As I reflect on my life, where I have been, where I am now, and where I want to be in the future, I can’t help but observe the lives of those around me. My husband and the lives of each of my three children. How much of decisions I have made, am making now, and will make in the future, affect my family and their lives.
I read today in a “mother’s devotional,” [I don't usually pick these up because most of them seem a bit corny to me] about commitment. It said, “commitment is giving yourself fully to something you believe in or love.” It’s reference was in regards to modeling commitment for your children as well as being committed to raising them well. I realized that when my children were young, my commitment to them was different. Their very survival depended on my commitment. Feeding, bathing, potty training, wouldn’t have happened if I [and my husband] wasn’t committed to them, they wouldn’t have done it themselves. Then, there are the less tangible teaching them respect, generosity, “share your toys,” morality, faith, and ethics to name a few that only come from parents committed to raising children into healthy, functioning, respectable young adults [some would argue that it takes a village, but until I learn that the village will stand before God with me someday and answer for the children he entrusted to my husband and I to raise I do not believe that. That takes another blog post to explore :]
Now that my children are in this season of increased independence, I look at my commitment to raising them as a choice I make daily. If I were not here, they would respond to their hunger by feeding themselves, they would eventually [if not from peer pressure alone] bath. We have done our best to instill values consistent with our family mission and worldview and proof of their ethical and social standards are shown as adults outside of our family comment and complement their personal conduct.
As a parent in this season with two teenagers and an eager “to-be-a-teen” pre-teen, I find myself trying to listen more than talk, to guide more than advise, and trying to find the discipline within myself to give them the freedom to discover and mold who THEY are and want to be. My deepest desire is for them to find who they are, who they were created to be, to know and be able to articulate why, and then rise up and be it. I have never wanted robots for children who are younger versions of my husband and I. For example, my daughter and I had a long conversation about a month ago about faith. She holds the same beliefs my husband and I do, but is struggling with some aspects of her faith. That is a personal thing between her and God, one that I can’t fix. I can only guide and give her the freedom to come to her own conclusions. In the end I expect her to be able to articulate and stand behind what she decides even if we have to agree to disagree. It is not easy.
My oldest son and I went out to lunch recently to have some time to discuss some music choices he had made on his ipod that I had discovered when I borrowed it to workout. I spoke to him from my heart telling him that I was confused with who he was since his choices were not consistent with who I believed him to be. On the one hand, I will always hold up the standards that we have built this household on and ask that anything [including music] inconsistent with those standards be removed from the house. On the other hand and even more important than that, I want him to set standards for himself. What will he allow in his mind and heart, what will he take a stand for, what will he allow into his life, long after he is out from the shelter of this house?
My days are not filled with changing diapers and running after clumsy toddlers learning to walk. I don’t fall in bed exhausted from the constant needs of an infant or small children. Instead, I stay awake without being able to find peaceful slumber waiting for the team bus bringing my son back from a basketball game over snowy roads to get back safely. I lay praying that my kids are making good decisions when they are spending time away from home, I open my house to many more loud, energetic, and hungry teenagers than my sometimes quiet loving soul would prefer so that my kids and their friends know that this house is a safe and welcoming place to be.
My commitment now comes by choice. I choose to build a career I can manage from home so that I can be available for my teenage children. I choose to love them unconditional even when it is hard, I choose to let them be individuals with their own thoughts and passions when I would desire to intervene and impose my own desires for their futures, I choose to stay and not give up when I feel that all I have tried to instill in them has gone for naught and I might as well give up and turn all my attention to myself.
Commitment: is giving yourself fully to something you believe in or love.
I chose to commit to my children because I know I will get to daily see the rewards of that commitment. There is no end to the commitment while I am on this earth, and there will not be a day singled out as the day that I can say, “there is the reward for my commitment.” I will choose instead to look for the reward in the daily choices they make, the hug I get after a difficult conversation, the hand they lend to a stranger without being asked, and because of that I will commit to another day.
Girl40
