Family matters

My mom titles all her emails to us "Family matters". I know that she is referring to matters, as in "issues", but I like to think that it's more like "Family MATTERS". It means something.

My family is huge, and with huge families comes a lot of crazy. There's always a few people who are not speaking, who have waged some kind of war on each other over some words that were said and probably not meant. But words are just words and my family is big on forgiveness and even bigger on love.

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I think all parents & kids have issues that strain their relationship, especially when the kids are in their teens & 20's. Somehow all problems seem larger than they really are when you're still young and have yet to really experience the way that life can cut you in two.
When you get a few more years under your belt, you start to realize that life is bigger than you. Other people have feelings and the things you say & do have a real, lasting effect on the ones you love.
You also find yourself making some of the same choices as your parents and finally get a glimpse of understanding just what the hell the people who raised you were thinking.

And, when you are a parent and you hit a rough patch with your own children, it is really, quite humbling.
You will want to call your mom (and your dad & grandpa & grandma & aunts & uncles & even maybe some of your old teachers) and apologize for having been a complete and total mess of a human being in your younger years.

But when you do call your parents and ask them how they got through those days with you and they answer that they had no idea what they were doing, either, it's like the biggest weight being lifted off your shoulders.
There's nothing more encouraging than knowing that the people you respect and look to for guidance & support are just fumbling through life doing the best they can, too.

They never had the answers, either, and somehow you all made it out alive.

To all the baby-daddies

To the ex's, the one night stands, to the court- mandated visitors, the DNA questioners, the child support evaders, to all the baby-daddies:

I don't know if it's occurred to you, but this whole parenthood thing? It's a full time gig.
Even when your kid isn't with you- you're still a parent.

When you're at work- you're still a parent.
When you're out of town- you're still a parent.
When you have a date- you're still a parent.
When you're sleeping- you're still a parent.
When you're drunk- you're still a parent.

And when life gets hard, and believe me it gets really hard, (especially during those teen years) you don't get to check out.
If you lose your job, your girlfriend dumps you, your cat dies, your bills are piling up, you still have to get yourself out of bed every morning and make sure your child has everything he needs 
-including a feeling of being genuinely loved for exactly the person that he is right in this moment- because all of that stuff? That's adult stuff, and the last time I checked, none of that stuff was your kid's responsibility.

Love your child.
Treat him with respect.
Tell him you're proud of him.
Give him a reason to want to make you proud.
And for the love of God, don't disappoint him.
Just, be a dad. A real one.

Signed,
Mama Bear

Time is of the essence

I do not run from aging.
I have waited rather impatiently for the feeling that I have officially entered into adulthood.
I long to know instantly which choices will catapult me forward in the direction of all-knowing and leave me with a sense of Universal understanding and rightness.
Yet, when I look into the mirror and see a face that is over 30, and a head with several strands of silver hidden by a careful part of the hair, I am surprised.

I am starting to get the drift that there is no magic awakening that occurs simply with age.
When will I get there, then, I wonder? If I get there at all.

Most days I feel like the decisions I make in raising my family are smart, and right, and good.
Some days I think my head is going to come exploding apart and the children will do no more than to stomp what is left of me into the meticulously cleaned laminate floor beneath their feet.
It is up to me to put my head back together and clean up the messes of mothering, and of life's many disasters and also, most importantly, life's celebrations.

When my mother was my age she seemed to have it all figured out, but I know she would say that is not true.  Maybe that is the trick- making it look like you know what you're doing when in all honesty you are scrambling through, doing the best you know how to do.
If that is the case, I have arrived.
I am here.