Sally and the Enchanting Santas

Standing there at the doors of the grocery store, I was annoyed. I was trying to hurry to get through this shopping trip because I was tired and wanted to get home, and Sally was holding things up. Bobby was seated in the cart, full of bags of groceries ready to be put in the car, but Sally was missing. Not missing missing, I knew where she was—she’d fallen behind as we walked from the checkout to the door, such that when I made it to the door she wasn’t with me.

“Sally!” I called back into the store, working to keep a tone that was pleasant yet definite. “Sally, come on!” Still Sally did not come.

I took a deep breath to reassess and refocus. I tried to put myself in Sally’s shoes. Sally had known I was trying to hurry through the last of the shopping trip, I realized. Sally was usually very responsive when she could see that I was tired and wanting to hurry. Given that, it must have taken something really special to hold her up this long. I resolved to go find out just what it was that she had discovered and to share in her excitement. She would want to show me what she had found, after all, and I was pretty sure that if I purposed to enjoy it with her we would actually get to the car faster and happier than otherwise. And so I turned my cart around and headed back into the store.

And it turned out that I was right.

“Momma, look!” Sally was standing entranced, staring at two 30 inch Santa figures. The one had Christmas lights in his hands, and the other held a hammer. Sally had squeezed their hands and was now watching wide-eyed as the figures lit up and swayed to music. “They’re so  beautiful!” she breathed. And so we stood there, we three, and watched the Santas dance. And then, after a few minutes, I said it was time to go. And this time, Sally came, looking back over her shoulder at the Santas as we went.

For me, parenting isn’t about me getting my kids to listen to me and do what I say. I mean sure, that can be part of it, but much, much more than that parenting is about listening to my children and valuing their feelings and excitements. If I’d focused solely on getting us out the door and had gone back in and grabbed Sally, or told her firmly that we had to go without letting her show me what she had found, I would have missed a beautiful moment with my children. I would also have communicated to Sally that I didn’t care about her feelings or her little joys—and even that they don’t matter.

My parenting isn’t me-focused. It’s also not solely them-focused either, because I encourage my children to consider my needs and feelings too, and I believe self-care is important. My parenting isn’t me-focused and it’s not them-focused, it’s each-other-focused. It’s about a relationship, and relationships go both ways. And sometimes that means stopping to look at enchanting Santas.