I spend a lot of time thinking what it must be like to be one of my kids.\u00a0 Before you say, \u201cOh, you\u2019re such a good mommy!\u201d it\u2019s not really like that.\u00a0 If anything, I\u2019m all the more culpable for being so mean sometimes.\u00a0 I actually can really, vividly imagine what it\u2019s like to be, for instance, so<\/em> so upset about someone saying that \u201cCatsy Cootsy Tatsy Wootsy\u201d is a stinky name for a robot \u2014 and yet I still say, \u201cOh, don\u2019t be so silly, who cares?\u00a0 You stop crying and clean up this room.\u201d\u00a0 Even though I remember what that\u2019s like.<\/p>\n Anyway, I was thinking about those strange, stranded childhood memories that stay with us.\u00a0 We say, \u201cWhen I was little, we always used to sit under the lilac tree and play farm using fruit snacks for animals\u201d when really that only happened one time.\u00a0 Or our entire sixth year of life is represented by a memory of a maple seed helicopter that someone drew on with green marker and put in our hair.\u00a0 Probably something else happened that year!\u00a0 But that\u2019s all we can remember, is the helicopter.<\/p>\n I just wonder how these memories stick.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 I drive down the same country road four times a day, five days a week, with the four little ones strapped into their dank car seats.\u00a0 Sometimes we chat, sometimes we listen to music, sometimes they yell and kick at each other, and fight over the last of the graham crackers.\u00a0 But most of that time, they\u2019re just looking out the window.<\/p>\n I glance back and see those dark, placid eyes drinking in the golden leaves, the endlessly unfurling stone walls, the occasional thrilling squirrel or cocker spaniel as we rattle down the road \u2014 that familiar landscape that ought to be so soothing and reassuring, and the perfect, idyllic setting for a whole year of comfortable childhood memories.\u00a0 There\u2019s even a funny plaster bull in somebody\u2019s yard.\u00a0 That would make a nice memory!<\/p>\n But I know perfectly well the strangeness inside a child\u2019s head.\u00a0 I remember that simmering stew of comfort and confusion, tedium and alarm, affection and sudden spikes of dread.\u00a0 And I remember all the adults trotting along so callously, so bafflingly unaware of all the terrible dangers in the world, the savage mysteries that grown-ups pretend are nothing at all, just a shadow, just a plastic bag caught in the wind, just the sound of the house settling.<\/p>\n Some of my children are worriers and brooders, and I understand them.\u00a0 I can tell them, \u201cIt\u2019s all right \u2014 it\u2019s all right.\u00a0 You\u2019ll grow up, and you\u2019ll see that the world is not so terrible.\u00a0 There is a way out of this dark hole, and there is so much to look forward to.\u00a0 Just hang in there, and you will not always be a child!\u00a0 You can do it.\u201d\u00a0 But that doesn\u2019t help them now.\u00a0 They don\u2019t know what I mean, and they don\u2019t realize that I understand.<\/p>\n I wish I could choose their memories for them.\u00a0 When I\u2019m feeling up to it, I try and bulldoze them over with poignant, satisfying experiences, so that they\u2019ll have something good for when they grow up.\u00a0 And really, I know it\u2019s not for their sake \u2014 it\u2019s for mine.\u00a0 It\u2019s so they can tell me, \u201cRemember when you used to sing that song you made up while we were waiting for the eggs to scramble?\u201d and I can say, \u201cOh, yes, you were such a difficult child . . . but I made you happy, didn\u2019t I?\u201d and they will say, \u201cYes, Mama, and we appreciate that.\u00a0 You were a good mother.\u201d<\/p>\n Ridiculous.\u00a0 That is not what will happen.\u00a0 When they have their own kids, they\u2019ll wonder why I couldn\u2019t have been nicer, why I had to be so critical, so capricious, so impatient and embarrassing.\u00a0 They will love me, but it will be love with exasperation, accomplished with fortitude.\u00a0 I know that whoever my children will turn out to be, it will be because of their own experiences, their own personality, their own genetics, their own little portions of grace that God chooses for them.\u00a0 So very, very little of who they are will come from me, even though I crack my brain trying to think of everything they will need.<\/p>\n And of that, they will remember \u2013 \u2013 what?\u00a0 The time I yelled at them on their birthday; and maybe also the time I made kitten-shaped pancakes for lunch.\u00a0 Maybe they\u2019ll just remember me brushing their hair.<\/p>\n I hope the time they remember is the time I remembered to be gentle.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I spend a lot of time thinking what it must be like to be one of my kids.\u00a0 Before you say, \u201cOh, you\u2019re such a good mommy!\u201d it\u2019s not really like that.\u00a0 If anything, I\u2019m all the more culpable for being so mean sometimes.\u00a0 I actually can really, vividly imagine what it\u2019s like to be, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1533,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[43,92,126],"class_list":["post-1906","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-childhood","tag-kids","tag-parenting"],"yoast_head":"\n