Being a Parent

I am writing today because I am troubled and unsure. I need to organize my thoughts and generally writing helps. It is my plan to one day have these blogs put into a book and give each of the kids a copy. I purposely write down the good and the bad -- I want to my kids to know that I am not a perfect parent nor are they perfect children. I want them to know that I love them all dearly and that I try to do the best I can with the knowledge I have now but still, there are days when I feel like a complete failure. My kids have done more to push me towards God than any other situation in my life.

The thing that I want most for the three of them is to have a relationship with God. If they have that, then eventually, everything else I value will fall into place. I value honesty, love, joy, peace, perseverence, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. I want my home to be full of the fruits of the spirit and I want my children to fully experience them. Yet, so often, I fall hopelessly short and wonder how I can teach my children the importance of these things when I am ill-tempered, curt and wishing to be anywhere but here. I want to be the type of mom who is understanding, forgiving, loving and especially gentle. I can't even begin to write how many times I fail. The kids push me past the limits of my patience, past my knowledge, past my ability to control myself. I feel like each new morning means another day on a taffy puller while God stretches me a little more here to push me to have just a little more patience and the next day He pushed me a little more there so I can work on gentleness. Some days, like today, I feel like He has pushed me too far. I am completely at a loss; I have no idea. If you know me at all, you know how much I hate not knowing what to do. I have prayed over and over again that God be in control and to just let Him take over but 5 minutes pass and I'm right back to worrying again.

I guess I should explain. Heather just lies and lies and lies. She has struggled with this off and on as a kid, which I think is pretty normal. We have always told her that she will get in more trouble for lying than telling than truth. We have always told her that there is nothing she can ever do that will make us not love her. This year, the lying has jumped up a few notches, we can't go more than a few days without her lying to her father or me. Sometimes, I think she tells so many lies she can't even remember the truth anymore. She lied to me yesterday about 2 completely benign things and then put the truth on her FaceBook page. We were very informally chit-chatting about school and what is going on in her life. Had she told me the truth, it wouldn't have changed our conversation at all. I think this bout of lying has hit me harder than all the other times. I do not approve, but at least I understand when she lies to not get in trouble. But to lie just to lie and then post statements to the contrary on FaceBook? I feel like she slapped me in the face! She knows we read her FaceBook page, both her father and I are her friends on FaceBook.

I HATE getting on to her, I HATE punishing her and I HATE it when she is disappointed. I know that she is angry at me, even though I am not the one who lied. She has lied so much that we just don't trust her anymore. Paul took away her cell phone indefinitely last night; it was the last straw for us. We are so sick of not being able to believe a word that comes out of her mouth. I told her she couldn't go to the YMCA alone anymore because I just didn't trust her to do what she says she is going to do. It's a sickening, horrible feeling to not be able to trust your child. I keep wondering what we did wrong? How did we raise a kid who lies and lies and lies when Paul and I HATE lying more than any other thing in the world? We don't lie, why does she?

Why am I so plagued with guilt? I feel awful, like I have wronged and dissappointed her. I took her to get donuts for her class party today and bought her a soda to alleviate my guilt a little. But, what have I done wrong? Where are these feelings of guilt coming from? Why does punishing her make me feel so bad? I love her so much, I don't want her to be a liar. I know it is my job as a parent to help her understand this. I don't know how to help her see this. I don't know how to get her to stop lying. I wish I knew why she lied so much. And, I am back to square one, praying that God will take over this situation. I know God is trying to teach me something but I haven't quite figured it out yet. I want to help her through this, I want to be supportive and loving and see her through to the day when she values truthfulness. I just don't know how yet. I keep praying that I will be the step-mom she needs me to be.

In all fairness, the boys push me too. Caleb has forced me to learn about self-control and gentlenss. He pushes and pushes and pushes until I feel I am going to explode! It breaks my heart that he has learned and internalized my short-temper and has one himself. I am now having to learn to keep myself calm so I can teach him to be calm. I am now sending myself to my room when I lose my temper so I can model appropriate behavior to him. It's been really, really hard to change such an integral part of myself but I keep going because I love him so much and I don't want him to have a short fuse. I am learning to not let my anger control me and to dig deep to find some form of gentleness to approach him with. When I am able to do this, it works so much better with him. He needs me to do this for him and I keep pushing myself for him.

Zachary teaches me peace and perseverance. He loves to sit on the couch with me and cuddle. I have a hard time making time to do this but when I do, it's relaxing and fills me with tranquility. When I sit between Caleb and Zachary while they watch a show I find myself thinking how nice it is to be still and just love on them. Zachary is also a monkey-child and loves to destroy everything. He pulls books off the bookshelves and rips them up, he loves to dump boxes of things on the floor, he literally hangs from our light fixtures, he jumps on all the furniture, he sticks things in the toaster, he is curious about EVERYTHING! But his way of learning about things is to take them apart and destroy them. There are times when I just go in the other room and hide because I don't have anything left to give. As a responsible parent, I should not do this. I need to put him in time out every single time he does these things. I need to have him help me clean up the mess every single time. I don't, because he wears me down. I am working on this because it is what he needs me to do. He will never learn not to destroy things if I don't teach him. I have to dig deep within myself and find the willpower to keep going and keep trying even if I want to run away and hide for just a few minutes.

I want to be all that they need me to be. I want to be wise and provide them the guidance they need. I want to be gentle and cover them in love. I want to be joyful so that they learn to be happy regardless of life's circumstances. I want to be strong so I can teach them to persevere through life's difficulties.

I am not writing this for reassurance. I know that I am not the most horrible parent out there. I am writing this to help me work out my thoughts and to let my adult children know how much I struggled with the choices I made regarding them. When my children become parents, I want them to know that it's OK to not have all the answers. It's OK to mess up, because they will too. Their children, my sweet future grandchildren whom I can't wait to meet when the time is right, will push them too. My kids are forcing me to become a better person and I am so thankful for them. Even through this difficult time with Heather, I know that God is going to do something, I just don't know what it is yet. I love my kiddos and know that they will grow up to be good people. I am so proud of all 3 of them, even when they are struggling with their own issues.