Parenting

I am a teacher at heart.

I love to transmit information, ideas, skills.

I like to think deeply, like to communicate deep thoughts.

Which is why I was nervous when I was asked to teach Sunday School to second graders a few years back.

I love to teach, not to do worksheets with kids. I like deep doctrine, hearty theology, difficult passages. How could I do that with second graders? (I learned, somewhat)

This is why I was nervous when I was placed in a 3-year-old classroom this year.

I love to teach, not to babysit. How could I do that with 3-year-olds? (I’m learning)

It’s also why I’m kinda tentative with my own daughter.

Everyone tells new parents that it’s hard to mess up parenting a baby. You change them, you feed them, you love them.

But I love to TEACH. How can I teach my baby?

Mostly, I think of how I’ll teach her one day when I actually can.

And then I started noticing Tirzah Mae going over to the pile of books, pulling one out and babbling to herself as she leafed through the pages. She likes when I read the board books to her – but she prefers books with regular pages when she’s reading to herself. After all, that’s what her mama reads to HERSELF.

And then I started noticing Tirzah Mae grabbing a pen (my Zebra pens!) and holding them ever so carefully between thumb and forefinger, running the point along whatever surface is handy.

And then I started noticing Tirzah Mae perking up whenever music came on, waving her hands and singing along.

And I realized that now may not be the time for teaching Tirzah Mae to read or write or sing. It may not be the time for imparting information or attaining to skills. But it is the time for forming affections.

When I spend every spare moment (when my hands aren’t otherwise occupied) with my nose in a book, I teach Tirzah Mae that books are valuable and worth reading. When I spend my mornings writing as I do Bible study and as I jot down a note on what I’m reading or make a grocery list, I teach Tirzah Mae that writing is a valuable skill and worth learning. When I sing a song, turn on a CD, dance to music (in my own home and elsewhere), I teach Tirzah Mae that music is valuable and to be enjoyed.

She likely doesn’t understand the Bible stories I read to her every night before bed. She probably doesn’t get the deep theological truths in the hymns we sing as she falls asleep. She doesn’t know what the words in the Bible I read every morning mean.

But now is the time for forming affections. So even if I’m not lecturing, not explaining some truth. Even if she’s not internalizing the Bible passages or their meanings, she’s learning. She’s learning that the word of God is precious. That the truths found in hymns are beautiful. That they are important.

I don’t see outward signs yet, like I do with reading and writing and music; but I can continue modeling Christian discipline for my daughter and can do it with ever-renewed vigor when I am reminded that now is the time for forming affections.

In the past several years, I’ve seen not a few web articles focused on preventing temper tantrums. The gist of each of these articles is that temper tantrums are generally the result of a child’s unmet need, often biological.

A temper tantrum happens, the expert mother-blogger writes, because your child is hungry or tired or hasn’t been told what to expect. If a mother can just make sure her child is never hungry, never tired, and never unprepared, she can prevent temper tantrums.

I never gave much thought to these articles until recently, when Tirzah Mae started throwing temper tantrums – full-fledged, beat-on-the-floor-with-her-fists, angry temper tantrums. I observed that these did indeed generally occur when she was tired or hungry.

I wondered – are the mommy bloggers right? Are Tirzah Mae’s temper tantrums biological necessities? Are they a result of poor parenting? Are they God’s fault? Are they my fault? Or does she hold some responsibility for her actions?

Then, I found myself having a temper tantrum.

I generally forget about my temper tantrums until they’re upon me.

The thing that has been bothering me all through the month, that I’ve been patting myself on the back for handling so well? Suddenly it’s too much and my blood is boiling.

I don’t need to check my calendar to know what time of the month it is. This temper tantrum – these temper tantrums – the seemingly uncontrollable frustration and anger and disappointment and rage happens like clockwork once a month.

It feels like I don’t have a choice in it, feels like my biology insists upon this temper tantrum. I try to resolve to control myself, to fight against myself. But month after month, I lose the battle.

It’s my hormones. I don’t have a choice.

I can tell myself that, but it’s not true.

Sure, my biology contributes to my tantrum – but my sin contributes more.

It’s my sin that seeks its own, that refuses to see another perspective. It’s my sin that pouts instead of presenting my requests to God. It’s my sin that rages instead of seeking resolution, that harbors grudges instead of forgiving.

So what does this teach me about parenting my daughter?

I think it teaches me several things:

First, I must pray for my daughter.

When the flesh tries to control the flesh, it fails. It is only by the Spirit of God that anyone truly develops patience, kindness, and self-control. If I, a regenerated believer who has been walking with the Lord for over 25 years, still struggle so much with my temper, how much harder must it be for my daughter? Tirzah Mae’s temper tantrums should remind me that she, that we all, are sinners at the core and in need of salvation through Christ. As a parent, I should be regularly be bringing my daughter before the Lord, pleading with Him for her salvation.

Second, I must not excuse her behavior.

Just as I cannot excuse my own temper tantrums. I cannot excuse hers. Temper tantrums must be dealt with. Simply giving in to the demands she makes will not teach her anything – it won’t teach her to control her temper or teach her to go to the Lord for help to control her temper. It will teach her that temper tantrums get her what she wants – and she will continue to have them regularly. As a parent, I need to be teaching my daughter what is and is not appropriate behavior and what will and will not produce desirable results.

Third, I must not provoke my daughter to anger.

Ephesians 6:4 warns fathers not to provoke their children to anger – but I think it applies to mothers as well. While I can not prevent all of her temper tantrums, I can learn how to gently guard my daughter from situations where she feels that a temper tantrum is her only recourse. I can, to the best of my ability, make sure she is fed before she’s ravenous by establishing regular meal and snack times. I can, to the best of my ability, pay attention to her cues and put her to bed before she becomes over-tired. I can pull her out of crowds for a time out when I see that she’s getting overstimulated.

Finally, I must trust the Lord with my daughter.

It’s so easy to think that everything our children do reflects directly on us or to think that somehow we should be able to change our children’s behavior. But it doesn’t and we aren’t. Our children are their own people – and the only One who can change their hearts (far more important than changing their behavior) is God. So we must continue to entrust our children to His keeping.

Do I make parenthood look bad?

It’s the question I asked myself as Daniel drove us home from our twice-monthly dinner club.

We’re the first couple among the group who’ve had children while continuing to regularly attend – and when people ask me how I am, I’m likely to respond that I’m tired, Tirzah Mae’s not been sleeping, it’s got to be teething, or (my favorite line) “I signed up for this – and it’s only another twenty years or so.”

But is that the sum of how I feel about parenthood? How I feel about myself as a stay-at-home helpmeet or about Tirzah Mae as my 24/7 companion?

No. It’s not.

Parenthood is hard, make no mistakes about it. But it is also rewarding, fun even.

But the “Happy Food” friends ask me when I’m hungry because it’s an hour after my normal eating hour, when I’m exhausted because I’m at the end of the day (and quite possibly after my usual bedtime.) So I respond with a litany of complaints.

I remarked on this to Daniel and he responded that I was being honest. That I have found parenthood hard.

And it’s true. Parenthood has been hard. But I realized that even Daniel doesn’t see the fun I have.

By the time Daniel gets home from work, I’m hungry (it’s almost dinner time!) and I’m tired (it’s been a long day of work and play.) Tirzah Mae gets clingy right around the same time I’m trying to get dinner prepared, so I’m often feeling stressed about juggling cooking and a clingy child. So Daniel hears my frustrations, my exhaustion, my readiness for a break.

When Tirzah Mae and I go out in the morning and I talk with other moms, I’m more than likely stressed about having had to get out of the door by a specific time and I’m working to keep Tirzah Mae’s normal morning energy under control so she’s not disrupting whatever we’re doing. So I’m likely to be happier than at night, but still frustrated.

What no one else sees is what happens in the mornings and early afternoons, while Tirzah Mae and I are both well rested and well fed. We roll around on the floor laughing. We dance around the living room. We make faces at one another. We cuddle. We go out on the front porch and watch the rain streaming down, occasionally sticking our hands in the overflow from the gutters. We talk through the ordinary events of our day – making oatmeal, changing diapers, making the bed, putting on makeup or brushing my hair, cleaning the toilet, watering the garden, washing dishes, emptying the dehumidifier, folding laundry or hanging it to dry,

I’m sorry for how I represent parenthood. It’s not as bad as I make it look.

The plan was that she would drink her bottle on the way over to our missions pastor’s house, she’d fall asleep in her car seat, and then we’d set her car seat in some remote corner at their house while we visited with our mission’s care team.

Instead, she refused the bottle, stayed stubbornly awake for the drive, and spent the entire visit (all of which was after her normal bedtime) climbing around on the floor where we sat.

Well, except when she grew hungry and I pulled the bottle out of my purse to feed her with.

I know our missions pastor’s wife breastfed – her daughter got fussy while we were visiting during a new person welcome function when Daniel and I were new at the church, and she and I talked a bit about breastfeeding. Our missionary had been breastfeeding her sweet daughter as we all talked. She’d mentioned wanting to maybe learn more about maternal/child health so she could help the women she worked with – and mentioned breastfeeding specifically as part of that.

And I just pulled a bottle out of my purse.

I’m not usually self-conscious about my mothering – Daniel and I have been entrusted with the care of our daughter, and we’re caring for her as we know best. I don’t obsess over what anyone else thinks about that. I’m pretty confident that I’m doing the right thing – and I don’t need validation from others to give me that confidence.

Until I pulled a bottle out of my purse.

At that moment, I worried what these people would think. I’m a bottle-feeding mom. I don’t value breastfeeding. I don’t understand its importance. I’d just told one of the other women that I’d been a WIC dietitian before Tirzah Mae was born – would she think WIC wasn’t pro-breastfeeding?

I stuck the nipple in Tirzah Mae’s mouth and she sucked it down like the bottle-feeding pro she is.

No one mentioned it.

I wanted to defend myself, to interject that Tirzah Mae was getting expressed breastmilk. Could I somehow work the fact that I still have breastmilk from Tirzah Mae’s hospitalization in my freezer into the conversation? There was no opportunity. No need, really. But I wanted to defend myself from what I feared the other women were thinking.

Everyone’s eyes were closed to pray when Tirzah Mae grew fussy again. I stood and we walked to the side of the room to breastfeed. She calmed down and I returned my blouse to normal. Someone closed the prayer time and everyone’s eyes opened again.

It’s the first time I’ve ever bottle-fed in public.

I was telling my grandma about our Bradley class (I think) when she commented that she’d heard about natural childbirth somewhere toward the end of her childbearing years. She told her doctor she’d like to try. He told her no, she didn’t. She had twelve children, including one set of twins. None were born “naturally”.

I was talking with Daniel’s grandma early on in our marriage (before we were pregnant) and somehow we got on the topic of childbirth and breastfeeding.

She doesn’t remember anything about how her children were born – she was out for their delivery.

She didn’t even see her babies for a fair while after they were born – but she breastfed all four.

Daniel’s other grandma didn’t breastfeed her children. “It wasn’t encouraged in those days,” she told me apologetically. Now she regrets that she didn’t “nurse”. She’s so glad I’m nursing Tirzah Mae. “It’s such a wonderful thing,” she said.

I was mentioning how NOT fun pumping had been when we’d had to do that – but that my supply had been abundant. My grandma told me she’d tried with her first but that it didn’t work out. Grandpa complained about all the money that Similac got from them – twelve children’s worth.

None of Tirzah Mae’s great-grandmother’s had ideal situations. But they managed the best they could. They raised their children with the resources that were available.

And they raised some pretty terrific children.

It’s worth remembering, even as I long for the ideal – and long that the ideal could be available to as many women as possible – that generations of women have experienced the less-then-ideal, have pressed through, have raised their families well.

Natural childbirth. Immediate skin-to-skin. Successful breastfeeding.

I wish that every woman had the physical capability and the support she needed to achieve them.

But when she doesn’t?

She can still mother well.

Take heart, mothers who feel disappointed with your birth or breastfeeding experiences. It’s okay to be disappointed. For those who were coerced, it’s okay to be upset. But your birth or breastfeeding experiences do not define your mothering.

You do.

Our grandmothers pressed through the less-than-ideal and raised our parents well. You can too.

Anxious caregiver stays up all night applying compresses to feverish child’s face, chest, limbs.

Child tosses and turns, moaning and breathing laboriously.

Everyone knows that the child is on her deathbed, everyone wishes they could do something – but to no avail. They stand vigil outside the child’s door, waiting for news. The doctor’s worried face declares that the danger is real.

Then, as daylight breaks, the child’s fever subsides. She falls into a “deep, unlabored sleep.”

The doctor declares the worst to be over, orders the anxious caregiver to sleep.

All breathe a sigh of relief. The child will live.

What story am I telling?

I’m not really sure. I feel certain I’ve read this story or a variation on it at least a half dozen times if not more – but I can’t remember where.

Do you know?

All I know is that I felt a little like I was in this story (and yes, I am being melodramatic) last night.

Tirzah Mae went to sleep at nine, woke up screaming at 10:30, midnight, one o’clock, two o’clock, three o’clock, four o’clock, and five o’clock. I had a nightmare that I was (thankfully) able to wake myself up from at 11:15.

It’s been four weeks now that Tirzah Mae’s not been sleeping well, been waking up screaming, been inconsolably fussy during the day. My own sleep has (understandably) suffered.

We took her to the doctor Friday, got some medication. And this weekend has been the worst that it’s been so far.

But this morning, as I was reaching my very wits end, I breastfed Tirzah Mae and she fell into a “deep, unlabored sleep”. She slept for four hours (longer than she’s slept at a stretch since returning from Lincoln on Easter Sunday).

And her mother relaxed into sleep as well. The worst is over. The child will live (and so will her mother.)

To look at my blog, you’d think I go from bedrest to vacations and back…

…but I know you understand how life with a newborn can be, even if I don’t blog the nasty little details (We cloth diaper. ‘Nuff said.)

To tell the truth, I didn’t realize having a newborn would be this difficult.

I knew there wouldn’t be much sleep, that the baby would cry, that there’d be nasty messes to clean up. That part I expected – and I think I’ve coped with it relatively well.

The part I didn’t plan on was how hard it’d be to get anything done.

I expected to be able to at least keep up with the house, maybe start blogging regularly again, do a few craft projects here and there. But my time is fractured, breastfeeding takes more time than I anticipated and there are times Tirzah Mae will not be content anywhere except on me (and not in a sling, either.)

There was a week (okay, maybe a month) there where I cried every evening around 6, frustrated at how little I’d gotten done. Then I started keeping a list. Every day I keep a running tally of what I’ve done – diapers changed, breastfeeding sessions completed, laundry washed and put away, meals made, chapters read. It and my husband’s encouragement (I think he thinks I get even more done than I actually do, but don’t tell him – it’s kinda nice that he thinks I’m superwoman) has mostly alleviated the six pm crying jag.

But now there’s the one o’clock blues.

I’ve learned to not be on too strict a schedule in the mornings, to let it be okay if I’m just emerging from my bath around eleven. I’ve mostly come to a peace about that – sneaking in productivity here and there. But, inevitably, I will sit down with lunch and start thinking through what I’ve still got to accomplish with the day (most notably, dinner) – and then the one o’clock blues will hit.

Tirzah Mae is absolutely unpredictable in most respects – she has no predictable sleep or wake cycles, feeding schedule, or even preferred activities. One moment she’ll love a certain activity and calm down right away, another day she’ll act like it’s torture. We’ll think we’ve figured something out because she slept for three hours in her own bassinet – but the next day we’ll be unable to replicate it. The only consistent pattern I’ve figured out so far is that Tirzah Mae WILL get fussy at one pm.

And NOTHING will satisfy her unless she is laying across my chest with me being absolutely still.

Can mama read a book? Maybe. Once Tirzah Mae is asleep, as long as mom doesn’t move.

Can mama write a blog post? Probably not. That generally implies that mama is sitting up, usually a no-no for Tirzah Mae at one o’clock.

Can mama plan a menu, make a grocery list, fold laundry, or do Bible study?

Take a wild guess.

But here I do her an injustice. I usually can do something – it’s just that I have no idea what it’ll be until I’ve tried and failed at several. Which means that I can’t plan ahead that at one I’ll do [blank].

I can’t plan ahead to be productive during that time. I just have to acknowledge that it’s no-man’s time. I have to set it apart as rest time. And if I get something done? That’s a special unexpected bonus.

I haven’t learned it yet – how to be okay with just sitting still. But I’ve acknowledged that I need to learn it – that’s a step in the right direction, right?