By Jennifer Rosen Heinz of Thinking Mom
Parenting, it is said, is where best laid intentions go to die. It’s where we have our highest ideals and also are faced with the reality that often we fall short. Things go awry. We get frustrated. Kids get frustrated. While we want a spotless house, we don’t want to give it the energy it would take to achieve. It’s a constant push-pull between having high ideals, spotty delivery, regrets, random moments of feeling effortless and purposeful, only to thump onto the ground like a hot air balloon basket touching down a tad too roughly. But with people in it.
As my kids have both gotten older, it’s hard to remember that they go through stages, the same way they did when they were toddlers. Little kids quite obviously go through huge developmental leaps at a furious pace. Many mornings it seems that they would wake up looking older, which almost defies logic. How could this child, whom I had to comfort at 3 am with a nightmare, look at once so different, so much bigger? But when they’re older, you don’t have that same breakneck developmental or physical pace. Plus, you’re used to them. They are used to you. You have a relationship, patterns, dynamics, habits— good and bad.
My oldest, my tween son, is especially surprising. Moments he and I laugh and talk about very philosophical ideas, the next moment I ask him if he remembered to brush his teeth this morning and find out that, yet again, because I didn’t remind him, he did not. It makes me constantly wonder if I’m at all doing things right. Or, if no matter what I do, this is just the way things go. Trust that it will all come out right in the end. The important things will hold.
My dad and stepmom are in town this weekend for their annual January pilgrimage: they drive up, and my dad and son go to see a hockey game together. My stepmom gives my son a $20 bill so that he can buy himself his beloved nachos and a soda at the game.
Having eaten a lot of dinner before the game this time, my son didn’t spend his money. Last night he handed it to my husband and asked him to put it in his bank account. (He was also badgering us to take him to the store to look at Legos.)
Walking to dinner downtown, after dark, we walked by a homeless man with his hat out. I greeted him. I didn’t have any cash, and I told him so, but I smiled and wished him a good night. The least I could do was treat him as a human being. Twenty paces away, my son asked my husband for his $20 bill. He wanted to give it to the man. My husband looked at me and said, “He wants to give it to the homeless man.” I said, “Yes. Give him his $20.” My son ran back, said hello, put the money in the hat, and ran back to catch up with us.
I looked over at him, and he was smiling, but in a way that he was trying to keep low-key. Like he didn’t want attention for it. And I was in tears. Not loud tears, but quiet tears. Dark-cold-night-downtown-t
This morning, my son refused to wear his only clean pair of pants because he “doesn’t like them.” He did not tell me that his hamper was full and he had needed laundry done yesterday. He was in a foul, snippy mood. Which I did not indulge. But also, I know his goodness cannot be taken back. He’s a kind human in there. A growing, kind human. I am writing this to remind him and remind myself when annoyance clouds the moon and for a moment we forget.
This post was originally published on Thinking Mom.
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About the Author
Jennifer Rosen Heinz lives in Madison, Wisconsin, where she eats squeaky cheese curds and works for a local women’s magazine. She is a recovering MFA and award-winning poet and blogger. Follow her on Facebook at Thinking Mom and Moms Against Hate.