah how sorry I was that he felt sad, I went on to explain that it actually was fair, reminding him this was our policy when it came to practicing. What really wouldn’t be fair would be if I gave him a candy bar when he hadn’t memorized his piece.

This did not comfort him.

“But it’s not fair!” he repeated. “Sam’s songs are easier than mine!”

“That’s true, but when Sam is ten like you, he’ll have harder songs, and then –”

“It’s not fair!” Noah proclaimed again, head shaking, tears falling. “It’s not fair, it’s not FAIR!”

Okay, I thought. Not working.

Remembering another therapist from years ago, the one who encouraged me to think of intensely negative feelings as temporary, like billowy clouds in a variable sky, I said, “Okay then, let’s pretend that this big feeling of Unfair is a huge puffy cloud, and we’re going to blow it away.” Noah paused and frowned, still sniffling, but seemed game. “Are you ready? Are you ready to take a big breath with me and blow that huge Unfair Cloud away?”

He quieted long enough for us to inhale and exhale, our conjoined breaths creating an impressive gale force wind which sent several dust bunnies careening across the living room floor.

There was a pause, and then a resumption of inconsolable sobs.

That was when I remembered that the emotions-as-clouds metaphor hadn’t worked any better for me than it did for my son.

“It’s not fair, it’s not fair, it’s JUST NOT FAIR!”

I continue to be amazed by what a dullard I can be when it comes to my own children, how my response as a parent can sometimes lead me to relate to my sons in a completely unhelpful–and uncharacteristic–manner. Would I treat one of my friends like this? Would I try to talk her out of her feelings? Of course not. I’d commiserate. I’d buy her a glass of wine. I’d sit and listen. I’d let her moan to her heart’s content.

It’s not fair.

Finally I remembered the technique my therapist had been using with me: encouraging me to repeat the unvarnished, unattractive, unreasonable truth.

So I started to say, “You’re right, honey, it’s not fair. It’s not fair. It’s not fair.”

Noah joined in. We sang the It’s Not Fair lament for a few minutes and then, eventually, the sky cleared, the clouds passed, the tears ceased. Sam finished his Almond Joy without further notice. Noah got past his grief and went on to memorize (and earn a Three Musketeers) another day.

Now, when my kids let forth with an uncensored expression of unreasonable emotional truth–-“I had a scary, bad thought” or “This homework is so pointless” or “I’m never going to get this!” etc.–I try not to talk it away with reason, or blow it away with a gale force exhalation. I try to remember to simply nod my head, be present, and listen. So much of childhood is baffling. So much of what our children experience emotionally is not nice.

We’ve abandoned the candy bar reward, by the way, as well as piano lessons. Noah, now thirteen, plays the trumpet, Sam plays trombone, and I do what most parents do when it comes to motivating their kids to practice: I nag.

I wish I didn’t have to. My mom never had to nag me to practice.

It is so unfair.

Stephanie Kallos lives in Seattle with her husband and sons. She is the author of two published novels, BROKEN FOR YOU and SING THEM HOME. Her website is: www.stephaniekallos.com

On blooming timing

I have a soft spot for late bloomers, all varieties. My grandpa took up painting just a couple of years ago and sends us watercolor treasures, scenes from Italy and France and his hometown. I linger over articles about authors late to the publishing world, taking small shards of hope from their late blooming success.

My kids didn’t get teeth until they were 9 months old and that was perfectly fine with me. Sam’s now nine years and he’s only lost a few teeth. He’s the rare 4th grader with the gappy front tooth smile, up to 5 years later than some of his friends. And Maddy still cherished her doll Emily with the fidelity of a mother, long after dolls had lost their cool for most of her friends. Everything in its time, I think to myself, privately happy to extend the moments of childhood and allow them their own timetables.

That’s not to say I don’t get caught up in the comparing game sometimes. [And yes, I agree that some comparing to the norm is essential to make sure your child is developing and growing (e.g., growth charts at the pediatrician).] It’s tough not to grade yourself as a parent based on the timelines of others. Get a group of parents together and inevitably there’s a little sly comparing. You see the girl down the street walking and look at your own same-aged crawler and wonder when. You hear that your nephew’s reading books at age four and wonder should I start flashcards? Someone in your playgroup pottytrained their 1-year-old and suddenly you feel like you can’t look at another diaper. For us, it was bike riding.

Are you ready for this?

Sam just mastered riding a bike last summer.

Truthfully, we tried. For several years, we took him out and tried. Because WE were ready, because we wanted to check the box next to that accomplishment as done. But he didn’t like it, dug in his heels and refused. Didn’t see the point. You know that saying about horses and water and drinking? Try young boys and bicycles and riding. So we finally took the hint and set it aside for a while.

Eventually, Sam wanted to learn it (I think it was right after he stayed home from the scout bike rodeo). It was time, his time. Finally one week last July, with the aid of a positive and patient dad and much negotiation, he agreed to work at it for ten tries. And then, mid-week, he started rolling his bike out to the front of the house on the sly, doggedly working solo on that tricky starting moment where you lift both feet to the pedals and push. The next day he was zipping around the neighborhood, all glee and I-did-it-ness. In a couple of days, not the weeks and months of earlier efforts.

Children are bloomers. That’s what they do! They bloom–sometimes early, sometimes late, sometimes right on the average. I’m slowly learning to turn the timing over to my kids, to watch them for clues that they’re ready to grow into a new season. Trying to be more of a gardener, less of a train conductor.

Annie Waddoups lives in the Boston area with her husband and three children. She is the founder of Letters to a Parent and can be reached and annie.waddoups@gmail.com.

A Guide to Growing Stately Trees Comprised of Two Instructions and an Admonition

Instruction: Bend the Twig
If you want to grow a stately tree
You usually start with a tiny sapling,
Although some people grow their trees from seeds.
This is not an easy thing to do.

They say that as the twig is bent so grows the tree
And I think this is probably true.
So young saplings are snipped and pruned to give them shape and character
And staked out to give them rectitude.

And I think this is good and important to do,
Up to a certain point.
But who hasn’t seen and pitied dwarfed and stunted trees,
Crippled as saplings to please the grower’s sense of beauty, or ambition, or convenience.

Oh, and one more thing:
You can’t make an oak tree out of a willow sapling
No matter how much bending or binding
No matter that you desperately want an oak tree and you’ve been given a willow twig

Instruction: Hug the Tree
And then of course at a certain point,
Which admittedly varies from species to species,
The twig cannot be bent or staked out further to any good purpose.
It has become a tree.

It has become shade to someone weary from the road,
A refuge to those seeking solace, or a place for visionary youth to pray.
It has found its own reason for its existence
Fulfilling the promise of the seed and the shaping of the sapling.

What then? What more does the tree need from you?
Well, and this is important, trees never lose their need for warmth and belonging.
They need support to brace their sagging branches from the burdens of too much to bear,
And time-tested remedies to fight the infestations and blight that will surely sap their soul

They need to know that they are part of a forest,
That they belong to a family of trees,
These graceful willows, flamboyant maples and sturdy oaks,
And that this kinship of family extends forward and backward beyond the reckoning of time.

Admonition: Bend the Knee
Finally, a gentle word of counsel to you who would grow trees.
Give thanks to the Lord of the Forest.
Give thanks for the seeds.
For the soil and moisture that nourish them;
For the seasons that refine them,
And for entrusting us with their care.
For the forest in its majestic splendor,
For the music of the breeze in its leaves,
Its diversity of colors and shapes that give it beauty and purpose;
And for the Sun, its eternal beckoning call to seeds and saplings
To leave the frozen ground and reach for the warmth and light of the heavens above.

M.T. Bentley is a professor, consultant, and father of four children.