Tag: parenting

Palm Sunday; a.k.a., sweaty-palms Sunday

Well, we did it. We parents survived a mammoth Lenten sacrifice: the Palm Sunday liturgy. Which, in the eyes of children, is tiresomely long and full of disappointment as they are told continuously that no, the palm branches are not for sword fighting your brother or tickling the person in front of us. And let’s face it, twisting a palm branch into a cross is one of the great Catholic mysteries.

It has gotten much easier over the years. Most of my children aren’t children anymore, and this year our toddler fell asleep during the penitential rite and didn’t wake up until communion, praise be Jesus. But hearing the musical cries and screams of children throughout the sanctuary reminded me of those sweaty Triduum liturgies when you have to trust that grace is real and somehow the prayers are passing through your ear canals and sticking somewhere in your consciousness.

If I could go back and give the younger-mom-me advice about wrangling children in Mass, I would say, “Girl, chill the eff out.” At the time, I thought I was teaching my children manners by insisting they sit still, kneel and stand when appropriate, remain mostly quiet. But looking back, I think it was 10% an attempt at parenting, but 90% a worry about being judged by others. It took several years to relax. Gradually, my husband and I both got used to spending time in the foyer or on the steps of the church, sometimes for most of the Mass. And even more gradually than that, we got used to not being angry the whole time we were in the foyer or on the steps of the church. We tried a rewards system, bribing, lecturing—and none of it worked. If anything, it made our kids loathe Mass. Eventually, we concluded that we would rather our kids wiggle and squirm, and come away with a give-or-take opinion about Mass, than hate it because they were constantly in trouble for just being a child.

Things settle. They figure out how to sit through Mass. And the younger ones learn from the older ones.

It was beautiful to hear the musical cries and screams of children in Mass today. I just kept thinking, “I feel ya kiddo. This is a long and strenuous Gospel to sit through.” It was also a rare year where I could close my eyes and—imagine this—pray and meditate along with the Passion. I’ve learned to treasure and appreciate those Masses, as they are few and far between.

As my children keep growing older (they do that), I am realizing that Mass will become contemplative for me once again. That time is coming. And while I’m looking forward to that, a part of me will mourn those crazy, sweaty Triduum liturgies with over-tired, hungry, half-crazed toddlers. I promise now, that when that day comes, I will look at a pair of young, frustrated parents and smile. I might even envy them. A little bit.

3 Rules of Improv for the Home

As a parent, there are lots of things that come out of your mouth which you never thought you’d have to say, like, “Do not chase the cat with a stick”, and “Yes, you have to change your underwear EVERY DAY”, or “Who took a bite out of the cheese brick in the middle of the night?” But the saying that takes the cake, which tops them all with its ridiculousness and frequency of replays is:

You are not in control of each other’s imagination!

I can’t believe how many times my husband and I have had to say this, usually with one child shedding tears of frustration and another fuming in rage. Here is an actual, real-life example: one daughter wanted her “magic” to be the color blue and wanted her brother’s “magic” to be the color red, but he didn’t want it to be red, he wanted it to be blue. It took us a while to figure out exactly what the conflict was, and I’ll never forget my husband’s face as he said, “Wait, wait, this ‘magic’ you’re talking about… is it an object you’re playing with, or is it pretend, as in imaginary, as in invisible?” It was, in fact, the latter, to which he replied in a low, firm voice, “You are not in control of each other’s imaginations. His ‘magic’ can be whichever color he wants it to be, and you’re just going to have to be okay with it.” He and I then debriefed, and laughed, and marveled at how often we had been called to intervene in imaginary games which made no sense to us but meant everything to our children.

And then it hit me: the rules of improvisational theater applied perfectly in this situation. Now, it’s not often that I realize what I spent a concentrated part of my life studying (and for which I am still paying for monthly) actually becomes useful. I was plum-giddy. I set out to teach my children some rules of improv. And… it worked.

Rules for Imaginative Play

#1 Comedy Comes in 3’s

How many times have you been sitting at the dinner table and heard the same joke repeated six, seven, fourteen times? Yeah, me too, and I’d rather stick a knife in my eye. So I showed my children vaudeville comedy routines like Charlie Chaplin, the Three Stooges, etc., to prove that comedy comes in 3’s. You take a drink from the wrong glass and spit it out once (funny), twice (hilarious), thrice (peeing my pants), four times (bored, what’s wrong with you?). I don’t know why; I don’t know what it is about our brains, but for whatever reason, the 4th time isn’t funny. Neither is the 12th. Therefore, a joke, punchline, or silly word may only be said three times in one sitting.

#2 We laugh WITH someone, not AT someone

Nothing kills creativity like self-doubt. This was especially apparent in the very small window of time I taught and directed high school theater. One of my mentor-teachers wisely told me (and I remembered this as a teenager) that a drama teacher spends the first year just breaking down the self-consciousness that keeps actors stiff, quiet, and uncertain. They’re so worried about what their peers will think and say (and let’s face it, people can be terrible to one another so the fears are real), that they don’t loosen up enough to play. But children, unless they’ve been through trauma, don’t have those walls up. They’re delightfully silly and their imaginations are wildly free. Imaginative play is vital for a child’s development—I would argue that it’s also vital for a strong faith-life—so it’s super important that each member feels free to be silly. Don’t mock or laugh at your playmates, but absolutely laugh with them! Don’t put down anybody’s ideas, which is related to the next, final, and most important rule:

#3 Yes, AND

One of the more challenging aspects of improv is working alongside someone else’s spontaneous ideas. If someone initiates a scene of invading aliens, you can’t decide that aliens aren’t really your thing and insist you’re an unlucky lobster in a grocery store tank. You also can’t half-ass the effort. The response has to be yes-and, meaning you immediately accept the idea and add to it. And, if you did get stuck with a bum-idea in the first place, the yes-and principle actually saves the scene much quicker than trying to completely change it. This is also the best way for children to approach imaginative play. It takes practice and a little coaching, but when kids use the yes-and principle while playing, each child (ideally) can feel heard, accepted, and included. It’s also important to establish that no one’s idea is dumb, stupid, boring, etc. And you don’t need to try to control the other person’s imagination; your different, unique ideas can work together.

a participating parent

Recently, I went to “Parent Participation” day at my daughter’s dance studio. It was, as the title suggests, an opportunity for parents to go through each stage of dance rehearsal with their student. I’m guessing the goal is for us parents to see all the hard work our children put into dance, maybe see how great the teachers are and how much fun they all have—which insures we keep pouring money into this extra-curricular machine. But I knew it would be humiliating. I was a dancer—and a mediocre one at best—about 20 years ago. But my daughter—Viva, as I call her here—was so excited about it, begged me to come, so I swallowed my pride and agreed.

When we arrived, the receptionist handed me a goody-bag of water, aspirin, and an ice pack. Very funny, guys. As I stood awkwardly in the room in my mom-yoga pants and Star Wars t-shirt, I quickly tied my hoodie around my waist to hide my mom-rolls. I kept expecting Viva to be embarrassed that I was there, but she was standing close, holding my hand, and beaming. Her confidence made me feel confident—for the first time in our relationship, our roles had reversed. The instructor turned the lights off, turned on some mood-music, and we laid on the floor ready to stretch. I wanted to crack a joke about my creaky back, but when I looked over at Viva, her eyes were closed, she was breathing deeply, 100% in the moment. She was in her element, more relaxed as an awake person than I had ever seen her. It was an incredible parenting moment—you know those moments when you see your child as a truly separate entity, becoming a unique person all of their own—and there was Viva, truly herself.

My daughter, this daughter, is the token extrovert in our family. I don’t know how it goes for other moms who homeschool extroverts, but for me it’s tricky and laced with guilt as I wonder how to feed the people-monster in her heart when I personally find extended social experiences exhausting. I’ve never read that book about love languages, but from what I’ve heard, Viva’s would be time-spent together. She’s right smack in the middle of six kids and doesn’t get the attention she would love. I hug her a lot, but she needs more sit-down-and-talk time for sure. And this seemed the perfect opportunity to spend time with her—on her turf, at her pace. As I fumbled and bumbled through the dance moves, I thought she would be embarrassed, but she wasn’t. To see her joy made me realize I need to make more of an effort to do things she likes to do—and these aren’t elaborate things, but simple stuff like go to Starbucks and share some sous vide bites, watch a girly movie, cook and bake together, garden together.

Each of my children has, in a unique way, challenged my comfort level. Each one has drawn me out, stretched me, sharpened me— sometimes with sparks. It’s one of the great mysteries and gifts of parenting. But it requires a degree of listening and perceptiveness, which is difficult when life gets busy. Viva reminded me it’s good to participate— to get down on the ground, roll around a little, play and relax, be a fool for love. It made me ready to listen.

Children in Mass

or, 400 years in Purgatory

There’s a brief window of life—usually in young adulthood while wrestling with purpose and vocation—when one prays more frequently, which leads to an abundance of grace and consolations; silence is golden and Mass is a retreat, even if the music is distractingly off-key or the preaching is dull. Finding a moment to sit in the quiet still of a dark sanctuary is relatively easy to come by, and it’s easy to start fancying yourself a regular contemplative, maybe even a saint-in-the-works. If you are in that stage of life right now, cherish it, but understand with a degree of humility that it’s a gift, a feast of perceptible grace before life gets real. Because, let me tell you, it won’t last.

There comes a time in a person’s life when Mass feels like a stallion-training pen and all wonderful, beautiful, contemplative thoughts that may have flooded the mind and heart during Mass previously are at once snuffed out with a merciless puff. And that merciless puff is called a toddler. Or two or three of them.

If you are in that particular stage of life, when Mass is a purgatory of tantrums, potty-trips, flying plastic toys, a mess of bodily functions (breast milk leakage, peeing, blow-out diapers, vomit, runny noses, take your pick), then I have three things to tell you: 1) I am/have been there, 2) this too shall pass, and 3) until it does, I humbly offer the following.

First of all, I am/have been there; I GET IT

Exactly when this reality hits parents varies, but for me it hit right away with our first. Trying to nurse in a wooden pew is tricky; equally tricky is trying to mix a bottle of formula. It’s not impossible, but it effectively takes your mind off of Mass for sure. But by the time your child is a toddler, forget it. You’re basically wrestling and contorting throughout Mass, if you’re lucky enough to stay in the pew, though a lot of time is spent in the foyer or outside or in the germ-infested cry rooms which are really named for crying mothers while children feel at last free to be as crazy as they like (oh, how I loathe cry rooms—can you tell?). If you’ve decided to brave it in the pew (or if you’re landlocked and forced to stay), it’s a sweaty mess of wrangling arms and legs, and a constant inner struggle of how-and-should-I-discipline-my-child-with-so-many-witnesses, convinced the furrowed brows are meant for you and certain people are wondering how mother nature ever allowed you to conceive a child, unworthy as you are. It’s torture.

Then you get home, everyone’s hungry and tired, all the energy for the day having been spent getting to and through Mass. Not so Sabbath-y after all, and definitely void of any contemplative prayer.

This, too, shall pass

Really, it truly does. This era of the migraine Mass will end eventually. I remember sitting in Mass with scrawly children and looking over to an opposite pew where a family of ten sat almost perfectly. Instead of a beacon of light, they were the most discouraging thing ever to see because it made me wonder what I was getting wrong. But now that’s us—our family of eight sits almost without incident through Mass (though, we still have our turn of stepping out with the little ones when needed). I think it’s a positive form of peer pressure. The little ones watch and follow the older ones. There’s an unspoken oh-this-is-what-we-do understanding, which is why it’s good for little ones to sit in Mass. Eventually they get it. So gird your loins and buck up, this is only temporary!

And until it is over, here is what I humbly offer to (hopefully) help you in the interim:

In stressful situations like Mass, it seems like our children are the ones making us miserable, but in reality we are the ones who make ourselves miserable. A two-year-old is just being a two-year-old. Sometimes I have a hard time paying attention in Mass in the best of circumstances, so I imagine for a child it’s quite a challenge. We have tried bringing church-related books or small toys to Mass, though for our kids that often becomes its own distraction. But maybe it’ll work for your kids. We found the best solution was sitting close to the front, or having our littlest ones sit at the end of the pew near the aisle so they could actually see what was going on. It’s not fool-proof. If a child is tired, hungry, has to go to the bathroom, or just feels especially naughty that day then nothing works, and you resign yourself to pacing the back.

If that happens, try not to get frustrated. Often times the source of my frustration was what people were thinking of me, how they must be thinking that I couldn’t control my child. If that’s a worry for you too, remember that people are not thinking that. And if they are, they have the problem, not you. The Church, taking a nod from God Himself (“Go forth and multiply”, “Let the little ones come to me”), encourages us to have children so the body of Christ should not be disturbed by hearing and seeing them at Mass. They are the future of the Church, so let them squirm and wiggle while they learn to love Jesus in the Mass. As they get older, talk them through what’s happening, point out the tabernacle, the altar, etc. And if a neighboring adult hears you, don’t worry—they might be learning something too.

To be sure, sometimes I was legitimately frustrated with my child because there are days when it was good old-fashioned belligerence on their part. As they get older, there were consequences for bad behavior in Mass. If they kept lying down (and we ascertained that they had slept and were not sick) then they had to lay down in their rooms for a while instead of having free time after Mass, which they did not like. Obviously you as the parent will make the best call. But associating Mass with a lot of restriction and punishment is, in the end, not the best attraction to Mass.

The next time you find yourself growing frustrated that you have to pace in the back with a misbehaving or tantruming child, or you’ve been exiled to the loathsome cry room, or you’re spending much of Mass waiting in the bathroom for your child, remember that you are being formed spiritually by the very act of willful, purposeful parenting. Choosing to care for your child even when you might rather sit and listen to the homily, or spend some silent moments in prayer, is an act of love, a discipline that will form your heart and please our Lord. It also means we have to purposely set aside time in the day for quiet prayer with God, even if it’s brief. But Mass, in the end, is not about what we’re doing. We don’t do anything in Mass that deserves His Body and Blood. It’s a gift. We have a responsibility to receive it worthily, with a clear conscience, in reverence and thanksgiving, but our participation in Mass doesn’t make us worthy. If you’re distracted during Mass by the act of parenting your child, you are fulfilling your vocation, you’re obedient to God’s call in your life. Try to be ok with that.

And if you don’t have children or yours are grown, please be kind and patient with those who do. An encouraging word is powerful. There have been several older women in my life who smile at me while I wrestle an escaping toddler back into the pew, and that little recognition means a lot in a stressful moment. In the reverse, I’ve had dirty looks from disgruntled Mass-goers. At first I felt humiliated, but now I know better. It helps to remember even the Apostles shoe’d the children away and Jesus corrected them: “Let the children come to me, for to such belongs the kingdom of God.”

stormy parenthood

I’ve been fortunate as a parent to have never felt competent. From the very beginning I have felt completely out of my league in both knowledge and skill, to say the least of experience. God threw me a curveball from my very first days of motherhood—and I thank Him for it. It brought me to my knees, and I haven’t risen up since.

Most recently, it has been my eldest son who has caused me the most befuddlement and angst (here, I call him Bear). The poor guy is utterly surrounded by women—he’s flanked by sisters, two elder and two younger. His younger brother is only now beginning to want to play and wrestle, but the 7-year age difference will require restraint on Bear’s part for a while. He’s ten years old, and around the same age and stage with his older sisters, I was equally befuddled because they started to change. It was like human plate tectonics—the hormones, the feelings, the body—everything starts to shift and adolescent natural disasters begin to avalanche. Sure, it’s frustrating and tiring, but most of all I begin to feel helpless. I want to help them through this trying stage, but it’s as though I have to get to know them all over again.

Recently, a friend from my parish wanted to get together with some other ladies and pray aloud for each other’s children. I had low expectations going into it, afraid it would be too like long days past at Quaker camp when we would all cry around a campfire while someone played worship songs. But it was surprisingly moving and powerful to listen to a friend pray out loud for my son, and petition God’s assistance in his life and mine as a parent.

In the weeks that followed, I noticed that when Bear had a blow-up or break-down, instead of reacting, somehow I didn’t. Somehow I remained calm. Somehow I listened. Somehow I tried to figure him out in that moment and do what was best for him. I could feel the grace of God in those moments, knew the words I was speaking weren’t my own. The confrontation would end and I would find myself shaking my head, kind of in awe of what just transpired.

Nothing’s permanently fixed, of course. From experience I know that soon we’ll pass through another confusing and trying stage of behavior. Parenting is forever clinging to a lifeboat at sea, constantly feeling out the movement of the ocean, riding each wave as it comes, learning some from experience, but relying mostly on grace.