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This Thanksgiving my kids were old enough (ten and five) to make fun of our family tradition of stating what we are each thankful for. They shouted from the back seat of the car, “Oh, Mom, you’re thankful for us!” and then laughed uproariously at their own cleverness.

I’m thankful they feel safe enough to make fun of me, at least within reason. Last summer I was invited to speak at the memorial service of a friend who died much too young, in a car accident. About my friend I commented that she offered true friendship, including the fact of being able to take her love for granted. If my children feel that from me, then I have even more gratitude, because they know they’re loved, and they can laugh about it. What better report card could a mom ask for?

I took my ten-year-old daughter to a talk at a local children’s hospital about “Growing Up”. We sat in an auditorium with fifty other sets of moms and pre-adolescent daughters getting the full scoop on puberty’s many new experiences. The instructor Julie, who has been teaching the class for seventeen years, was wise in the way that only someone who helps generations of kids grow up can be. She had a few thoughts too good to keep to myself.

Children come into our lives to make us better people.

Think about it. Regardless of your status in the life of a child, as parent, aunt, friend, they do exert a pull on you, don’t they? The other night at a dinner party, my friend the hostess pulled me aside and said, “You bring such a lightness to your mothering. How do you do it?”

I had to laugh. Before I had my first child ten years ago, no one would have regarded me as having a whole lot of lightness in me. I was a brooding person, interesting but as people told me regularly, not exactly effortless. When I think back on how hard both my pregnancies were, how they derailed a budding career, how they damaged my health and how many lonely days I spent overwhelmed by the demands of motherhood, feeling like a failure because mothering was all I seemed to be able to manage, laughter isn’t exactly the feeling that comes to mind. I feel more like what Joseph Campbell referred to in “The Hero’s Journey” as being in the underworld, in the ashes, removed from normal life in exile with strange, demanding creatures who’s intentions were wholly selfish. And like a protagonist in an epic story, I re-emerged, with varicose veins perhaps, but also with a sense of humor.

What greater gift could I have received than to slowly climb back into the light with these two smart-alecky cherubs holding my hands? I realize that all this is temporary. I guess as we watch our children grow up, time takes on a meaning and a bitter sweetness we never saw before. That’s also a gift. Children remove the existential morass. No time to brood when you have meaning tugging at your hand, urging you on.

The other advice our wise workshop leader gave us was for children as they move toward adolescence, but it could apply to so many adults I know. She said that children this age ask their parents variants of only five (or so) questions. Am I normal? Am I important and Included? Is it going to hurt? Am I ready/do I have the right training/equipment/preparation? Where do we (as a family and as individuals) stand on this?

That’s it. I guess as parents, we could write the book on any one of them. And, as time goes by, I’m sure we all will.

Thank you, Children. Now, who spilled the cereal?

Posted on November 28th, 2005 by MomStar
Filed under: Uncategorized, Daily Life