Normally when I am reading Dooce.com, any tears you can see are from the gut-cramping laughter her writing elicits in me. But she recently wrote a post about how she has been improving her lifestyle so that when her children learn what matters, they learn the right lessons. Here is the section that affected me the most:
"You always hope your kid is going to take the manners and ideals you've tried to teach her and use them when you're not watching, and recently we learned that Leta stuck up for a kid in her class when he was being taunted by an older boy. I don't know if I've experienced a prouder moment as a parent, and I wasn't even there. Maybe that's why.
In the same way I hope she learns to love exercise, to love good food. I hope she sees how her father and I try to work through our problems productively, and that going to therapy isn't a sign of weakness but of a willingness to live a better life. I hope she wakes up every morning when I'm not there and puts on a moisturizer with an SPF of at least 15."
As a parent, your kids often push you to a corner where you are ready to be the worst you can be, while your brain simultaneously goads you into being the best you can be. You want to shout, but you use calm words. You want to leave them in the room and walk away, but you reason, give timeouts, and coerce yourself into being a better person than you would normally be.
But more than the obvious examples we try to set by being reasonable people, we also set a million examples by the things that make up the minutiae of our lives.
I've been going with Ro for short walks around the block or walking the dogs with him and MrM so that he grows up thinking of walks as a fun, family activity. While he is digging into his Mac&Cheese, I spoon him pieces of my grilled fish or chicken curry so that he widens his tastes.
On the surface, our daily challenges might be whether we managed not to shout at anyone (spouse/dog/kid) in front of our children and whether we managed to stifle the f-word that was about to escape. But life gets sculpted as much by the things that we do without contemplating the impact, as by the things we stop ourselves from doing. I've come to the conclusion that the more I can do without thinking about it, the easier my task as a parent will be.
I can't cook every meal to set an example of healthy eating, but what if my personal choice itself was healthy eating? Then I wouldn't have to think before any meals. If my personal choice was to talk respectfully, feel deeply, tread gently, to choose health, kindness, and calm - any number of things that would be the better choice for me - I wouldn't have to second guess whether my life made a good impression on my child. Rather than just changing the exterior of our selves, I think being a parent is a compelling reason (if you need one) to become the kinder, gentler, better version of the person you already are.
I'm not sure why Dooce's post stirred me up so much, but I have been thinking a lot about how little worth we give to what kind of person we are, versus the amount of importance we place on what we have achieved. It feels like the wrong legacy to leave, the wrong lesson to teach. And while I will second guess myself that this is just the refrain of an underachiever (me), I can't help but give myself credit that there is some truth to it.
Quoting from my new favorite book (Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese): "Children were the foot wedged in the closing door, the glimmer of hope that in reincarnation there would be some house to go to, even if one came back as a dog, or a mouse, or a flea that lived on the bodies of men. If, as Matron and Sister Mary Joseph Praise believed, there was a raising of the dead, then a child would be sure to see that its parents were awakened."
I don't believe in reincarnation or resurrection, but in the realm of my reality, children are the home that you have when you are ready to slow your life, enjoy your golden years, and live with a lightness of heart. And what better investment can we make in that home than investing in making ourselves better, so that by association, the home of our future will be glistening too?
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