parenting, continued

Last week (or something like that) I was talking with a couple of friends who are moms of many daughters.

I suggested we start a club –

The Moms of Many Daughters Club. (MMD – sounds alright?)

We need a support group y’all.

Not that raising any number of children is easy.  Not that raising boys is easy.  

But I’m just saying there’s a special kind of challenge to raising multiple teenage girls.  At the same time.

We texted back and forth here and there for the better part of an afternoon.  We’ve been sending a few texts in between.  When we need a virtual high five or an “I get you”.

We shared some real heavy and we laughed and poked fun at our beloved children and at ourselves.

It was therapeutic and I still think we need to make t-shirts and maybe develop some sort of bat signal when we need to call for emergency back up.

But the joking and the encouraging and the laughing reminded me and took me on a memory loop.

Memories about my own mom.

Growing up in a house with her, by her steady voice and hyper polite ways.

A house with three brothers.  No sisters.

I didn’t watch other girls, sisters, relating to my mom and I didn’t watch her parent other girls.

She literally thought I was the best – or she didn’t, I don’t know, but she faked it like an Oscar winner.

I don’t know how to do that.

You guys.

Mothers.

I am talking to you.

(But this is true for dads too – I just don’t think all the dads carry the same pressure as all the moms, but then again – what the heck do I know about what men think??  I have another friend who likes to remind me of how little I do, in fact, know about the psyche of men. I am certain he is accurate.)

Anyway, I’ll stick with what I do know — mothers.

It’s hard-hard-beyond-hard-extra-hard-what-is-a-better-word-than-hard to struggle through the deep waters of adolescence.  To navigate the path ahead of us with grace and kindness, mercy and generosity.  It’s painful and even though you’ve been a teenage girl yourself once upon a time – it still feels like foreign territory.

It takes special skills to hear the words, see the looks, feel the angst that gets darted/shoved/pushed in your direction and to not take it personally.  

And I’m just guessing here – but I’d say we’re all going to get it wrong as often as we get it right.

We’re all going to have A+ days and days when we flunk.

And we know, at each extreme – and in the middle moments too – we have these watching eyes, listening ears, learning hearts.  (And that’s when my heart and mind can jump off the deep end.  Thinking of my daughters as their future selves, telling their future friends and spouses about all the ways I messed up this parenting deal.)

I want to remind you – but I very much need to remind me – that God knows this.

Our job here is not a mystery to Him.

Our labor is not in vain.

We are not islands and loners.  We are not without hope and a light.

I’m grateful for a mom who loved me.  (And I mourn for a mom that has left me too early, with too many daughters to raise without her expert advice and opinions.)

And so I am also grateful for the moms who text back when I need a buddy but can’t leave my house to get one.  For the friends who weep with me and laugh with me and gently turn my eyes to the face of Jesus.  

Who remind me, in actions and in literal words, I am the mom God has chosen for the kids He has also chosen for me.

My kids are not enough.

I am not enough.

But He always is.

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