1. That I really, really didn't ever tell my parents anything about what was going on in my life from about age 7 to 20.
2. That I started having sex wayyyy too young
3. That I was miserable a lot of the time as a kid and I don't think many people knew.
4. That I used to throw these little crab apples off the highway overpass and try to hit cars on the way to school.
5. That I used to troll through the sewer system in my neighborhood looking for cool bugs.6. That the reason I "never lived up to my optential" was because I was deathly afraid of failing.
7. That although I would have denied it till the cows came home, I wanted my parents to protect me and to set and enforce limits.
8. That I used to climb out of my second story window and down the Dogwood tree outside my room to meet friends at Oval Park late at night and one time there was a KKK rally going on (hey, it was North Carolina after all) and it scared the CRAP out of me and I never told anyone.
and lastly,
9. that being a kid is hard. It can be wonderful and joyous but it can also be sad, and stressful, and scary. Parents can act as a buffer but only if their kids talk to them, and if a kid doesn't want to talk, there's no way to make them.
What is the secret? How do you raise a kid who talks to you, who trusts and confides in you, and with whom you listen and discuss and guide and restrict and teach? I fear my time to find the answer to that is running short..
4 comments:
I think if anyone finds the answer it will be you. Then, you'll tell me.
I think you are already on the right track. You are creating trust and love and joy with your babies. They know you are there to comfort and heal them, to laugh and cry with them, to listen to them and tell them what to do. They count on you and you rise to the occasion. You let them succeed and fail and they watch you succeed and fail, with grace. You let them know that they (and you) are not perfect, nor are supposed to be. All of that makes up the building blocks to a trusting loving relationship with your kids. You are already doing this, my friend.
so happy to see you're writing again. We all need more Harvard to Homemaker in our lives. At least I know I do.
Hey beauty, maybe the fact that we're completely focused on our kids and delighting in our children and all with the SAHM gig, will cause them to talk to us. At least that's how I rationalize my existence.
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