On Parenting: The Story of All of Us
On facing our regrets and the pursuit of flourishing
"Actually, I think I have had trauma, mom. When you were sick in the hospital and dad had to be with you? All the sudden, we were often alone. Just like that, I had to grow up."
It was the first time this child had really opened up to me about their experience while I was ill. I was thankful that I’d been intentionally working through my mom guilt about being sick and involuntarily abandoning my kids for the year. Otherwise, I’d probably be smothered by it in this conversation.
Although I have a pretty good idea of how much my lupus-pregnancy and subsequent flares had affected all my kids, they’ve each had their own way of processing it. On the outside they seem okay, but I frequently see the lingering effects of it on them.
And although it was no fault of mine, it still cleaves me in two. No child should have to carry the weight of their parent’s illness—whether physical or mental (in my case both)—but it seems to be a trauma many kids have had. It is too easy to carry the injustice of it on our own backs, as if we could solve this problem ourselves. We can't.
The subjective mark
There seems to be an inevitable cascade of shortcomings we have as parents. Maybe it is in our inability to be present physically, mentally, or emotionally. Maybe it is found in being clueless and incompetent. Or maybe we just plain run out of capacity.
Then, there are those of us who struggle with infertility and have had dreams crushed. And there are the many who are single or who've heard a call to a vocation that keeps them from raising children. No thanks to heavy cultural expectations, even those without children hear the whispers that they’ve failed to meet the mark.
Whatever our stories are regarding parenthood, there is still a path of flourishing for all of us.
*Note: throughout this essay I exchange the term motherhood for parenting, but not because I am exclusively talking about being a mother. Simply, motherhood has been my experience as a parent.
Survival days
I was a good mom for my first three children in their early years—or at least I kept them alive and gave them affection. But I never really felt present for my first two. Yes, there was the lack of sleep, hormone crazies, and learning how to care for little ones. But it was more than that. Only in retrospect did I realize that I had postpartum depression. It didn't help that my marriage was a mess, or that I was defining my identity by being a mom. Trying to fit into a flawed mold of Biblical womanhood only added to the problems.
When you don’t run
You know what I am proud of now? I am proud that I stayed. I didn't give up; I faced hard things. There were more than a few times I had to convince myself to drive back home instead of wherever the highway was pointed. To not pack my bags and escape.
In retrospect, my urge to avoid this difficulty makes sense (if you’re familiar with it, I’m an enneagram seven). But at the time I thought there was something wrong with me. No other mom I knew had confessed to me that sometimes they wanted to just run.
I am grateful that a strong value of faithfulness was developed growing up in church. (It’s nice to know sometimes these easily manipulated values can also pay off in positive ways!) I also see God’s grace that he instill in me some sort of biological mama bear leash to my children, too, despite feeling frequently disconnected from or numb to children. Even if I wasn't fully present with them, I was present by feeding them and dressing them up like little dolls.
The woman facing the door
Recently, while out writing, I saw a new mom. She came into the shop, and sat sipping her coffee with a dazed look on her face, a baby in the stroller besides her. She looked exhausted. I wanted to talk to her—I always want to talk to moms who look overwhelmed. I wonder if they are getting enough sleep or struggling through postpartum depression, too.
When my kids were little, various strangers reached out to me from the blue, bestowing on me little random acts of kindness. Their actions told me I was seen and gave me strength. I want to do the same for others. This time I got my chance.
As the new mom got up to leave, she neared the door where I was sitting. Then she stopped in front of it, flummoxed, as if it was the most insurmountable barrier she’d ever come across. Thrilled to help, I jumped up, offering to hold the door. As we began to chat, she told me about her baby, but the conversation quickly pivoted to how hard it was to have a newborn. I empathized, told her I had felt the same as a new mom, and encouraged her a little. She walked away with a lighter step.
As soon as the joy of helping someone died down, I was hit by waves of sorrow. I’ve been putting together that I didn’t just lose my youngest son’s pregnancy to lupus, but I lost his infancy as well. I was just too ill to be present.
All our regrets
I used to feel a lot of shame for who I was not, especially who I wasn’t in my kids’ most formative early years. I’d blame myself for any of their struggles—“If only I had given her more emotional attachment, she’d have felt more secure. Then her brain would have developed with less anxiety.”
Whether it is guilt for not emotionally attaching, or for being in-and-out of the hospital, it is easy for me to focus on where I think I messed up or when I fell short of ideal. I see similar shame reflected in other parents’ faces and hear the regret in their voices. It is even more difficult to address when we see the consequences of our choices or unwanted realities. Regardless, I can confidently state that condemning myself doesn’t help me one bit, just like your “if only’s” don’t help you. Our shame and regrets don’t build a better world.
Regret seems to be a defining characteristic of parenthood. Its very existence makes me wonder if parenting was not a responsibility crafted for our world as we know it, but rather, it was designed for a world flourishing and whole. A world before The Fall. And if so, our perpetual missing of a mark simply means that parenting is redeemable.
“…[Parenting] was created through him and for him.”
Colossians 1:16b NLT
Designed for flourishing
One of my favorite practices is to reimagine reality through the lens of restoration. It is how I’ve been able to keep engaging in difficult social issue for over twenty years as an activist. I have hope, found in the way of Jesus and in the narrative of scripture. The hope of restoration is where broken things are made whole, wrongs are righted, captives are freed, beauty is redesigned from ashes, reconciliation and reinstatement occurs between the father and his prodigal child, and God and humankind walk together once more.
We use words for this that make me smile, words like wholeness, shalom, goodness, reconciliation, restoration, redemption, and flourishing. These descriptors are the way of The Kingdom.
How does the way of the Kingdom look in parenting? What does flourishing look like?
Flourishing becomes possible when we take hold of forgiveness, letting it fill the gap between what we hoped for and where we fell short. Flourishing is possible with a God who knows we are but dust, and loves our children more than we do. Flourishing is born out of our grief, our lament, for what went wrong, for all those regrets. Flourishing in parenting occurs when we are formed in emotional and spiritual maturity. Flourishing is created when the lonely are put in families.
Moving towards thirval days
We all have “survival days” and “thrival days.” Often I know what kind of day it is going to be in our home based on if either my husband or I state, “I’m just trying to survive,” or one of us prays something astounding, like that God would help us thrive despite everything coming at us. (Maybe I’m the only one who calls it a thrival instead of thriving, but I’m sure you’ve caught on by now.)
Honestly, survival days are often our reality, just taking one step after the other. Based on our context and reality, these days make sense. Life with four kids, trauma, work, an unstable community, chronic illness, and while living in the most expensive city in the country without family nearby is all very hard.
But there are those days one of us has the physical energy, vision, and audacity to hold the hope of flourishing as we carry our responsibilities.
It occurs to me that flourishing days can happen everyday. Maybe these days won’t totally fall into the thriving category—and maybe they’ll even still be far from it. But just even a quarter inch scooch towards flourishing, through an expectant desperate prayer, is the path of hope we walk, headed to wholeness.
My redemption baby
My third child felt like my redemption baby. I’m not sure where that leaves my fourth one, but my littlest born in all my trauma doesn’t discount my wonderful third baby experience.
By the time my third child came around, I was a much healthier individual. I was actually excited about having another baby and not just because I felt like I had to be excited. We were all grateful I had also found a fulfilling purpose outside the home (working for a church and founding nonprofits). I knew who I was, I was learning how to make boundaries, and was surrounded by community.
Even though he had a difficult birth, I knew how to ask for help. I also had the perspective to remember that babies only last for a season. In addition, I was prepared for an onslaught of postpartum depression, my friends on call. But this time, it never came.
I also found it surprising to discover how different and positive my experience could be as a mother. I had believed some myth that having children is the same each time around, when it totally wasn’t. Yes, there were days I felt trapped, and there were still the hormones, lack of sleep, and craziness of having multiple kids around, but I really was grateful to be a mom of a little one again. I was largely present. And this time, I enjoyed it.
Our stories of flourishing
Those of us who are parents—either through birth, adoption, miscarriage, or even infertility—all have a story unique to the struggle. These stories shape us, but they don't have to make us.
As I changed and my context changed, so did my experience as a parent. Then as my children grew older, from toddlers to primary school-aged, then to preteens and teenagers, my experience continues to morph. As I write this, it feels like it is the most obvious fact ever. But what I observe is that we have a hard time living in the truth that we are not static. Our future experiences—even in response to hard or triggering things—can also change.
If we honestly believed this, we’d be pursing the hope of flourishing in each of our contexts.
Our regret can be replaced with grieving a loss. Our shame can be replaced with forgiveness. Where we’ve fallen short of an ideal—God’s, ours, or culture’s—flourishing is still possible.
Redemption can be written into all of our stories—including our stories as parents.
A poem
This is how I flourish:
I am mother, one role of many
God's partner in purpose extending
I am more than the regrets of parenthood
Those failings of my mind, body, and soul
Forgiveness brings life to what shame has choked
For the countless times I was at the end of my rope
As I grow more whole, I mother more
Not just my children at my door
Seeds planted, watered, and grown
Become flourishing fields around the globe
Love this :)
This was absolutely marvelous. Thank you.