my parenting flaws exposed

After six tries, this was the best picture taken of my "darlings"  sitting on a friend's swing.   It was hot, humid, cloudy, buggy, and they had no interest in a picture for posterity sake.  

See the two on the right?  They sharpen me.  Stretch me.  Remind me that I'm a sinner, too.  I overreact to their intense personalities.  Uh, duh......where'd they get that intensity?  From me, though I hate to admit it.  I'm a unique combination of meek and hot-temper, but the public never sees the heat.  I reserve that ugliness for my beloved family.  Isn't that a rotten way to live?  Why do we do that?

Here's my hot-tempered eighteen-month-old daughter, who takes her tray of preschool beans and tosses them onto the floor with an evil smile--after she's done amusing herself and wants out of her booster seat.  Will she still do this when she can say, "I'm done Mommy.  Please get me out."  How much of her intense personality has to do with not being able to communicate well with words, and not having any control over her day? Does she need more time to play with Mommy one-on-one?

This same daughter makes a habit of biting her siblings and pulling their hair, all for the love of power and effect.  They make it worse by laughing and enticing her to chase them, mouth open and ready.  I have to confess that lately I worry about her.  What is this meanness?  Teething angst?  Over tiredness?  Why does she have so little interest in pleasing us?  Will she grow out of this, or will we be on our knees a lot, as we raise her?

I took both girls to a clinic appointment today.  They got their skin pricked for an iron test, and Baby Beth got upset and tried to push the nurse away.  The nurse commented on how different the two girls' personalities are.  Beth, she remarked, is hot-tempered, and Mary, so mild-mannered.

That stung.  The nurse wasn't finding fault exactly, but I felt for Beth anyway.  Beth doesn't choose to have a hot temper, any more than I do.  I really hate having a temper.  It makes me feel awful. We don't get to choose our faults, or our virtues.  God gets to choose.

James 1:19-20  Know this, my beloved brothers; let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.

Ephesians 4:32 Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.

Galatians 6:1-3 Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgressions, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness.  Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted.  Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.  For if anyone thinks he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself.

After the appointment I dropped the girls off at home and had one hour to rush through Super Walmart to get groceries, before husband had to leave for work.  Talk about tag-team parenting!  

Thunder, lightening, and the heaviest downpour I've ever seen awaited me as I prepared to leave the store, full cart in front of me.  The employees offered to watch my groceries while I pulled the van up to the building.  

The high wind and rushing rain shocked me.  Just running to my van resulted in completely drenched clothes, hair, face and shoes.  Did someone say wet t-shirt contest?  Mascara ran down my face, even though I'd applied very little.  I was a sight.  The employees insisted on helping me load the van, even though I desperately wanted to be invisible.

While driving home from the clinic appointment, and while I shopped, I brooded about Baby Beth's temper and her hyperactive ways.  God was giving me another angry, hyper child to raise?  How would I manage?  Was this fair, to be given two difficult children? (Don't answer that.  I know it's an extremely childish question to ask God, when others have children who suffer horrible physical/mental things, in comparison.)

By the time I'd reached home in my drenched, rushed, stressed state, I didn't know it, but my own temper was ripe for an explosion.

Afterwards, I felt so convicted.  All I could focus on was this:   I'm no better than my two angry children!  

God was showing me something big today.  My approach to handling the kids' anger has been all wrong, all along. 

 "Just who do you think you are, behaving like that?!"   Yes, I've been know to get angry at their anger.  Peter has heard this statement from me many a time.

The Galatians passage tells me, "You who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness....for if anyone thinks he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself."  

As the parent I am nothing, thinking I am something.  I am not gentle, bearing with my children in love, except on the easiest of days.  They look to me for direction in how to tame their tempers, and instead of providing them with tools, I answer them with my own anger (raising my voice).  

I know the Galatians passage doesn't mean we shouldn't discipline our children firmly.  I'm not starting a discussion on discipline techniques.  Children need firmness, but one can be firm and gentle, at the same time.  We would do well to remember that our children don't choose their flaws.  They don't set out to punish us, or exasperate us.  

They are simply weak--sinners, like us, in need of parental grace and gentle restoration.

Are we as gentle with them as our Lord is with us?  What punishment do we get for our fits?  In our parenting, do we see ourselves as something, when we are nothing?  Do we aim to punish our children for making us miserable (punishment mentality)?  Or are we more interested in having them humble themselves before God, confessing their sins, and asking Him for strength?  

These are all questions for me, not for you, mind you.

These two have their moments, but raising them is essentially a breeze.  They have Daddy's mild-mannered temperament.  He is easily frustrated, but still, he's slow to anger, easy to calm, bearing with others in love.  Not given to brooding or selfishness, these two, like my husband, will be the better half in their marriages someday.

We went to visit my friend Phyllis (left), who was here visiting her sister in Ohio.  I taught first grade with Phyllis in California for several years.  She brought me to the Lord, so there is a special bond between us.  I like to think of her as my spiritual mother (she's 66 years old...a widow for twenty years...husband committed suicide).  She was a missionary in China for two years recently, and just got back a few months ago from a short-term mission trip in Africa, where she taught second grade in an orphanage.  She intends on returning to Africa for a four-month mission trip later this year.

 Her sister has an enormous backyard, full of foliage.  She visits once a year and my children love catching insects on this lovely property. Peter caught his first praying mantis of the season.  He is still so excited a day later that school was a wash today--except for science, of course.