Journal Entry 50: When Your Parenting Get’s Parented

Jesus, if you’re not in it, I don’t want it.

Journal Entry 50: When Your Parenting Get’s Parented

I’ve been a parent for twenty years, and I’m still learning how to do the job. You’d think, or at least I would think, that I knew what I was doing by now. The thing about parenting is that it’s always changing, evolving with each child’s unique personality, the technology and culture of the time, and you yourself change. I face this fact everyday within my large household and had a face full of it two nights ago.

          God’s been dropping subtle reminders on me about my slackness, but I was conveniently/stupidly ignoring them. Two nights ago I couldn’t ignore them anymore. Raine, not Rainy my wife, but Raine my 12yr. old failed to do her chores for the who-knows-how-many-times time. This time it was the dishes. I told her, if she can’t do her chores, she can’t get her pay. Don’t work, don’t get paid makes for a good lifelong lesson I figure. Raine apologizes, which if you have kids you know that may or may not mean anything, and she leaves the kitchen to go clean her room. The fallout comes shortly after.

          Rose, our 6yr. old mouthed something off to Raine after she’d just gotten in trouble. Rose likes to act like she’s one of the older kids, and this almost always goes badly. Raine called Rose a loser and walked passed her to their room. Needless to say, that was a bad idea, and the drama of the night began shortly after. Here’s the thing, I got into trouble. Yeah, I got into trouble by Rainy, my wife, and we ended up in a miserable confrontation about my lack of parenting and how Raine NEEDS me right now to spend more time with her and yet also discipline her bad actions.

          What just happened? If you’re asking yourself this, you’re right where I was at that time. Here, I’ll bullet point it to make it quick and hopefully less painful than my back and forth with my wife.

1.    I brushed off the confrontation between Raine and Rose, because both were guilty and I just didn’t want to deal with it. This was my first mistake, and the opening door to a miserable night.

2.    Remember I mentioned God had been dropping me hints about my slackness. I was about to get a bomb dropped on me to make sure I couldn’t ignore it anymore. That bomb would be in the form of an angry, tired, South American mother raised by the righteous fury of two pastors that aren’t afraid of conflict. I call her wife.

3.    My disciplining of our children has changed over the years, and it’s not a negative change far as I’m concerned, but I have gotten lazy since Ember was born. One major change is the fact that I try not to spank my kids unless they back me into a corner refusing to listen and do what is right. In my early years of parenting I had a temper, and I am shamed by it. So I stopped spanking unless it was the last resort, and I don’t do that if I’m angry. I try talking first, specially to the older kids like Raine, who can understand what I’m saying and the wisdom behind it. If talks don’t work, I throw in a discipline, like getting grounded for a week, or an extra chore like mowing the lawn or washing mom’s car, (something that helps the family but is a physical job at the same time.) Problem here is I’ve been lazy and haven’t been doing more than a quick talk and moving on, so I could just not deal with it.

Roughly two hours later I was sitting in the living room with my wife and talking things over after we’d calmed down. I was still feeling annoyed, but I also knew I was in the wrong, so I tried not to let pride deafen my ears to the truth. I also didn’t like hearing the truth, because it hurt. Rainy had nailed it on the head; when she told me Raine needed me to spend more time with her, be more in her life. Rainy didn’t just stop there, she pointed out the fact that all of my kids needed more time with me.

God has already been showing me how I was pulling away/not getting close with my kids. I didn’t want to acknowledge it, but I couldn’t ignore it anymore. Talking to Rainy, the reason came out without me needing to dig very deep. My younger years of parenting had been a mess with my x-wife then single parenting. There had been a lot of ups and downs, but I was there, I joked, played, wrestled, cooked the meals, cleaned the laundry, did art videos together, painted, played games like Minecraft and W.O.W with everyone. We were a rough batch of crazy survivors, but we were a family. We were a family.

My two oldest left home, came back, left home, came back and now I barely know them. My oldest son is plotting his best ways to get out of here once he turns 18, though, in his defense, he openly tells me he loves me but can’t stay in this crowded, loud, home. It just hurts when you give your all, yes some mistakes and shameful temper moments, but all the love you can, only to be shunned later in life. 20 years of parenting, and I am barely a thought on my two oldest lives. It sucks. In response, I grew defensive, and stopped pushing to spend extra time with the kids.

I don’t sit and do art with my kids anymore. We sometimes play games together, but it isn’t anything like it used to be around here. Since Ember was born I also stopped sitting at the dinner table and remained at the kitchen counter with our baby. I was failing my kids, and I knew it, and it wasn’t their fault. It was mine. Admitting this to my wife, who had just called me out for it earlier, made me face this fact.

I love my kids, and I thank God for them, but I wasn’t sacrificing my personal time for them. I take care of them, provide for them, talk about God and Jesus with them, have short conversations randomly, but I wasn’t going out of my way to make real time with them. It’s still amazing to me how well I managed to ignore this failing in myself. It was time to make some changes.

In an effort to do better, we’ve scheduled art nights twice a week with Raine and my younger girls. We just had one last night, and it went well. My art was maybe the worst of the group, but I will improve. Twice a week I will be working out with Ryder, my 14yr. old. We both like working out, so it’s something we can do together. Raine and Ryder are also into cooking, so I’m going to include them more in the kitchen. I’ve been teaching them, but I know I could do more with that, and it’s a good way to bond. I’m also putting together a plan to do more with forging, something Ryder really enjoys.

Plans are being made, actions are being taken, to do better on my part and be a bigger part of my children’s lives. Hopefully I’ll get a better outcome than I have with my two oldest. Time may heal those wounds and fill those gaps as well. Trying to schedule a cookout to bring my oldest two over. We’ll see.

          NOTE: Don’t beat yourself up if you’re not the trophy parent. I doubt, seriously doubt, there’s parents without flaws and mistakes they’ve had to learn from. If you recognize a problem in yourself, your actions, make an effort to fix that area. I didn’t do this, and it took a fallout with my wife; before I’d listen to the advice God had been giving me for months.

My own parenting has grown and developed throughout the years. Don’t expect perfection right out of the gate. Also, don’t expect parenting ways to work for every kid. I have nine kids, and each one is different and unique in their own God blessed ways. Parenting is just like any other skill, it takes practice and effort to get better.

On that note, I’m going to just have to keep on learning how to be the best parent I can be. My kids are worth it, even if one is currently slapping  me on the arm telling me “up, up, I want up!” I picked her up, and now I’m typing while she’s rolling a tractor across the desk. Parenting, it’s an adventure.

Trust that Jesus Loves You.