Sheila’s Take on Grace
What is Grace?
I’m sure for a lot of people grace seems like a religious term.
The internet dictionary has several definitions of Grace - between simple elegance to politeness to a prayer.
To me, grace means forgiveness. When I chose the name Raising Grace what I meant was, raising our children the best way we can while forgiving ourselves in the frequent mistakes we make as parents. A childs number one job is to push barriers and find where the boundaries lie. A parents number one job is to keep that child safe, loved, and cared for. When a child pushes those boundaries we have set for them - we often lose our loving graces. I know I can only ask my children a few times to do something before I blow a gasket. I don’t actually know what a gasket is in the real world sense, but to me it’s the image of bugs bunny with smoke coming out of his ears. My voice loses its “elegance” and i become louder and more demanding.
This morning I asked my 9 year old son to help with his younger sisters. They have a hard time staying focused. He straight up told me, “that’s not my job and I don’t have to do it.”
My grace filled parenting experience told me to take some deep breaths, but my sass kicked in real hard and I responded with, “well I don’t have to give you a ride to school every morning, but I do.”
Which clearly isn’t the same as asking him to help his sisters, but I was irritated with the back talk.
At the same time, my 3yr old was being extra defiant. I had asked her to help clean up a few things before we headed off to school. She looked me straight in the eye and said, “mama, I not gonna do that. You do that mama. I gonna play.”
At the same time, my 6yr old managed to spill her filled cup of super organic $8 per gallon milk all over her pancake.
Praise sweet baby Jesus… send me mother mary because I am about to lose my shit.
Dear reader, let me tell you that being a grace filled parent is the hardest thing have had to attempt to do in the 40 years I have lived on this earth.
So, parents out there who think you are alone in the beautiful mess that is raising children - you are incorrect. You are joined by a community of mothers and fathers who are just trying to hold it together.
This morning, I gave my children grace for being defiant back talking little…. Angels. And I gave myself grace for holding it together as much as I possibly could. That my friends, is what raising grace is. As parents we have to do the hardest things every single day - most of which is apologizing and forgiving.
My husband and I have an on-going joke about a recent meme we have seen. What is harder to say - I’m sorry or warchestersire? Sometimes, I just say warchestershire or is it whareserenter …. Whatever, it’s easier than saying I’m sorry.
Why is it so hard to say we are sorry? Is it because we are NOT sorry? No son, I’m not sorry for screaming at you for not picking up the socks that you launched across the room for the 900th day in a row. What the ACUTAL HELL! THEY ARE NOT WEAPONS! WHY ARE THEY ON MY CEILING FAN! What I am sorry for is losing my mind over socks. Child, help me not be a crazy person and pick up your damn socks. What is it like to forget something someone asked you to do every day since conception? I’d like to know? How do I gain this super power of selective hearing regarding dirty ass socks? WARCHESTIRES!!!
But I do apologize for many things. I’m sorry for over-reacting to something so small. I’m sorry for raising my voice when it clearly isn’t effective. I’m sorry I didn’t believe you when you said… xyz. Then I reset the expectation calmly - i’ts really important that we work together as a team. This house has 5 humans and one dog and if one person is cleaning up after everyone else, it becomes hard and that person becomes a psychopath. As a collective team we want the same things. WE want to be able to find our clean clothes. We want to be able to find a place to sit on the couch. We want to keep the dog from eating our shoes. We want to be able to sit at the table and eat a meal without having to hold our plates in our laps because there is no place on the table. We all want the same things, but it takes a team to make those things happen.
Do I give this elegant speech every day? No. Does it sometimes sound like I’ve been possessed by the devil - yes. Yes it does. On those devil days I have to give myself a little grace - throw down some warchestires and try again tomorrow. I’m not sure if you’ve been following but warchestershire means apology in my book. Stick with me here.
So Raising grace is to raise your kids every single day with the deep love you have for them within the obnoxious daily tasks that feel in the moment, may actually kill you. We give ourselves grace and we give our children grace.
That my friends, is what I am all about. I spent 11 years building my family to what it is… a beautiful ball of chaotic joy. I am here to tell you - no matter how you came to be a parent you are not above the chaos. You are not alone on this journey of raising kids. I am told over and over and over again that I will miss this stage of parenting. I believe it, but it sure is hard to feel it in the moment.
In Grace,
Sheila
