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I know I’m not alone in the interesting dynamic of my family makeup but I know I’m also in the minority… blended, 17 year age difference between my husband and myself. A twenty-plus age difference between my stepchildren, one I raised, and my own biological children. I’m finding this is making me both an “expert” and a “novice” in this role called parent in my network of friends. Both, having gone through some of the hardest part of parenting called the teenage years yet a novice at toddler.
But something that has become clear as I attempt to succeed
at this thing called parenting, regardless of the stage of parenting, we
have to get comfortable in our discomfort. We have to learn to thrive,
being calm cool, and collected in the moments that our insides are
churning and we don’t want to do what we know we have to.
And it can be something as simple and as gross as the blowout
diaper from the exorcist that makes you want to run for the nearest
hill. Or a sick kid covered in vomit and your gag reflex kicks ins. We
have to get comfortable in that discomfort because babies can’t do it
themselves.
But we also have to get comfortable in the discomfort of
questions. My daughter is four and very inquisitive and like all
four-year-olds, her favorite question is why? But not all of them are as
simple as why is the sky blue? (On a side note, you never fully know
how absolutely limited your knowledge is and just how unintelligent you
are until you are trapped in a conversation of whys with your
four-year-old.) Sometimes she asks the hard why… the why that turns your
gut or you think to yourself I’m just not ready to answer this.
I talk about my mother and my father with my daughter all the
time. I call them by name. I tell her about them. And recently she’s
started asking more about them. One of the most uncomfortable came just
the other day, “Momma how come Grandma Bobbie died?” I’m an adult and I
struggle with this question and it wretched my insides daily. How in the
world do I even begin to break the surface of such a complex issue with
her, knowing what is coming next? It was ironic that the question was
about my mom because she was the one who taught me by the example of
living comfortably in discomfort.
I was admittedly a unique child. I spoke more to and had more
adult friends than children growing up and my mother always talked to
me on my level but with tone and respect afforded her adult friends. So
when my inquisitive and observant child mind would come to her with
tough questions like “what if I were gay” or “what if I dated someone
who wasn’t white” or “what if I got pregnant as a teen” or “what if I
got into a fight to defend someone” or “mom did I break up dad’s
marriage before you”… and yes as a child I did in fact ask all of these
questions without any malice in them… she had to hide her discomfort for
the sake of keeping communication open. For creating a safe space where
I could come to her, without judgment, at any time. And it worked.
She never sugarcoated what her thoughts were, often saying I
would be disappointed if you got pregnant as a teen but we would figure
it out together, or it’s not the life I would hope for you but you are
my daughter and I will love and support you. But because of those open
conversations, when I became a teen and was being bullied and even had
my life threatened, I knew I could go to her. When I was being pressured
to drink or have sex, it was her I came to for the hard conversations.
And as she later confessed to me she hated those conversations because
they made her uncomfortable talking about them but also because she’d
see a different world from what she grew up in. Yet I never knew how she
felt until I was well in my mid-twenties. She was that good at living
in her discomfort.
My stepson I helped raise is now 25 years old. I made him a
promise when he was much much younger… that I would always tell him the
truth, even if he didn’t or wouldn’t like what I was gonna say. And I
did. I found myself in many awkward and uncomfortable moments. But he
knew he could come to me for anything. And he did. He still does. He
will still call me, his stepmom, with the tough questions.
We live in a world where the things our children face are
leaps and bounds in their complexity of what we experienced as kids or
even what my 25-year-old experienced. At preschool age, my daughter is
already confronted with concepts hushed under the table until I was in
my teens. She’s seeing people more sexualized than ever, faced with
drills for getting shot at, and so much more. She is exposed to, hears
more, and sees more than I ever did. I’m not commenting on the right or
wrong of it. It’s just reality. Now more than ever, I feel strongly that
the bond we need to form is one where she always feels safe coming to
me. The bond that every parent needs to form with their children is just
that… they can come to us with anything. And that starts by being
comfortable in my discomfort.
My mom taught me so many things. And the lessons have shaped
my life in so many ways. But this one concept has been without a doubt
the most impactful in my parenting from my 10 to a now 25-year-old AND
my babies from newborn to now almost 5 and 2.
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