I couldn’t help but chuckle as I overheard my daughter regaling a friend with the details of a cherished family rhythm. “On Fridays,” she whispered conspiratorially, “we get to have dinner in the living room! And we WATCH A MOVIE while we eat!”
Kali’s friend stared back, offering no response to this window into our family life. Kali, taking her friend’s silence as shock over the absolute outlandishness of this exciting weekly activity, continued: “I know! It is so much fun!“
The friend remained unimpressed. I happen to know that this child’s family spends most dinners in front of the television, so the notion of a special Friday movie night was not exactly something to garner enthusiasm. But the idea of regular weeknight screen time is so foreign to my daughter that it never occurred to her someone WOULDN’T get a thrill out of a Friday movie. For her part, the friend was simply baffled as to why this rhythm was something that Kali found special and worthy of celebrating.
As 6-year-olds, Kali and her friend are still at an age when it’s difficult to fathom family experiences that are different from their own. They know what they know, and it doesn’t occur to them that other families might do things a little differently. As they get older and spend more time at others’ houses, they will start to understand that not every household functions in the same way. At eleven, Charleston has now spent more time in the homes of friends, and he notices the differences. Some dissimilarities he loves (like the looser limits around video game time); others he doesn’t (“why is everyone else’s house so much messier than ours?” he wonders . . . to which I respond, “does this mean you’ll stop complaining about being asked to clean your room?”). His understanding about the world—including the small kingdoms that are his friends’ homes—has expanded, and that knowledge will go on to inform how he chooses to manage his own household as an adult.
I have childhood memories of spending time at the houses of friends and marveling at the differences in each home, despite the seeming similarities in our family structures and values. Most of my friends lived in the same neighborhood as me, and many of our houses had the exact same floor plan, but everything about their homes—from the furniture and artwork lining the walls to the rhythms around bedtime, television, and meals—was different.
When I was ten, my best friend’s family moved from California to Michigan, and for the next several summers we alternated two-week visits to each other’s homes. Visiting my friend’s Michigan home always felt like I’d been transported to another world and not just another state! Her home life was vastly different from mine, both because of the midwestern location (and associated cultural differences) but also because she was one of four children and their home was much busier and livelier than mine. I LOVED the chaos and excitement in her home, but by the end of each two-week stay I was craving the calm environment of my own house.
This friend and I have reconnected recently, and in one of our e-mails she commented to me that my childhood house “was quiet like a tomb.” Compared with the incessant noise of her own household, that comparison is accurate—and our family LOVED IT THAT WAY! Now, as a mom to four myself, my home leans more chaotic, and while I wouldn’t change the makeup of our family, I often pine for that “tomb-like” environment in which I was raised.
With Mother’s Day fast approaching, I have been spending some time reflecting on how much of the child/mother experience falls under the “you only know what YOU know” umbrella. I am aware that many people grew up with emotionally or physically absent mothers, or mothers who did not love them in the ways that they needed them to. By the grace of God, that was not my experience. I had a doting stay-at-home mother who loved and cared for us, who created a warm and nurturing home environment, who was always available when we needed her. She was a faithful school volunteer, attended every gymnastics meet and choir performance, helped me with my school work, modeled a quiet and fruitful faith life, poured love into every prepared meal and laundered outfit, and cultivated meaningful experiences for our family. Most of the ways that I am able to be a good mother to my four children are a reflection of my own mom’s beautiful parenting.
I have compassion for others whose experiences were not as healthy or idyllic as my own, but because of my (admittedly privileged) upbringing, those dysfunctional or fractured experiences can be difficult for me to fully understand.
Sometimes it still shocks me that now I am the mom responsible for creating the home life that is the only one my children will ever know. There are some aspects of our life that I love and that I hope my children—once they grow old enough to reflect on such things—will one day appreciate and possibly replicate in their own homes. There are other things about my parenting that I secretly (or not-so-secretly) hope they forget, that get buried beneath layers of all the positives of our family life.
Charleston recently quipped, “Don’t worry about the ways you let me down mom. It’s only 50% of my emotional damage.” He was teasing, but we both knew that there was truth to his words. I am failing my kids every day, and will continue to do so. At the same time, I love them with a fierceness that pre-parenthood me would not have thought possible. I am doing all that I can to be the best mother that I can be. And I fervently pray that the Lord will fill in the overwhelming gaps in my parenting, helping my kids to understand that they are loved and valued in the moments when my own outpouring of love is simply not enough.
Growing up with a wonderful mom was a blessing of a magnitude I will probably never fully understand or appreciate. Parenting four incredible humans is a gift I do not deserve, but one I will never take for granted. I see the Lord’s hand in all of it, and am eternally grateful that in His kindness He has blessed me with these two sides of motherhood—as daughter and as mother—that are my own mother-related experiences of “you really only know what you know.”
Heavenly Father, I thank you for the wholeness and beauty of my own experiences. At the same time, I know that motherhood can be a fraught topic for others for a whole host of reasons. I pray that this Mother’s Day you will fill them with an awareness of your love and presence and the ways that you redeem the broken and painful parts of our stories. We are grateful for our own mothers, and for the chance to BE mothers, but we also know that YOU are the only perfect parent; we thank you for loving and caring for us, for walking with us in our joy and carrying us in our challenges and struggles and pain.
