Easter is still here

Here's our Easter picture for 2014. It took us a few weeks to get one taken, due to the flu and the haphazardness of child collection and getting everybody to sit and look and smile, preferably all at the same nanosecond. We generally succeeded, I think.

What isn't pictured here is the talking-to the older kids got about listening in church and Small Dude's screaming for food and Papa and my's exasperation at normal kid misbehavior (Small Dude's need for sustenance doesn't count, of course). Saying we were exasperated is putting it mucho mildly ("spitting nails furious" is closer, at least for me). And, as every parent knows, just because misbehavior is "normal" doesn't mean we let it slide. We have to discipline. And discipline is hard because we wonder why they don't just LISTEN and TRUST US and DO IT THE FIRST TIME, FOR PETE'S SAKE. God knows that better than we do, He who put up with--and still puts up with-- broken command after broken command. And this is why we still celebrate Easter going on three weeks after the one Sunday most people see on the calendar. One Father's anger poured out on His obedient Son, and the rest of us benefit eternally.

So what is pictured here are six very sinful people. Six people who have all been baptized and forgiven and who still go to church every Sunday because we need Jesus--in His word, in bread and wine that are His body and blood. And someday, in His heavenly kingdom, we will sit and look and smile and bask in the presence of Christ. He will show us, like He did to His disciples, His hands and His side. And He will tell us, "Peace to you." And peace to you, dear ones, this Easter.

One is ten. Two is fifteen. Three is seventeen. Four is BOOM.

Four months into to life with four ex utero, and my days are a mix of peace, fulfillment, meaning. Oh, and nine parts anger, stress, and denial that this--this noise and chaos and bodily-fluid-and-rambunktion cocktail--is our relatively-newish normal.

In the last five and half years, Papa and I have weathered the new parent experience (an insanely high learning curve), the two-under-two juggle, the three-easing-in gig. Pearly Girl's arrival was smooth, and within three weeks I was thinking, "This is easy. Cool!" Deluded, I thought I was proving to be just the kind of mega-awesome mom I always knew I was.

But the last few months have exploded my self-satisfied smugness. No, I can't point to crime-worthy messes or even particular instances so much as my general feeling of physical and emotional exhaustion. And I began realizing a few months ago that this wasn't depression; it was life. And if this was what my life was like, then my understanding of myself was being blasted to smithereens.

I had a breakthrough last month when I struck up a conversation with another mom of four whose kids are roughly a year ahead of each of ours. "So, does it get easier?" I asked hesitatingly, half-giggling, hoping that she could hear, and yet hoping she would miss, the barely-disguised hysteria behind my generic question.

"Yeah, it does," she said. Then she gazed down at her one-year-old and helped me to some perspective. "But four is hard. Everybody said, 'If you can do three, you can do four, five six.' And three for us was cake. But four was..." her voice trailed off. She looked at me. "I had a hard time. I had postpartum depression, which I'd never had with the other three kids. But my sisters-in-law helped. [They have four kids each, too.] They told me four was tough for them, too, but that it would get better." She paused, steadying the barely-walking brave soul hanging on to her pant leg. "Now the baby wants to go off on his own, and I'm like, 'He's not my baby anymore!' and at the same time I'm like, 'Go! Go!'"

Empathy comes in many forms, and sometimes it trickles into our lives almost unconsciously, emerging as in-the-trenches shared experience. Mom-of-four Amy put into words what I had been struggling to admit even to myself--that four kids is somehow astronomically harder to manage, but in subtle ways, that makes the very difficulty in care somehow negligible. I had felt like I was slowly drowning--and in truth, I still do, many days--but I felt like I couldn't acknowledge it because, well, three kids had been easy, and so many people told me that "if you could manage three, then you can manage four fine." Maybe someday I'll start second-guessing gross generalizations about parenting and spare myself the unrealistic expectations and inevitable guilty fallout.

I also felt like I couldn't acknowledge what our life is like because to do so prompts many people to jump to an illogical, if tenaciously popular, way of thinking. It goes something like this: if I, a mother of four, say that being a stay-at-home mother is hard, then I'm admitting failure. If I admit failure, then I 1) should really look into doing something more productive with my time, like working at something away from my children that tangibly and reliably rewards my efforts (unlike my current routine, which swings from high highs and low lows, like a bipolar monkey. Yep, pretty much like that), and 2) should stop embracing life and being open to more children. Because who in her right mind wants more of what causes her stress, sleeplessness, and six days straight of no showers? (Okay, it's usually not that bad. I had to pick a number that started with 's.' And 'seventeen' would have just scared people away.) In the midst of this juggle, I didn't know how to begin to respond to these arguments. In fact, I wasn't sure that I could personally categorically reject them, though logically I knew they were flawed.

A few years ago, Glennon Melton, a blogger at Momastery, wrote a great post entitled "Don't Carpe Diem," which went viral. In it, she discusses this very conundrum.

Parenting is hard. Just like lots of important jobs are hard. Why is it that the second a mother admits that it's hard, people feel the need to suggest that maybe she's not doing it right? Or that she certainly shouldn't add more to her load. Maybe the fact that it's so hard means she IS doing it right...in her own way...and she happens to be honest.

I disagree with some points here: I'm not doing it right, and I can't judge motherhood by my own standard (more on that in a bit). But the honesty part is what struck me, both when Amy talked to me and I read what Glennon wrote to the blogosphere. What is this life but hardships? And why was I stressing so much about the sheer hardness of life with small children? When I spend more than two seconds listening to myself, I realize how often the wambulance wails in my head and how I really do need to kick the wimpiness to the curb. In Lutheran-speak, I need to confess and repent the real culprit behind my stress: my own pride. I need to banish the Pharisee of Superwoman who, in a different but related vein, tries to keep me enslaved to the belief that I can control my life the way I want--and show the world how I really can live the perfect parent-magazine-spread life and put all those other moms to shame. That I can, in fact, do motherhood right, and do it right all the time, perfectly.

I realize that I am staggering from one ditch of self-pity and naval-gazing to another ditch of self-glorifying Mommydom. Both ways leave me with zero comfort and plenty of pent-up anxiety. Worse yet, I am leaving the One who can actually steer the ship, right the course, calm my heart, and lead me and mine to the Way Everlasting when I insist on thinking all of these gifts are entitlements and rewards. And I end up buried. As hard as I pity myself or congratulate myself, the law written on my heart whispers the truth: I fail at this mommy thing. I sin against my children daily, hourly. And real pity doesn't apply to evil. The meek were truly helpless and deserving of pity; I'm a sinner worthy of death. And I dwell on myself to the exclusion of every real good gift, like a massive quantity of explosives simmering before a lighted fuse. As Chad Bird put it in this blogpost among many other fine ones, "Behold, the sin of the world, that takes away the Lamb of God!"

Struggling is not abnormal. Struggling is what we do in this life. But struggling should not excuse the sins that hide behind it. I am angry many times because I think God is unfair to make my life something other than an Emommy awards show, that my service to my children goes unnoticed by most of the world, usually including my children; that my efforts don't merit a paycheck or an impressive job title or an awesome alumni magazine write-up. And my anger is so incredibly sinful, so immeasurably petty and juvenile, because God Himself did for me what I so dimly, blunderingly do for my own children. He loves me first and puts Himself aside. And He did this in His earthly life with the ultimate humility and grace and endless love. And remarkably, He still does love me, the merit-less and worthless, and gives Himself to me still.

And for this I am eternally grateful. And I am reminded, however fleetingly in this frenzied life, that He carries my sorrows, even the silly ones; He was cursed for my transgressions, even from my most terrible hatred down to my most childish anger. Upon Him was laid the chastisement that brings me ultimate peace, and by His stripes, I--with the messy remnants of my pride and sins raining in and on and through me--am healed and cleansed.

Because explosions can be beautiful.

Far as the curse is found

Every year on Christmas Eve night, our church's Sunday School presents a pageant. The pageant includes lessons and carols, with some shepherds' robes, microphone feedback, candlelight, and the usual-yet-unexpected poignancy whenever children are involved in public confessions of faith. This year, the Sunday School teachers did an exceptional job preparing our youngsters to read and sing of Christ's coming. And despite a last-minute rash of kids getting the flu and a snowy, blowy Eve, Our Saviour's Sunday School did a wonderful job. Here they are right before the service.

Our small group is blessed to include Ali, a lovely, energetic girl who is developmentally disabled. She cannot walk without help and she cannot speak with words that we understand. But she smiles often, participates vigorously, and shows us how God makes beauty out of brokenness.

Ali's mother is one of our Sunday School teachers, and one of the ways Ali participated in the pageant was to light candles during one of the readings. Her mother helped her walk up to the Advent wreath. Then, she carefully wrapped Ali's fingers around the acolyte's brass lighter and lifted the flickering end bravely toward the candles. It took some doing, for it was difficult for Ali and her mother to get the lighter wick lined up just so against each candle wick. But as we watched Ali's rapt face glow in the soft light she lit and listened to the Old Testament prophecies and New Testament narratives of Christ's coming, we saw exactly why Christ came: to give light to darkness and to give hope to the weak. Later, while Pastor read of joyful noises and praise for God's good gifts, Ali lifted her voice to share her excitement. Her timing was perfect. She literally made a joyful noise as we heard about all of creation rejoicing in God's greatest gift.

One of my favorite Christmastime readings is Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. In the story, Bob Cratchit tells his wife about taking their son, the saintly Tiny Tim, to church. "He told me, coming home," Bob says, "that he hoped the people saw him in the church, because he was a cripple, and it might be pleasant to them to remember upon Christmas Day, who made lame beggars walk, and blind men see." 

Parents of disabled children, including Ali's mom and dad, will tell you that their children are not perfect. They know, just as parents of able-bodied children know, that despite glimpses of sweet innocence and selflessness, children act in savage, selfish, sinful ways, ways that belie their angelic appearances. That's one reason why Lutherans baptize babies--we know our months-, days-, or even hours-old children have been infected with the sin of Adam. Their behavior shows this, but their bodies show it, too. Children scrape knees, break limbs, get infections, battle cancer. Some of the scars heal, but none of them disappear forever. And even the most saintly kid can't fix himself. Tiny Tim recognized this. Even at young ages, we see our children marked for death.

Papa and I witnessed this firsthand in our own home this week. Superman developed a low-grade fever a few days after Christmas. I kept him home, snuggled him, gave him lots of 7-Up and regular doses of bubble-gum Tylenol. But he still felt badly, and his body suddenly reacted to its illness by triggering a seizure. We took him to the Emergency Room within ten minutes of his seizure, and he revived, especially when the nurses prepared his hand for an IV. (Oh, the great patience of pediatric nurses!) He spent the night at Sanford Children's in Sioux Falls, at what we call the Castle (it looks like the Cinderella castle at Disney World). And we were relieved when his temperature disappeared after a night and the doctors concluded that Superman is one of about five percent of kids who experience febrile seizures, or seizures causes by a fever. He might have another one, but he might not. It's most likely that he will grow out of them. And we are very thankful that he is well now, asking for candy at every meal, and asking us, "Do you remember when I got to spend the night at the children's doctor?" Yes, Superman. We remember. And we always will.

In a feeling-apple-eatin'-good moment.

Few things are as terrifying to parents, I think, than when their children become physically unresponsive. Right after his seizure, Papa scooped up Superman and held him like a baby. Our son was helpless, and so were we. All we could physically do was to rock him and place him in the care of people who know how little bodies work and what they need. The experience with Superman was a mighty, visceral shock to remember that our son is not ours, that we did not make him, and that we cannot keep him well, or even keep him at all. His days on this earth are numbered. And this knowledge can cripple us with fear and anger.

Too often, I think the world manipulates the weakest among us. Many are manipulated because they are small or voiceless. Many are exploited as powerful political or religious examples that we thoughtlessly or knowingly parade in a voyeuristic show of pity to achieve other ends--our own selfish ends. But Christ came as a weak Babe precisely to show us that He loves each little one unto death. Because that's where Ali and Sam and every child, from the red-faced newborn to strongest Olympian to the frailest centenarian, is headed. And the Child gifted with myrrh, the embalming spice and funeral incense, reached for Death and struck it away, for us, forever.

On Christmas Day, we sing joy. We sing, "Joy to the world, the Lord is come." But even more, we sing healing. "He comes to make His blessings flow/ far as the curse is found." In the Christmas season, and for the rest of this year and every year, we need joy. But we also need to know that His blessings flow even into the very crevices of our sinful lives, into every dark and putrid corner, into every broken heart and annihilated hope that we suffer due to our terrible physical and emotional and spiritual frailty and that of those we love. We need to know that He, the mightiest and the greatest, made Himself the smallest and weakest and most nothing of men to save us, the ones who so desperately need Him. As this Christmas season closes, I pray you know and remember that He comes to defeat every curse that haunts and plagues you. He comes as the lowliest to lift you lowly ones up, to hold you like babies, to heal your brokenness. And he comes still to make His blessings flow.

Fruitfulness, Round Four

Last week, post-yard-sale and some back labor excitement, Papa picked tomatoes from the garden. This is what the counter looked like after I'd cleaned half of the take from three five-gallon buckets.

As they say up here: Uff-da.

Suffice it to say, we've had a bumper garden harvest this year. Since early August, I've been freezing green beans, sweet corn (not from our garden but from three different church members--sweet corn had a good year here, too), preparing eggplant and squash and cucumbers, and this month we've been tackling the pepper and tomato haul. Yes, it's been a lot of work. We're also very thankful the garden has borne such bounty, especially considering the late spring and the fact that we were gone for four weeks after Papa planted. So Nancy, if you're reading this and still at all concerned that your watering efforts in July went to waste, please, PLEASE fret no more. God used your efforts to great success. In fact, our tomato load last week was the fourth round of our tomato haul. The first resulted in twelve pints of hot salsa and seven quarts of tomatoes in their own juice. The second begat twelve pints of mild salsa and multiple quarts of peeled, frozen tomatoes. The third produced over twelve gallons of frozen tomatoes (see how my energy with each round diminished?). The fourth round, by sheer size alone, demanded extra effort.

So last week when I decided to make tomato sauce with all two-thirds of Papa's latest picking, I had a lot of time to think about garden harvests and familial blessings. Sitting in the kitchen, destemming and slicing up countless tomatoes for what turned out to be over ten quarts of sauce (which, if you've done this before, means roughly sixty pounds of tomatoes were involved), and wincing every time Baby decided to make his presence known (the guy's running out of room!), I pondered the mysteries of fruitfulness.

Papa's planted a garden every summer we've been here, and we've had some good years. He's rotated placement, Miracle-Gro-ed, swapped out different varieties of produce, tried different spacing. He's tried onions and radishes with little success. This year, he tweaked again, but not enough to account for the haul. Our backyard neighbors planted a few tomato plants scarcely twenty feet from our garden and didn't get a single tomato for their work. Yet we planted and basically left the little green squirts alone and now find ourselves inundated.

It's not fair, in the whole scheme of things. I'm ten months pregnant. Why all this work at this particular time? But what a silly response. I could dwell on the effort such bounty requires to preserve and sustain, but that seems beyond ungrateful. It doesn't even make sense. Gardens by their very nature are supposed to produce. And when they do, we give thanks. On the flip side, our bounty seems unfair to all the gardeners who spend this month wondering what went wrong. It would seem judicious if everyone got at least a little something for all of their gardening efforts, but sometimes it just doesn't happen. Sometimes the rabbits and birds wreak havoc. Sometimes the weather soaks or scorches. Sometimes seeds and seedlings just don't take due to soil or weeds or for causes we can never determine. Experts have spent and still spend countless hours attempting to explain why things grow and why they don't. But even finding reasons why things don't grow can't suddenly make them grow. Even having all kinds of scientific answers as to how and why life can happen can't actually create and sustain life itself.

Gardens are one thing; families and children quite another. I think of my friends and others whose arms and hearts ache with emptiness, from children desired and children taken to Jesus. Like agricultural scientists and researchers and farmers, doctors and specialists can only explain so much. This is not to diminish their God-given expertise and aid in any way. It is only to say that they are not God, and they cannot act as Life-creater. Sometimes we fool ourselves into thinking they can be, that technology or drugs or some combination of scientific theory and practice in the hands of certain people can do what only God can do. But we also see too much suffering and tragedy to believe such a lie. Seemingly healthy children die young. Healthy women are infertile. And children who should not statistically survive do. My sister and I are such exceptions. We were born over thirty years ago at  twenty-eight weeks gestation. We were given less than a ten percent chance of survival at birth, but we both did. And only God knows why. We can speculate, of course. But the truth is that we don't know. And we can only trust that God's ways are best, even when we don't know His reasons for life or for death, for fruitfulness or for barrenness.

Such may sound glib or callous, an easy write-off for unanswerable burdens that provides no comfort. Instead, it is a life-saving trust in a sea of loss and suffering. We pray a meal prayer sometimes that begins with verses from Psalm 145: The eyes of all look to You, O Lord, and You give them their food in due season. You open Your hand; You satisfy the desire of every living thing (14-15). We give thanks for the nutrients God provides us for our bodies. We acknowledge that only He can give us what we need, when we need it, be it food or health or children or any number of gifts. And ultimately, whether we like it or not, we bow to the inevitable scarcity or abundance that He provides, as He sees fit. We don't like this, because it means our efforts mean, well, nothing in the face of whether God withholds or blesses.

But we also know that His gifts are always good. His good gifts always satisfy our greatest need--that we need Him, that we are, in fact, completely helpless apart from Him. And He provides for us in multiple ways, too, just not always in the forms we desire or expect. Neighbors bring extra asparagus and apples (or get five-gallon buckets of tomatoes). Some years are corn-heavy and tomato-light. Some arms hold one child or two or many, biological or adopted, and others hold nieces or nephews or godchildren or congregational children. Regardless, we receive. And--this is a hard truth--if God ordains that we should bodily starve or bear the cross of barrenness or loss, we trust that His ways are not our ways, His care not ours. This is a terrible truth, but one on which our very lives depend. Abraham wielded a knife over his only son. Mary watched hers be pierced and nailed and suffocate and die. Both wept and ached and suffered. But none more so than He who made them to begin with, Who bore and bled and died and rose to give us life that would never end, that would never stop giving.

Our family waits and prays in these days for God to bless us with another child, who is our fourth living one. This baby has grown unseen and mostly unknown, though we cherish our time with his kicks and his hiccups, even his sunny-side up turn. God knows the days He has prepared for this little one, and we trust in His promises for us and for our child, that He will never leave us or foresake us, though we all will pass someday from this veil of tears. And so we give thanks for His mysterious bounty, in all of its forms. Bless us, O Lord, and these Your gifts, which we receive from Your bountiful goodness. Through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

On Marriage: Why 'Clarity and Mindfulness' Is Not Enough

So I just watched "The 20-Something Marriage Divide" on WSJ.com. The brief summary of the interview was this: "Kay Hymowitz of the Manhattan Institute asserts that women in their 20s should seek stability in marriage before childbirth. WSJ's Wendy Bounds asks why." (You can watch the entire video here.)

The fascinating study "Knot Yet: The Benefits and Costs of Delayed Marriage in America" that Hymowitz and three others co-authored came upon a startling, problematic pattern: while fewer teens are bearing children out of wedlock (a good thing), more twenty-something women are bearing children out of wedlock. And many of these women lack a college education and thus the opportunities to pursue middle- or higher-income positions. The typical pattern, as Hymowitz puts it, is that these women have a child, usually while they're cohabiting with the father, two years prior to the parents' marriage (if that even happens). Two-fifths of these relationships end in the first five years of the child's life. Then the parents typically move on to other relationships, involving the child in the myriad confusion of step-parents and step-relatives, including half-siblings, sinking the already low-income child into a hard-to-escape life of upheaval and usually poverty. Hymowitz explains that long, long, long studies of children's social, emotional, and educational development have shown that children benefit from stability, namely the stability of one father and one mother who are married to each other.

Bounds pounces on Hymowitz with series of anecdotal comment-leading-questions, from the extreme conclusion "So you're saying women should get married young and have children young, even if they don't really know the man they're marrying?" to the weirdly defensive "I have many twenty-something friends who have no desire to be married" (I'm paraphrasing quotes here). And Hymowitz has to respond with comments like, "No one would want women to get married just for the sake of getting married" and "Well, eighty percent of twenty-something women we interviewed said they'd like to be married someday." Bounds throws in a few comments about how families now are varied and ultimately makes a common, relativistic statement about American families, insinuating that no one can judge any non-one married father and mother family as problematic in any way. Hymowitz didn't get to respond to Bounds' last comment.

While all of this speaks indirectly to the topics so prevalent at the moment (SCOTUS, anyone?), I was first riveted by how intent Bounds seemed upon criticizing the Knot Yet conclusions. She didn't realize that so many of her anecdotal comments inherently excluded the very population that the study authors noticed, namely, the non-college-educated "Middle America" woman.  Bounds' responses weren't unique, I don't think; she seemed to be saying what any successful, educated, urban American woman would have said in response to Hymowitz's comments. I sensed that Bounds chafed at the criticism inherent in the study's conclusions, mostly because they showed how when people choose to have sex out of wedlock and a child results, the child inevitably suffers from the parents' choices. Even though the study stayed pretty far away from criticizing well-educated, middle- to upper-income women and parents--even going so far as to saying the later marriage age for college grads has helped women--the sting hits close. No woman wants to think that her choices, particularly her sexual choices, can be negative in any way. Even if the consequences of her choices, like children, are hypothetical. She knows, deep down, that children are a natural result of sex, and any criticism of her non-marital coitus is ultimately a judgment on her.

Our culture is idiotic when it comes to children. We hold up children as possessions, thinking we can trash them when they don't fit our lives or that we can manufacture them the way we manufacture toothbrushes when we want them. And any reminders that children result from a very basic, yet very mysterious biological union apart from our controlled circumstances--from faulty contraception to even perfectly-executed but failed fertility treatments--just remind us all the more powerfully that children are a gift. But we don't want to believe that. We want to believe that we can decide and choose in what instances children can be borne and raised, and then we believe that we can decide and choose that whatever instances in which children result we can deem good and successful (and immune from criticism). We have distanced sex and marriage so far from childbearing that we honestly get really confused and riled up when real people connect the three. And it's particularly difficult when the real people are children, stuck in real, chaotic, hybrid family situations. We typically ignore marriage altogether in those situations. Even Hymowitz, specifically studying marriage, could only retreat to a hollow definition of how a young woman should approach marriage if she's "serious" about having children: she should use "clarity and mindfulness" when considering and entering into marriage and think of her future child's best interests first. And who knows what a young man should be thinking.

And isn't that the problem? People cohabit for many reasons, and I'd venture a guess that precious few of them have "seriousness about my future child" or "my future child's best interest" as one or either of them, let alone words like "clarity and mindfulness" as they apply to potential children. People want sex. They want lower rent or mortgages. They want companionship without legal hurdles. They want to do what they want to do without getting "serious," which is a lazy way of saying they want to have a relationship their way, without sacrifice. Of course children in these situations would get the raw end; they're unwelcome, uninvited intruders to inherently selfish lifestyles. Parenting and sacrifice go hand in hand, and if parents of a child have never committed to sacrifice to, for, and with each other in the life-long bond of marriage, itself an institution about sacrifice and submission, their child will certainly be the one that does the sacrificing--socially, emotionally, educationally, you name it.

Where does a child fit in this picture?

The original descriptor of the interview, "20-somethings should seek stability in marriage before childbirth," only begs the question "why?" when we think marriage is ultimately and only about two people. Otherwise, the study's conclusion seem so obvious as to be ridiculous: one plus one equals three, not two. Even most of the conversations about same-sex marriage seem to miss this point. People get that marriage is important, perhaps even sacred (whatever that means to you). People even get that marriage as an ideal concept is a relationship to be desired, notwithstanding Bounds' friends. But marriage is about two people, a man and a woman, bonded together in the only relationship known in human history to be the most consistent, healthy way for children to live. Once people pretend that marriage is wholly separated from childbearing (and homosexual couples by default contend this), child-rearing, and child-maturing (even adult children of recently married septuagenarian parents are affected, after all), then of course marriage can mean whatever two emotional people want to make it. 

Any close reading of my comments here obviously indicts heterosexual couples who are married but who adopt the me-centered view of marriage. Even a couple biologically designed to enter into marriage can and--news flash!--does mess it up. So where does that leave us?  

Marriage requires philia and eros. Even more, it requires agape, the kind of love that foregoes self and unconditionally forgives. Of all groups, Christians best understand marriage because we see and confess how Christ loved us first. By recognizing our sin and our need for forgiveness, and by repenting and receiving Christ's forgiveness, we can connect Christ's love for His church to marriage. He loves us and forgives us, and then we can love and forgive each other, particularly our spouse and any children we receive. Vague, even well-intentioned clarity and mindfulness about marriage, and pragmatic choices and emotional decisions, aren't enough to make or define or sustain marriage. Sacrifice and forgiveness between husband and wife, and Christ received by both over and over and over again, are.  

A Vocation Reminder: Your Family Comes First

Lately, I've been puzzling--again--about how best to balance my vocations of wife and mother with that of teacher and tutor. Then I stumbled across this article in Tabletalk by Gene Edward Veith that discusses how our culture and our families are pitted against each other. You should read all of it (it's not long), but here's a teaser that helped me rethink my professional vocations in light of my familial ones.

Work is set against the family. The Reformers spoke of the “three estates,” the three institutions God established: the family, the church, and the state. We, in turn, have callings — or vocations — in each of these realms, where we are to love and serve our different neighbors and live out our Christian faith. 

When we think of “vocation” today, we often immediately think of the particular work we do. But the word “economics” originally referred to “the management of a household.” For the Reformers, the various callings that constitute economic activity fell under the estate of the family. 

In our work, we make a living for ourselves and our families. Our vocations are not a matter of our own self-fulfillment or self-aggrandizement, but for the sake of our neighbors: the customers we serve and the family-members we are supporting.

But today, work is thought of as being about the self. Our work isolates us rather than brings us into service to our culture and especially to our families. Thus, we often neglect our families in favor of our work. When fathers are so busy at work — or commuting back and forth — that they spend less than five minutes a day with their children, as is common today, their callings are seriously out of whack.

I would add that when wives and mothers spend their energies and time focusing primarily on their professional duties rather than their husbands and children, their callings are seriously out of whack. And while there's no metric that differentiates a professional vocation from being a "well-understood calling" from a "seriously-out-of-whack calling," I think that any professional vocation that isn't intentionally, constantly sidelined as secondary to the needs and support of the family is one that's problematic. And I say intentionally, constantly sidelined because vocations always overlap, and one's job will always, despite the best intentions, intrude on one's life now and then. But when it does, the paid worker--whether husband, wife, father, or mother--needs to remember what is most important.  

Poo-Poo Genius

S, in one of his many active moments.

Though I simultaneously grit my teeth and dry heave at saying this, potty training does have its upsides. (Have fun with that one, you Punsters. You know who you are.) Such as:

S and I had a little bathroom potty time last week after he failed to do the dirty where we'd really like him to. He's been in training pants and rubber pants consistently for the last few weeks, basically after Papa and I both realized 1) he was consistently dry for parts of days anyway, basically when we remembered to take him to the bathroom, and 2) we were tired of buying changing buying and changing diapers for a practically potty-trained toddler. Anyway, since we've done this before, we're not so hard-core about it (i.e. "If he's potty-trained, it means he'll tell us when he has to go and never, ever, ever have another accident. EVER!" This is like saying about a beginning reader: "If he's reading, then he'll read independently and never, ever, ever need any other help with letters or words. EVER!" But I digress.). So S does his dirty and we have little conversations, which turn out to be classic little moments. Like:

Me: So who's the boss in our family?

S: I'm the boss... (trailing off, then looking me in the eye) Mommy boss.

Me, pleasantly surprised: You're right! And who's the main boss in our family?

S: Boss, boss, boss... (thinking hard) Boston town.

Me, not getting it: Right, Boston town. But who's the main boss, S?

S: BOSS-ton town.

Me, finally getting it: BOSS-ton town. Boston town! (quickly thinking of all the metaphorical applications I've missed over never hearing this linguistic connection, then returning to the toddler) Like in the song--"Trot, trot, to Boston town, to get a stick of candy"!

S, grinning: Yeah.

And the really amazing and kind of scary thing about this? S has been making these kind of observations a lot lately. Like two weeks ago, when we went for an interview for an observational study he's a part of (I signed up for it for the free diapers--we got C's size this time--and the Target gift cards we get in "thanks" for showing off our brilliant kid. Plus, I get to spend time with S alone, which rarely happens at length). There, he did a few incredible things in front of Luke and Libby, like:

• Telling me "Mommy, I get down. Right NOW! Please." when he got bored with a video. Libby told me, "I've seen kids his age pitch fits, but I've never heard them ask to get down, let alone use manners."
• Upon pretending with a bear and a plate, cup, and spoon, and asked what he would do if the bear was thirsty, picking up the cup with a big smile and saying, "Give him some COFFEE!"
• Listening to directions very closely, like when he was already swinging his arm to knock down a stack of blocks he'd built and Luke said, "No." He immediately dropped his arm. No, he doesn't usually do that at home.
• Putting together a three-piece rattle together with no verbal directions an hour after he'd watched Luke do the same thing. And he did it three times with different pieces than Luke had used.
• When asked to identify pictures, saying, "Cookie" for a picture of a cookie, "Bear" for a bear, and "Cow" for a horse. Okay, he needs some work. 
• When asked which child in the picture had the most, pointing to a boy and saying, "He's got a lot of M & M's." (The stacks in front of the pictured kids were little, round, colored balls. Kind of like...)

I honestly was so moved--and, frankly, overwhelmed--by what S did and said at the interview, I had tears in my eyes. There's nothing quite so humbling as realizing there's no possible way your self-perceived brilliance could have turned out like this in your kid. Truly, only God can create minds like this.

Of course, that also means He creates... well, potty-training doesn't last forever. And I guess I'll take with it what comes.

After all, S will only be two at the end of April.

"Take my picture, too, Mommy." And here's my thumb. 

Slowly Joining the Weird

Ha.

 Birth control: these words provoke instant controversy. With yesterday's news about the Duggar family's twentieth pregnancy swimming around in my head, and with Baby Three's birth fast approaching, this CSPP throwback caught my attention:


Concordian Sisters of Perpetual Parturition: Probing the Sulvan brain


{I know: the blog is linked to the right and you could always browse its awesome archives yourselves. But sometimes its little gems are so very timely (recent news, conversation, thoughts, etcetera) that I just can't resist posting them here. So, to those who have the time to read about the weirdness that has to do with birth control, here you go.}


Rebekah provides some background about her own pre-marital thoughts about birth control which I found interesting, not least because so much of her thinking reflected how I thought and behaved pre- and early-marriage. We've learned so much even in the last years about what birth control does, specifically what it can do to early conceived children. In fact, it's not so recent: I remember a relative telling me she stopped taking birth control in the early 80s because she found out that birth control pills are abortifacents; that is, they can potentially cause early, early after-conception abortions.

Even knowing this, I used birth control in the form of the Patch the first months after our marriage. For, like Rebekah, I wanted to go to school forever and have some kind of career and just enjoy marriage for "awhile" before kids. But both Papa and I realized pretty quickly that artificially preventing the possibility of children--especially when side affects such as those mentioned above were involved--wasn't what marriage was intended for. I can't even say that we had this realization due to some great theological or intellectual break-through. I truly think God blessed us with the mutual knowledge, over time, that "be fruitful and multiply" is a blessing, not something to be avoided like the mumps. 

And even now, I want to emphasize that we're not Quiverfull followers, believing unequivocally that "the more, the better" should be every family's philosophy when it comes to children. There's far too many people we know who can't conceive and who also have been blessed with overwhelming numbers to make us fall into that ditch. Plus, we're just too Lutheran: Papa always says that if someone tells you you HAVE to do something to please God, do the opposite. He says it much more lovingly and better-theologically worded than that, but it applies here. We're not Mormons, believing that we've got some heavenly obligation to procreate (and, honestly, I wouldn't want my own planet after death that's populated with just my family. Love all you folks dearly, but... :)). Nor are we Pietists, believing that by our works--even begetting children--we are saved. And frankly, it just seems stupid to me that any of us--and that includes me and Papa at times, still--make the mistake so frequently, as Rebekah so aptly put it, of thinking that "wanting is the only language of reproduction." People say, "Do you want more kids?" like they're talking about buying apples. But that's our culture and how we think. Children are consumer-friendly objects, not gifts. And people can't help talking and thinking that way, because we've been surrounded with this kind of objectification of sex and choices and, thus, family size for at least fifty years.

So that's my long way of saying that we're slowly embracing the weirdness. I won't--and honestly can't--say what our family will look like in five years, because (see above!) ultimately only God decides whether or not to gift people with children. We're just eternally thankful that whether or not He does, He's already given all of us--the many-peopled families, the barren couples, the singles--Himself. And that gift is the weirdest one of all.

What Selfless, Loving Motherhood Isn't (And a Little of What It Is).

It's probably not the smartest thing in the world to read Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother while resting during "Quiet Time" to try to alleviate early pregnancy nausea. Don't get me wrong; this book holds many insightful, poignant thoughts about mothering that I fully support. I get sick, as does Chua, of so many cliches and generalizations about children that stem from "Western" parenting, most of which have to do with supporting self-esteem, of giving them "space" for creativity with minimal direction, of ultimately eschewing traditional discipline and education in favor of "letting them go"--which, too often it seems, is just a socially acceptable way for parents to let their kids do whatever they want so that parents can do whatever they want.

On the flip side is Chua, a self-described Tiger Mother, which, from my reading, means she is ruthlessly ambitious for her daughters, constantly pressuring, pushing, and yes, shoving them to do whatever it is she thinks they should be doing to achieve the top prize or recognition in whatever it is they're participating, be it extra credit in math class to get more points than any other student and stay two years ahead of the age group (especially the other Asian-American kids; they're the only ones who have their feet held to the same fire), practicing piano (all the way to Carnegie Hall at 14 for Sophia), practicing violin (a battle-of-the-wills with Lulu, who "wins" in the end and quits violin), or any other activity--except gym and drama--that's remotely competitive. I agreed with the expectation that children can achieve far, far more than what 99% of people, parents included, think they can achieve. I also agree with the invaluable lesson that parents should teach children how to work hard, and harder than they think they can or want to, in everything they do. There are extremely few substitutes for hard work, and I wish I had more discipline in that area. I know I'd spend less time thinking of how tired/exhausted/impossible a certain task would be and instead just do it.

But Chua's methods--screaming and yelling into the wee hours, heavily relying on derogatory, sarcastic name-calling to "motivate" her daughters and even to pressure her husband--are hardly worth emulating, and not just because they border on emotional abuse. As Christians, we hope to discipline and educate our children to learn skills and develop talents under an other-worldly umbrella; that is to say, we hope they can achieve great worldly success in academics, music, and most any area that enriches their minds and cultivates a confident yet humble spirit toward their neighbors. And that's where Chua's pedagogy breaks down. Her emphasis on excellence is admirable; but excellence for excellence's sake--that is, achievement's sake--is vacuous. Actually, it's even sinister. It can become the height of pride and narcissism without any moral direction. I couldn't help thinking as the book went on that all the people and institutions whose stamp of approval Chua sought for her daughters will all die someday, return to dust. And then what would her daughters' "successes" mean? As Solomon wrote in Ecclesiastes, "Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity. What does man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun? A generation goes, and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever" (1:1-4). And attaching all of her hopes (and fears) to her daughters' achievements, Chua establishes a metaphysical worldview, a cyclical, impossible pattern; achieve, and achieve again, and again, or you're nothing. You as a human being literally mean nothing. The criticisms about burning stuffed animals are paltry compared to this.

Not surprisingly, Chua is not deeply insightful about her motivations for being a Tiger Mother, a "typical" Chinese mother, other than to say that's how she was raised, and she's not about to embarrass her parents by producing children who aren't fantastically successful on paper. Her short comments on this are telling:

My answer [to the question, "Who are you doing all this pushing for--your daughters or yourself?"], I'm pretty sure, is that everything I do is unequivocally 100% for my daughters. My main evidence is that so much of what I do with Sophia and Lulu is miserable, exhausting, and not remotely fun for me. ... Unlike my Western friends, I can never say, 'As much as it kills me, I just have to let my kids make their choices and follow their hearts. It's the hardest thing in the world, but I'm doing my best to hold back.' Then they get to have a glass of wine and go to a yoga class, whereas I have to stay home and scream and have my kids hate me. (148)

Chua says something here that I agree with: that too many parents adopt the "I'm sacrificing for my kids" argument, all while vigorously pursuing their own personal (re: selfish) agendas. Maybe that's too harsh--maybe wine-drinking and yoga-posing is okay. But maybe it's what else Chua says that isn't okay--that "[staying] home and [screaming] and [having] my kids hate me," well, is just a teensy, weensy bit self-indulgent, too. Except it's easier to excuse than the wine-drinking because, well, it's hard. And if something is difficult, and not fun to the one doing it (no comments about the recipients), then it's not only excusable--it's completely worth emulating.

And weirdly, Chua never seems to even blink at this logic--maybe because that's how traditional Chinese mothers think, and she doesn't know how to identify fallacies in it. Being a recipient of dislike from her children places her in the ultimate martyr postion: the No One Can Argue With Me place. It's hard for her--never mind that most, if not all, of the negative attitudes in her home seem to stem from her own vitriolic temper--so no arguments: THIS is selfless, d****t. Guilt parenting at its most self-centered.

Yet Chua reevaluates some of her methods and approaches, and this stems in part from her beloved sister Katrin's agonizing battle with cancer. Chua actually begins to slightly quiet her ruthless tigress instincts in the face of suffering and untimely death. She wants to be with her sister and seems to recognize that children require emotional support, not just constant badgering. But Katrin pulls through, and Chua goes on, giving in on Lulu's violin lessons but not really changing much else. I think this is because she escaped facing the finality of death, the existential questions of why life is meaningful, because Katrin is still able to "prove" in her own career and as a mother that she is "successful". And I think Chua has probably invested too much in the misery, the exhaustion, and the illusion of self-sacrifice in tiger mothering to deeply evaluate it. There's something appealing to control freaks (of which I am one) to base all behavior and outcomes on measurable standards. If you can achieve it, then you are. Deviating from this way of thinking, of living, is not only unsettling; it's terrifying. Because the alternative is having to admit that you cannot ever prove your own worth.

The mothers that I most respect have understood that true service to their children unfolds out of real self-sacrifice--not out of self-proclaiming, self-justifying testimonies of success. It's the irony of our age: the best moms will never gain the publicity Chua has achieved because their work remains ongoing, humble, truly loving, and hidden. I was deeply saddened, and even queasy, by the end of the book--due, no doubt, in part by my pregnancy nausea and moodiness. Yes, Chua has an amazing resume, a highly successful career, and two high achieving daughters. But I doubt if her daughters have learned patience, compassion, and true selflessness from one of the most influential role models in their lives--their mother.

Ain't Nothing Like a Mocha! Especially for Momma!

Selling one life-changing caffine addiction at a time.

Thanks to my wonderful Momma for starting a blog! In the past few years, she's not started drinking mochas after decades of abstaining from AM caffine (!), she's actually moved into  drinking coffee with no sugar, no cream, and no shots of chocolate or other flavoring (!!!!). And now she's blogging (explanation points are pitiful completely inadequate symbols here :D). Check it out!

What could be better than a mocha and two beautiful grandsons? Enjoying them at the SAME TIME.