A Mother's Agenda

One of the biggest adjustments I had to learn after becoming a mother was this: Washing the dishes no longer happens in one standing. 

Throughout the day those dirty dishes haunt me and I have to get over it. 

That greasy window - you know that one where your toddler has smeared hot dog and fingerprints and snot- haunts me. The stack of unpaid bills that sit by the computer haunts me. The planning of the next meal haunts me. The sad dogs that desperately miss their morning sniffs around the neighbor's mailboxes haunt me. And I have to get over it. 

My advice to new parents: Embrace the spiral. 

Your agenda now happens in spurts throughout the day (or maybe even the week). Your linear mind will ultimately adjust to the curling, winding, and twisting parenthood requires.

And it's all going to be ok. 

You don't have to measure yourself by clean dishes, sparkling windows, completed tasks, or worn-out puppy dogs. 

All you have to do is be present with your kids. 

That's your most important item of the day.

If you're running through to-do lists while you play blocks with your baby, your mind is elsewhere. And the baby knows. 

And you know. And you probably feel awful about it. 

But that aching pull to make things clean and shiny and prefect again ties knots in your gut and competes with your attention like another child, jealous of your affection to the baby. 

And sometimes when you're not expecting it to, your little guru, your toddler, shows you a new way.  It's halts you in your tracks, and the hauntings relinquish for a while.

For new parents, the key is to keep these moments of glorious pause stringed together all throughout the day - getting your fix filled, training your mind to replace those yearnings of productivity with a craving to play kitchen with your toddler.  

It does get easier my friends. Those ghosts soften and fly away. You will find a way to do what needs to be done and still look in your child's eyes as you authentically say for the eightieth time that day, "Yes, you did build the tower high! I see."

Along the path to parenthood enlightenment, you will be close to finishing the dishes which somehow makes your soul feel good, but you will be halted by baby cries or toddler's pleas to play with him with only three more dirty pans to go. 

Remind yourself it will pass. The frustration you feel will pass. Your toddler will play more independently and your chores will be finished in a sequential fashion again. 

The days you rush to get a toddler dressed so you can make it to gymnastics on time and you just say F-it while you grab his pants and shoes and throw them in your purse, knowing he will want to get dressed once we get there, will pass. The whole fighting to not get back in that car seat will pass....eventually. 

You will exhaust your creative energy on finding ways to cajole him into wanting the things you want, doing the things you want to do when you want to do them. (Sounds a lot like jail time for your toddler, doesn't it?)

All you have to do is be present with your kids. 

Those leisurely morning walks in the stroller as preparation for nap time will change into beseeching a little child who wants to run instead of sit. Those moments will turn out to be more waiting for you, sitting on the stairwell, explaining to the dogs why you are holding three leashes but you aren’t going anywhere yet. 

You will get used to the monotony and the mess of playing with blocks every day. Stacking block upon block, observing how quickly they will fall holds his attention and depletes yours. When he takes the whole tub of fifty blocks and dumps them on the rug, your mind will fall back to its old routines and beg you to add cleaning up the blocks to your list of the day, but simply remind it all you have to do is be present with your kids.  

Your mind will soon understand how to keep things organized when there’s a tornado in the house - have less stuff. 

When every day becomes rush, rush, rush - just whisper your mantra about presence. Your mind will shout, "If you could just get him to sleep, you could scramble like a crazy person to get things accomplished." But don't let that voice overcome your new simple plan. 

Luckily, the morale you need to accomplish your new agenda will be sitting in front of you, wearing Planes underwear and an applesauce stained shirt. 

During another block building session, he will show you a better agenda, instead of the anxiety, frustration, and hinderances you seem to grab a hold of so tightly. 

He will place his little warm hand on your cheek to literally turn your head from the mental check list to look at him. He will plant a tender kiss on your lips. 

You will be stunned. You will pause, take a deep breath, and notice how very fortunate you are to have a zen guru as a son. 

You will realize the only thing that matters is being present with him. 

You have a healthy little boy to love you, a companion on this journey with you, and a limited amount of time to enjoy it all.

You will eventually learn that your old, mark-things-off-the-list self has to evolve into honoring this new, less-orderly life of not always doing. You may no longer get to feel successful at being productive.

It may take a year, and I mean every single, count-down-till-bedtime day to let your heart be at peace with your agenda being altered. 

And everyday may still be a challenge to find the right balance of tidiness and sanity, mindfulness and productivity, selfishness and devotion, but thankfully, if we are paying attention, our children will help us find our way. 

For Larsen on Your Second Birthday

Today, like most days, you were in and out of closets, drawers, and toy baskets, but mostly you were in and out of my memory. You pulled out gloves, hats, toys, books, and on my heart strings. I sit back dazed, thinking how will I ever clean this up and also how will I make it through your birthday tomorrow with this aching deep within my chest. You're two! You're two.....

I knew this was coming for me as I always live in the future. I try to stay in the present, but it's the planning for the upcoming pain that holds me back.

And I know what's coming when it comes to you: separation.

You're running, and talking, and doing, and being - all a little more without me for the first time in both of our lives.

And right now all I can think about is the sentimentality of it all.

I have to remind myself you're not mine to keep. Before, I just snuggled, held, rocked, and soothed you for a good part of the day. Now, I get reminded of the widening simply by your newfound distance.

If your family lineage gives you anything, I sincerely hope you inherit a strident independence. Actually, I know you already have. I see it in the way you grab your new golf club and walk outside - determined to hit that ball, and how you can hang with Daddad without giving me another glance after we say bye, and how you run twenty feet in front of me instead of beside me.

It's not that your growing autonomy hurts my heart. It's just that my optimism for your freedom is tied to sadness, but also with joy. It's the job of untangling of it all I have to welcome now. It's a mess in there, and I have to rearrange it all so I don't hold you back.

I understand you need me less. I know parents slowly get used to it, just as we have when we started leaving you with sitters. At first, our worry costed us our happiness when we were away from you. But then we learned to accept the distance and actually welcome it.

I'm sure this happens the same way as you grow into an adult - bite sized chunks of freedom here and there to help me prepare for those big partings.

But did the last year have to be so hard to swallow? It was a year of firsts! First birthdays, first steps, first words, first glimpses of you becoming you. And they have all unfolded before me as glorious moments to savor with no time to worry because something else was always there behind it to again delight me.  But now- you're two.  You're second birthday is aptly named - it just took a second and we're here. Before we know it, I am truly holding you for the last time as we dance at your wedding.

I know, I know - I'm jumping ahead of myself, again preparing. Hopefully, with time, your gaining independence with not be anchored in my soul with such sadness.

But it's true. I'm sad. Even our joyous memories are mixed in with sorrow that they've passed.

Our days together will forever be in my heart. But right now they feel heavy. Yet, I trust they will lighten into joy.

"Time will tell me what I can't hear now," Patty Griffin's song reminds me.

I will take those moments of bouncing frog on the sheet, of running out the front door to catch a glimse of the trash truck, of rubbing your little round toes as I hold you close.  I'll cherish those days of hearing,"Momma, Momma, Come!" and "Okay" for the rest of my life.

And maybe that's what I'm afraid of - all these tender, fleeing moments are just that- here for a second, eluding my grasp, toying with my soul, wondering if I will long for these days again for the rest of my life? Are these our best days together, Larzy?

Why can't I enjoy them today instead of preparing to miss them tomorrow?

As I compose myself for your birthday tomorrow, I want to be free from this burden. I want to hold you, and dance with you, and not wonder if today is one of the last times I get to be your universe.

As I think of your second birthday and how time elapsed quicker these two years than the rest of my life, I will make time and my mind shut up and be still.

I will breathe in the little bit of baby smell you still have, and it will still be a wonder. I will let you grow, and I will release this intense desire to hold you forever and just let you be.

I'm learning too, Larsen. Just like the closet and drawers you were playing in today, you pull out these emotions from me, throwing them all over. You've made me think about these jumbled feelings - being anxious and gladdened.

But in particular, you've made me realize I have to embrace the joy within the sadness. I have to find ways to reorganize myself, deciding what serves me and what doesn't, what helps you grow and what doesn't.

And while I am constantly worried I won't have enough time to put things back in their place before you're on to the next thing, I am deliriously happy - I am your mother. I am a proud, rejoicing mother of a two-year-old.

In the Image of God

When I was a child, a preacher used a metaphor about a cake pan to describe human beings. Adam was the original cake pan. After the "great fall," the cake pan was dented. So as decedents of Adam, we are all now non-perfect cakes. We are somehow hollow, reduced.

But I simply don't believe it. I will not pass that myth to my child. He's perfect in every way, just as we all are.

The child's face that I look in to is not a sinner. He's not a broken individual waiting to be healed. He's not evil, looking for someone to fix his fractured self.

He is, however, a child of God - of any God (you'll read what I mean shortly), a child of mystery, a person of fullness.

I know there are many ways to look at the belief of broken humanity, but I continually think about the psychological damage we do to children when we keep pushing the "sinner" theology and thus set the foundation for this cycle of brokenness to continue. 

I sincerely think we do damage to children when we call them broken, bad, or selfish. They internalize those terms, and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy of negative attitudes. Maybe this is one reason this study found extremely religious states have more crime, divorce, and defeatist attitudes.

According to Psychology Today, labeling people has intense effects, whether negative or positive:

The long-term consequences of labeling a child like Hannah "smart" or "slow" are profound. In another classic study, Robert Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobson told teachers at an elementary school that some of their students had scored in the top 20% of a test designed to identify "academic bloomers"--students who were expected to enter a period of intense intellectual development over the following year. In fact, the students were selected randomly, and they performed no differently from their unselected peers on a genuine academic test. A year after convincing the teachers that some of their students were due to bloom, Rosenthal and Jacobson returned to the school and administered the same test. The results were astonishing among the younger children: the "bloomers," who were no different from their peers a year ago, now outperformed their unselected peers by 10-15 IQ points. The teachers fostered the intellectual development of the "bloomers," producing a self-fulfilling prophecy in which the students who were baselessly expected to bloom actually outperformed their peers.

So, when I read studies like this, I simply wonder why we would label first our selves as a sinner and then do the same to our children? Wouldn't the world be better if we enforce the good?

In no way I am trying to trample on people's most sacred beliefs - those things we all hold in our hearts and feel connected to in our core.

But I am trying to make sense of this in my head.

I know many deeply religious friends whose foundation is built on Christ's love, Gandhi's patience, or Mother Theresa's giving.

However, my mind is caught where I know it's detrimental labeling someone "bad" from the get go. 

Maybe we just don't see it that way when religious dialog shrouds the core belief because we aren't allowed to question these fundamental beliefs - which we may not even pay attention to anymore anyway.  Maybe if we do wonder beyond them, it may mean we aren't as faithful as we are told we should be. 

Perhaps describing humanity as sinners is so much part of the script we have been handed we don't recognize the power it holds over our children, and in a larger sense, the world we are creating and living in today.

I recently read Just Babies: The Origins of Good and Evil.  I love the title because it has a play on the word "just" as in "morally right, fair," and also as in "simply" - we are simply babies until our environment molds us.  

The author's belief is that babies are born with a moral sense:

"This is not the same as an impulse to do good and avoid doing evil. Rather, it is the capacity to make certain types of judgements - to distinguish between good and bad, kindness and cruelty. What's most vital to understand here is the profound effect we have on their morality. What we express, they imitate."

There are some more lines that have stayed with me after reading which highlight children's natural "moral sense":

-psychologists have found that children naturally help adults without prompting:

"Maybe their helping is an adaptive behavior designed to endear them to their caretakers, analogous to their physical charms such as big eyes and round cheeks. But researchers have evidence that suggests that helping- at least by older children - really is motivated by a genuine care for others."

-babies do not have the ability of doing good or bad things themselves just yet:

"babies are sensitive to the good and bad acts of others long before they are capable of doing anything good or bad themselves. It seems likely, then, that the 'moral sense' is first extended to others and then at some later point in development turns inward."

In an interview, the author continues to explain what his book is all about, succinctly answering questions I had about humans:

Q)So are babies naturally good, or naturally evil? 

A) Both! We are born with empathy and compassion, the capacity to judge the actions of others, and a rudimentary understanding of justice and fairness. Morality is bred in the bone. But there is a nastier side to our natures as well. There’s a lot of evidence that even the youngest babies carve the world into Us versus Them—and they are strongly biased to favor the Us. We are very tribal beings. Our natures are not just kind; they are also cruel and selfish. We favor those who look like us and are naturally cold-blooded towards strangers.

Q) Does this mean that prejudice and racism are inevitable? 

A) Happily, no. For one thing, social experience really matters—babies and children have to learn who Us versus Them is by observing how those around them act. So while some distinctions are inevitable, such as friends versus strangers, others are not. Notably, it is only pretty late in development—by about the age of five—that some children come to use skin color and similar cues when decide who to befriend and who to prefer. Before this, they don’t know that race matters, and so whether or not children will be racist is dependent on how they are raised; what sort of social environments they find themselves in. Also, we are smart critters, smart enough to override our impulses and biases when we think they are inappropriate. Once we learn about these ugly aspects of our nature, we can move to combat them. We can create treaties and international organizations aimed at protecting universal human rights. We can employ procedures such as blind reviewing and blind auditions that are designed to prevent judges from being biased, consciously or unconsciously, by a candidate’s race—or anything other than what is under evaluation. 

Q) It seems as if a lot of your interest is in how we come to transcend our hard-wired morality. 

A) That’s right. A complete theory of morality has to have two parts. It starts with what we are born with, and this is surprisingly rich. But a critical part of our morality—so much of what makes us human—is not the product of evolution, but emerges over the course of human history and individual development. It is the product of our compassion, our imagination, and our magnificent capacity for reason. We bring all that to bear when we consider such questions as: How much should we give to charity? Is it right to eat meat? Are there any sorts of consensual sex acts that are morally wrong?

Q) What do you want to accomplish with this book? 

A) Two things. First, many people believe that we are born selfish and amoral—that we start off as natural-born psychopaths. And many argue that we are, as David Hume put it, slaves of the passions: our moral judgments and moral actions are the product of neural mechanisms that we have no awareness of and no conscious control over. Intelligence and wisdom are largely impotent. This is an ugly view of human nature. Now, if it were true, we should buck up and learn to leave with it. But it’s not true; these dismissive claims are refuted by everyday experience, by history, and by the science of developmental psychology. We are moral animals, and we are powerfully influenced by our capacity for reason. Second, I think there are practical implications to the scientific study of morality. If you’re interested in reducing racism and bigotry, for instance, it is critical to understand our inborn proclivity to favor our own group over others; if you want to create a just society, you’ll want to learn about how we naturally think about fairness and equity. Good social policy is informed by an understanding of human nature at its best and its worst, and this is what Just Babies is all about.

So much of evil we think is fixed in humans seems to be malleable- and that's truly good news. We do have innate qualities that warrant our concern. But again- I think that's what the book is saying- we can be optimistic that due to "our compassion, our imagination, and our magnificent capacity for reason" we have the power to redirect these lower impulses (if that's even a good way to describe them) and focus on the good, the perfected God-like in all of us. 

I think sometimes we label children's behavior according to our limited internal script- and if that limited internal script bases actions on the precept of a broken, deficient human - what do we expect to see? And once more, what are we truly encoding onto our children? Broken people continue to break. Yet, people who see themselves as helpers or do-gooders continually help or do good. 

As a parent, I think about messages that surround us. I want my child to learn about Jesus, but also Mary Magdalena, Mother Teresa, Buddha, Gandhi, and more. I want him to feel and recognize the perfection of all of these regular humans too - who, we must remind ourselves- were created in God's image. And while all these people were just humans, they all successfully made their arrows sharp and hit the mark (using the Greek definition of sin here, meaning "to miss the mark" like an arrow missing the target) and thus have exercised their perfection! Yes, to keep reinforcing the good brings forth more good.

So I want to throw out this lexicon of "sinner, reborn, rebellious, missing the mark" - I don't want there to always be this struggle involving a dented cake and failure, a sense of deficiency and unfulfillment. 

Maybe we forgot or simply never realized we don't have to use this idea of lack to make us want more. Maybe we need to remember success begets success, goodness begets more goodness, fullness begets more fullness. 

We are utterly God-like. We do have the capacity to make the world better - here today we do have creative control- and it's as accessible as the words we choose to sculpt the world we live in.

"For we are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared us in advance for us to do." ~Ephesians 2:10

Authentic Choices

I hate doing something when someone expects me to do it. That's why I have so many issues arising where my feminism and my personal choices collide.  

If I learned something is expected from a woman with regards to how she operates in her marriage, or when someone dies, or when its assumed she is something just because she is a woman or a feminist or a southerner, part of me revolts. It doesn't mean I don't do it, but that I just have some aversion when dealing with those things. 

But here's what I have learned lately- forget feminism. Forget anything that TELLS me I must operate in a certain way in order to fit the mold. I CHOOSE what works for me in that certain situation. 

Don't get me wrong- I love me some feminist theory. I love me some feminist reality. Most often, feminist questioning has served me well. But when it gets to a point where these terms negate finding the way that feels the most legitimate to me, then they shouldn't apply. I must remember my self. I must remember to listen to my heart and soul and not another dogmatic proposition. 

This is hard for some of us. We like the security and quickness of having absolutes. Then we don't hang in suspense. Having dictates reduces our level of responsibility in the situation too. Much simpler.

I think we all do this time to time- we use our parents, our alma mater, our religion, our location to serve as guiding points instead of our heads and our hearts. And we are supported in doing so - Look at the repercussions of doing otherwise - a falling out with parents, a questioning of your loyalty to your college or team, a challenging of your faith, a dubious regard of your southern manners perhaps.  We are all fully aware of the external price we pay for the wavering we experience. 

Yet, some of us forge ahead. We forgo the weighing of angel/demon, the heaviness of external judgement, the incessant intellectualizing and sometimes we listen to what is authentic arising in ourselves. I love it when this actually happens to me! 

There are so many times I have complained to M about doing the dishes. I do not want to work the "second-shift" and be responsible for the caregiving and house cleaning all the time. This is a big one for me. We know that most mothers still do the housework even after a long day of working outside the home. But work is work - regardless if done in an office or working as a parent all day.  Don't we deserve the payoff of marriage too- that is not always having to choose between cleaning or a good book? Isn't part of marriage reducing the workload while increasing the happiness??

While it's getting better, the division of labor is still a big complaint for many women:

On an average day, 20 percent of men did housework–such as cleaning or doing laundry–compared with 48 percent of women. Thirty-nine percent of men did food preparation or cleanup, compared with 65 percent of women.

Parenting is a full-time job, and the family responsibilities should be worked out as each family deemed so. But because it is constantly assumed the title stay-at-home mother includes ALL house cleaning BOTHERS ME. Thus, my soul revolts. How can I find peace with this?

From the commercials that relate women only care about dish soap from the toys we women had to choose from as a child, most of us women have been socialized to ACCEPT high cleanliness standards and to believe it is our job to always do it. I know it bothers me when the kitchen is dirty for days. I have gotten better about letting it pile up and be mindful this is life after children, but it is still an issue for me.  A clean, orderly kitchen means I have some control over my chaotic, toddler-filled world. 

So, of course, I would let M know. I would plead, I would be passive aggressive, I would let it sit, hoping he would notice. Many times he notices and  does it. And I feel better…temporarily. 

And I am grateful for the times he helps with the family responsibilities, but I still I think about all these gender rules and socialization processes, and simply become resentful. But I don't want to live that way. 

Yes, all those feminist questions and tenets I have come to understand utterly apply in the second-shift situation. But I also want the warring to cease. So I had to do some deep soul work. 

The answer that keeps reverberating is this: If I were single, would I keep the kitchen clean? YES. If I were a man, would I keep the kitchen clean? YES. 

And there you have it - this line of questioning works for me. It illustrates these are my authentic choices regardless if I am a feminist or not. I am a clean freak. I like the kitchen clean. And just because I am married, just because I am a woman, should not change my personality trait of orderliness. I shouldn't get angry at M because he doesn't always have the same personality as me. But I shouldn't always be expected as a woman it's my realm- my problem only. In the end, I have to take personal responsibility and realize I can't change another person - only my feelings about the situation.

It doesn't come down to a gender thing now. While questioning gender rules has informed my choice, it doesn't define it. 

If I wipe all the identifiers off my self, and put back what matters, then I shall have a sparkling kitchen! And I'm ok with that now that I worked it out with myself. 

As long as M recognizes my reality - that I deserve to have free time and a clean kitchen and I don't have to choose between the two all the time- then I'm good. My feminist sensibilities have served me well. They have taught me to assert my right to question my reality, find commonalities among other women, and remind myself my peace of mind is ultimately my responsibility - not my husband's. 

Sometimes I have felt doomed to regulating the world's gender relations. But no more.  The way I see it now is to find my own unique solution, which leaves me feeling empowered and free from gender gatekeeping. 

This new insight has helped me in other circumstances as well. 

Recently, a friend of ours watched a good friend pass away. Most of the men brought whisky to help him cope. Of course, most women brought food. I was stuck- I didn't want to be a "typical" woman and just make him a meal. (Remember I'm not saying doing typical women things are wrong- but when it becomes the EXPECTATION - I rebel!) 

Booze just didn't appeal to me either. It may sound silly that I even have an issue with all these interactions when dealing with the death of a loved one, but I do. These are the small situations that I feel like women get judged upon if we don't do the "right" gender-coded thing. 

But I let all that fade. I let all those rules and stipulations of rebellion and dogma swirl around my shoulders to be set free. I don't need all those external demands to make my decisions. I simply need me. 

So I cooked for him. I like cooking. I know food can be a hassle to make when one's mind is elsewhere and a comfort when in pain. So I lovingly cooked my favorite recipe and gladly delivered it to his door. 

This whole mess of if I'm a feminist or a traditionalist, or a republican or democrat, or a believer or an agnostic, or a east coast or west coast girl, shouldn't always be our guiding force.

We should always question our motives, making sure these definitions don't rule over our hearts and souls. 

Authenticity (if it truly exists) is found in our quiet, inside selves, where we haven't built demarcations that limit our actions, where we haven't had to think, "Well, I'm a feminist so I should believe this way."

I'm starting to question why we value so much conviction. Why do we have to constantly prove our choices were right for us and campaign our beliefs on our lapel? Isn't believing and trusting in ourselves enough? 

Part of me wonders if this characteristic informs our sense of self negatively. If we believe it is the perfect choice for us, then why do I need a term, a proclamation of rules, or a list of things I must do as a feminist or traditionalist, liberal or conservative, northerner or southerner?

For me, these terms that I may have clung to for the better part of my life are now maybe getting in the way of my personal peace. They are becoming divisions instead of connectors. 

I am bringing down the walls of these terms and simply just being. If something works for me and makes me feel good, then it works for me and makes me feel good. I no longer need the lexiconal security that they may have provided in the past. 

Maybe we should strive to move beyond perception of a problem from the stance of identity labels and simply allow our authenticity to offer solutions for us. Work from the inside out instead of outside in. My marriage, my parenting, my life choices mean more to me than a identifier. I don't want to get these switched up any more. 

Developing Emotional Literacy

When I see people liking images like these on Facebook, I have mixed feelings. 



At first, these signs tie in to a common fear about the world. Sure, we need more parents to be parents and take care of their child so there will be less chaos. 

But another side of me cringes. Spanking our children won't get us to that better place. 

Maya Angelou's sentiment, "Once we know better, we do better," keeps echoing in my head.

The evidence against spanking is overwhelming. Hundreds of studies all come to the same conclusions:

1. The more physical punishment a child receives, the more aggressive he or she will become. 

2. The more children are spanked, the more likely they will be abusive toward their own children. 

3. Spanking plants seeds for later violent behavior. 

4. Spanking doesn’t work.

And people through the ages have always worried about the younger generations. Blogger Little Hearts reminds us:

People throughout history have complained about ‘the trouble with kids today’ and they’ve pinned all the ills of their society on supposedly permissive parenting. They’ve ranted about out-of-control children, disrespectful youth, entitlement, spoiling, disobedience, violence, self-centeredness, etc: 

“The children now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority, they show disrespect to their elders…. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and are tyrants over their teachers.” ~Socrates, 5th Century BC 

“What is happening to our young people? They disrespect their elders, they disobey their parents. They ignore the law. They riot in the streets inflamed with wild notions. Their morals are decaying. What is to become of them?” ~Plato, 5th Century BC 

“I see no hope for the future of our people if they are dependent on frivolous youth of today, for certainly all youth are reckless beyond words… When I was young, we were taught to be discreet and respectful of elders, but the present youth are exceedingly wise [disrespectful] and impatient of restraint” ~Hesiod, 8th Century BC 

“The world is passing through troublous times. The young people of today think of nothing but themselves. They have no reverence for parents or old age. They are impatient of all restraint. They talk as if they knew everything, and what passes for wisdom with us is foolishness with them. As for the girls, they are forward, immodest and unladylike in speech, behavior and dress.” ~Peter the Hermit, 13th Century AD 

Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Maybe, though, there isn’t really any ‘trouble with kids today.’ Maybe the problem is with parents who repeat the patterns their own parents set or with societies who view normal stages of development as somehow abnormal.

We are lucky to be parents today. We know better. So how can we do better?

For me, working with preschoolers, teenagers, college students, I've come to value how teaching children (yes even one-year-olds) emotional literacy produces solid adults. 

I truly wonder if those school shootings would have happened if those children knew how to label and deal with painful feelings. 

But we can't model what we don't know.  Some people believe the problem is that children need more punishment, more discipline. Maybe the problem is that we have a much more complicated world today and we demand more from our children than ever. Most of us are overworked, overstressed, ever busy and we bury lots of our emotions in food, alcohol, or entertainment. We never really process our emotions, especially the painful ones. 

And I am curious if this lack of processing begins as a child. I mean when our babies fall down, we may quickly run over, wipe them off, and TELL THEM they are ok. We really don't allow them to feel what they feel.  We normally don't ask,  "Are you ok?" because we want to teach them resilience. And that is a good value to instill, but I think we may be sidestepping a more important skill - emotional literacy: that it is ok to feel, even painful feelings, that I know what I am feeling, and that I know how to deal with it. 

It might seem like I am over-complicating the small issue of falling down, but think about how many other ways we deny opportunities to our children to feel: 

• We tell them to share no matter what. And then we don't allow them to feel angry about it because we want them to thrive in relationships with others. (yes, this comes from a good place but is ineffective at developing true generosity)
• We tell them to do what they are told because we are the parent. And then when they are kicking and screaming, not wanting to get in the carseat, we tell them everyone wears a seatbelt in the car. (While modeling is important, there is no mention of what the child is feeling here)
• We tell them they must make good grades to get into college. And then we they are floundering in homework, we tell them they can't drive unless they do the work. (again no mention of the child's frustration, only the consequences, which are important but no connection with feelings)

I did my own experiment when I taught high school in a tough area where failure was common. We journaled for the first few minutes of class. We didn't just write anything - I made sure they had this chart:

I made them define each emotion first. Then each day they picked one and wrote about how they were experiencing it. For me, it was an amazing moment as a teacher. The students wrote deeply personal things- well most of them. For some of them, it didn't feel safe to expose their "vulnerabilities." They were taught feeling isn't good. And those were the ones in constant trouble. 

That experience plus now reading several parenting books on giving our children an emotional vocabulary resonates with my heart. 

I sincerely believe our children and our greater world needs emotional literacy. 

Now, when my child screams and cries to get in his carseat, I use the words to explain his emotions and why: "Larsen is angry right now. He doesn't want to be in his carseat."

Or when I get him from the gym childcare after a workout: "Are you angry at Momma for leaving you? I'm back now, but you can still be angry."

The site Early Childhood Learning and Knowledge Center relates how we parents can foster emotional literacy:

Express Your Own Feelings. One way to help children learn to label their emotions is to have healthy emotional expression modeled for them by the adults in their lives. For example, a teacher who knocked over all the glitter can say, “Oh boy, is that frustrating. Oh well, I’d better take a deep breath and figure out how to clean it up.” Or a parent who just got word that she got a promotion at work can say, “Wow! I am so excited about this! I feel proud of myself for working so hard.” Parents, teachers, and child care providers can make a point to talk out loud about their feelings as they experience them throughout the day. 

Label Children’s Feelings. As adults provide feeling names for children’s emotional expressions, a child’s feeling vocabulary grows. Throughout the day, adults can attend to children’s emotional moments and label feelings for the children. For example, as a child runs for a swing, another child reaches it and gets on. The first child begins to frown. The teacher approaches her and says, “You look a little disappointed about that swing.” Or a boy’s grandmother surprises him by picking him up at childcare. The boy screams, “Grandma!” and runs up to hug her. The child care provider says, “Oh boy, you look so happy and surprised that your grandma is here!” As children’s feeling vocabulary develops, their ability to correctly identify feelings in themselves and others also progresses. 

Play Games, Sing Songs, and Read Stories with New Feeling Words. Adults can enhance children’s feeling vocabularies by introducing games, songs, and storybooks featuring new feeling words. Teachers and other caregivers can adapt songs such as “If you’re happy and you know it” with verses such as “If you’re frustrated and you know it, take a breath”; “If you’re disappointed and you know it, tell a friend”; or “If you’re proud and you know it, say ‘I did it!’”

And this new discourse isn't something that comes naturally to most. I think becoming a parent is like learning a new language. It's tremendously challenging. But I have learned so much about myself over the past year and a half - and that's awesome. Even I have learned at my old age to finally name and process my emotions- and I feel more calm, centered, and in control of my life.

We do need more parental guidance in this world, but it's not helping our children by being bullies with an open hand or stronger disciplinarians who teach them the meaning of respect with a belt.  We need to be competent emotional mentors with a strong presence as parents to guide our children. 

I think the answer lies with a more psychological approach that comes with understanding human development which acknowledges a child's sensitive emotional nature and gives them the words to articulate these natural modes of being.