BLOG ALERT--This is a lot to read. You may want to do it in stages!
This morning my mom emailed me and told me that she had a "homework assignment" from her pastor. She was suppose to find out from her children--three things she did right as a parent and two things she did wrong.
I asked her if I could give her 3 things she did wrong and 2 things she did right. She didn't respond.
Actually, I could come up with a very long list of the things she did right. But, I just listed a couple that I feel pretty strongly about. I thought I'd share them with you--my small group of readers.
Things My Mom Did Right--
1. She taught me that people are more important than things.
Maybe it was because we didn't have many things--I don't know. What I do know is that there is nothing that my mom owns that she cares much about. She would certainly never hurt someone's feelings over something that was broken or lost of hers.
I remember a specific example of this in my own life. I was in junior high. It was back when shorts were short--and I mean short. I had been wearing my mom's class ring. It was a really great class ring with a black onyx stone. She didn't have much jewlery, so I know it was special to her. I wore it all the time. In fact, I went to Florida to visit my aunt and uncle and took it with me. They lived right by the beach. One day, I was out on the pier during high tide and I realized that I had my mom's ring on. I was trying to be responsible. I thought I'd take the ring off and put it in my pocket to keep it safe. (sounds pretty stupid--right?) Well, I had forgotten that since my shorts were SO short, I had cut off the pocket linings so that they wouldn't hang down below my shorts. I remembered this as soon as the ring hit my pocket. It went straight through my pocket and bounced down on the pier right before falling into the water. I can still see it all in slow motion. I was so upset! But, I never mentioned it to my mom.
In fact, years went by--I think I was in college--and we were sitting at the dinner table one night. Mom asked me if I knew where her class ring was. I totally fell apart. All those years of keeping it in just came flooding out. I remember her reaction, too. She was completely calm. She said, "Kris, it's just a ring. It's okay."
That's how she looks at things. They're just things. It's helped me over the years to remember that.
2. She was involved in my life.
Not just my life, but my brother's as well. I remember Saturdays at the ball park watching my brother's baseball games. We were all there cheering. She was my softball coach. (I don't think she ever played softball in her life--but she coached my team when a coach was needed.--Only one year. We both quit after that.) When they needed a parent to step up and be the cheerleading sponsor, she was there--for many, many years. She did all this, while going to school AND working. I can honestly say that I can't remember a time when she wasn't involved in what I was doing. It made me feel valued.
3. She never spoke a negative word about my dad.
This has to be one of my favorite things about my mom. I tell this to people all the time.
You see, my parents are divorced. Divorced parents often struggle with this and get caught in the trap of expressing their feelings about their ex-spouse in front of their kids. As a child of divorce, I can tell you that kids go through enough struggles on their own. You feel torn between your mom and dad. You love them both but struggle with how to express that without feeling like you are in the middle. I know that those were my feelings and I didn't have parents that ripped each other to streds. It breaks my heart when I am with a family and I hear a mom talking negatively about her ex-husband in front of her child. I can only imagine the pain that the child feels.
Now that I am an adult, I appreciate this even more. I know that my mom was feeling her own pain. For her to keep her own feelings in check in the midst of that makes me appreciate her all the more. She was a mom who spoke highly of my dad--always--and encouraged my relationship with him.
(And for the record--the same was true of my dad.)
Okay--On to Part 2
Things My Mom Did Wrong
1. She didn't get in my business enough.
So--as a result, I'm a much nosier mom. My kids are on Facebook. My one condition in allowing it was that I had their passwords. I go on their pages from time to time to check things out. I want to know what they're up to, as well as their friends. When I see things that are out of line--I bring it up.
This is because I feel like I got by with way too much as a kid. My mom gave me more space than I probably needed.
2. She had too much tolerance for the fighting between me and my brother.
We fought all the time. My mom talks about how she thought we would kill each other. I'm sure as a single mom with two "spirited" kids, she found it difficult to control. But, I wish that she had punished us every time we started in on it. I wish she hadn't given in to it.
Why?
Well, I'm absolutely crazy about my brother now. And he's the same person now that he was then. I feel like we wasted a lot of time and caused a great deal of strife in our home.
So, there it is. I must say, that I could have gone on all day writing about the things she did right and had a more difficult time thinking of the things she did wrong.
That's a pretty good character statement.
She's pretty awesome.
