On those early years of parenting

 

 

 

The other night my mom and I were talking about how important it is (and how difficult it can be) to fully embrace and enjoy the season of life you are in – whether you are a young professional in your twenties, a new mom in your thirties, a career woman in your forties or fifties, a retiree, etc.  People seem to fall into one of two categories that impede them from doing this – they are either relishing the past or focusing on the future (either dreading it or anticipating it).  I tend to fall into the future-focused group, but know lots of people who are more past-focused.  Both can rob you of the joys of the present, however!

I think it has taken me many years as well as several children to help me get my head about me in relation to this whole living in the present idea when it comes to parenting.  Although we are parents for life from the moment our first child is conceived, we are really only doing the hands-on parenting gig for about 18 years per child. When your first child is just born and you are struggling with the nursing, you are not getting any sleep, you are reading too many parenting books, you are not keeping up with cooking and laundry, you are exhausted, you are confused, it is almost gut-wrenching to envision surviving, much less mastering the whole parenting thing for EIGHTEEN LONG YEARS! When will the sleepless nights ever end?  And the fussing?  And the diapers?  The need to pay a sitter to ever leave the house again? It can seem so eternal from the perspective of a young mom. But then your baby becomes a toddler and learns to talk and walk, then she learns to go potty! (hallelujah!), and brush her teeth, then she can read and dress herself.  And then (in my case) you have another, and another, and another.  By the third one, your perspective completely changes, and you realize how fleeting and brief this whole hands-on parenting gig actually is!

If I look at my life on a 100-year timeline (yes, I fully plan to live to 100), the years where you are doing the physically exhausting work of parenting are just a tiny fraction of that life. 18 short years!  (Ok, so more like at least 27 in my case, but still relatively brief over a 100 year span!)  Wow.  Once you survive the early years of your first child and get them brushing their own teeth, wiping their own bottom, and reading, you realize how quickly it all happens.  And you survived. You probably even did a few things right. You might even be well on the way to raising a well-adjusted, kind, compassionate human being.  But wait!  That compassionate and cute human being is going to ABANDON you in a few short years to go to college, then marry someone you probably don’t like and move across the country for that dream job that the education you provided them with allowed them to be hired for!

Now that I have four and have survived (more than once) the physically demanding early years, I realize how precious these years are. Tiring, yes, but also so special.  I have a particular memory that now makes me laugh at my naiveté, of a time when I had just Sydney and Pierce and I took them to our neighborhood park to play (Pierce was a baby).  I remember getting there (presumably a little tired already from the life of mothering young ones) and helping little toddler Sydney up on the equipment and down the slide, back up on the equipment and down the slide, catching her as her unsteady feet slipped from time to time, then pushing her on the swing, all the while keeping an eye on Pierce in the stroller.  And while I was halfway enjoying this precious time with Sydney, I was also thinking to myself, “When will I ever have children old enough to come to the park and play on the equipment without me having to get up and help with every move they make?  In how many years will I be able to SIT DOWN for a few precious moments while they play happily and safely without me, for heaven’s sake!?!?  Might I ever possibly even be able to bring a book with me to the park while they play?” Then I spent some time doing the calculations and felt depressed at the prognosis.  No time soon was the answer, according to my math.

Little Sydney at one of our favorite parks in Cary. 

But now that I am more seasoned as a parent and that I am approaching the end of my reproductive years (how in the world did that happen?), I can look at these equally tiring park visits (I’m still not sitting down, people!) from the other perspective.  Wow, I only have a few more years of taking my kids to the park and spending this sweet time with them before they would prefer to play with their school friends at their houses WITHOUT ME! It is such a gift to have this time with them. Yes, I am still tired sometimes. Yes, I would LOVE to sit down with a book.  But that can wait. I have the next sixty years of my life for that.  For now I am a mom to little ones and I am so incredibly thankful for it.  I am so insanely thankful for babies number three and four, without whom I might not have gained a little more life-long perspective on this parenting journey. They have really grounded me and allowed me to relish the present, and to relinquish the initial desires of a tired, young, forward-looking mom to neatly plan out my life and keep my focus entirely on the future. Letting go of that mindset of planning out the future (when they are old enough to do “X” my life will be easier/better, we will be able to do "X" as a family, and I will be able to do "X") has revolutionized my ability to appreciate the present moment and enjoy even the most difficult phases of motherhood. (Ok, I don’t yet have a teenager, so my ability to “enjoy” that phase may never happen. I’ll keep you posted.)

 

Grant is already pretty independent at the park!

 

If you are a mom of littles and you are exhausted, draw out a timeline of your life and notice how brief this period of exhaustion is.  It will pass before you know it.  Even if you have four kids like me! Enjoy the many perks of mothering little ones: the sweet middle-of-the-night snuggles, the giggles, the quirky senses of humor, toddler talk, the hugs, the fact that they love being with YOU. By the time they leave the house you’ll probably have a good FIFTY years left for date nights, sleeping in, pursing other personal or career goals, and only having to brush one set of teeth and wipe one bottom a day!  Being a (sometimes tired) mom in your thirties (or twenties or forties) rocks!  Go with it!

 

Little Ryan swinging with a little help from Dad.

Pierce getting caught by dad in the pool.