The Kids Who Glow
Then shall
thy light break forth as the morning,
and thine
health shall spring forth speedily:
and thy
righteousness shall go before thee:
the glory
of the Lord shall be thy rereward.
--
Isaiah 58:8
The schools have
this sex ed thing all wrong. All they need to do is put teenagers in the
position WE were in last weekend.
Get your
mind out of the gutter. Not THAT kind of position.
No, we went
on an eight-hour car trip with some dear friends who have a 2-year-old. All the
way there, and throughout the weekend, she was an angel. That's because her smart
and diligent mom and dad thought ahead and brought 42,000 toys, books and
snacks to keep her diverted, busy and happy.
The problem
was, in the last half of the eight-hour car trip home, they used up the 42,000th
diversionary tactic.
She was strapped
into her carseat and bored to tears. Night had fallen, so there was no more
farm scenery to enjoy. She couldn't color, she was sick of videos, and
listening to storybooks no longer worked. Been there, done that, bought the
Sponge Bob T-shirt.
The only
thing left to do was what 2-year-olds do best: express their feelings.
Vehemently!
She started to
murmur . . . and babble . . . and fuss . . . and yell . . . and finally, arch
her back, fling her limbs around, tilt back her head, and for all she was
worth, SHRIEK AT THE TOP OF HER LUNGS!!!!!
There
wasn't a dang thing any of us could do about it, either.
The poor mom and
dad were beside themselves, helpless in the face of the ear-splitting barrage
from the dimpled darling of a terroristic tyrant that is a 2-year-old in full
voice. The mom works a few days a week, but has built a great relationship with
her daughter, and up to that moment had exhibited world-class mothering skills.
The dad was highly involved and active, too. But we all know that sometimes,
with The Terrible Two's, you just have to bite a towel and get through it. And
this was one of those times.
I wished fervently
for some nuclear-strength earplugs as well as a good, thick towel to bite.
Daughter Maddy, now a mature and sophisticated 9, buried her face in her
stuffed animal, Cuddles. My husband's head shrank deeper and deeper into his
shirt, like a turtle retreating into its shell.
The instant we
pulled into their driveway, PING! Sweet silence! Like magic, the little girl
was an angel again. We hugged our friends, assured them we understood, and
drove the rest of the way home with our heads throbbing and ears ringing, but praising
God that our fertility ran out before our nervous systems did . . . barely.
So that's why I
think schools should put teenagers on an 8-hour car trip with a child in the
Terrible Two's. We'd put an immediate stop to the epidemic of teenage
pregnancy. They wouldn't even start DATING 'til their late 20s!
Now, this was the
first time in a long time that I've been around a toddler. I caught myself
feeling glad that it was that OTHER mother, not me, with all the
responsibilities, even though when they're not shrieking, they're awfully cute.
At my age, still with a relatively young child at home, I'm going through a bit
of role reversal these days since I hang out with much-younger moms sometimes.
All of a sudden,
I'm in the unfamiliar role of the wise old owl - the knowledgeable big sister.
Who, me? I'm the one who can burp the alphabet and make rude noises by clamping
my hands together, like a naughty third-grade boy. What I am doing acting as
Ann Landers to these young moms today?!?
But I enjoy it. The
younger mother last weekend asked me a few child-development questions, and ran
a few things by me, and I liked the chance to do a little impromptu mentoring.
I told her what I
tell them all, as a card-carrying flower geek:
In gardening, it's
all about preparing the soil for the root system. Investing all of your time
and effort in the early going will reap you the best harvest on down the road.
Now, gardening is work: lugging sacks of compost, double-digging, picking out
rocks, weeding, and squishing the occasional gross roly-poly or slug. And yes,
you have to deal with a lot of you-know-what - let's call it "fertilizer." But
the secret is, the best gardeners don't just work in the garden. They play
there, too. They enjoy interacting with nature. It's fun and fulfilling to get
your hands dirty out there! When you add love to the soil, good things happen.
It's the same
thing with parenting: mega-time, mega-effort, and mega encounters with
you-know-what . . . but if you hang in there and keep after it, and take time
to play with your children and enjoy them, even though it's a thankless job for
a lot of the time, there'll come moments when you realize that, by golly, your
children are growing up like a well-tended garden.
They literally
glow.
A garden is alive
with color and fragrance and incomparable beauty. It's all because the human
gardener mimicked the Master Gardener's way, of taking dirt and taking care to
make something of it. There's a huge difference between the garden of someone
who invests the time and care that it takes, and someone who does the bare
minimum.
In the same way, children
who've been actively reared by loving parents, and not "outsourced" to TV,
computer games, nannies and neglect, literally begin to "glow," compared to
their peers. They're calmer. Their ideas are more colorful and creative. Their
schoolwork is usually light-years better.
It's uncanny. But
it's true.
So by last night, I'd
recovered from the scream-a-thon in the car, and had forgotten about my
gardening insights and so forth, when we attended a tailgate party before the
Nebraska football game.
I saw a young
mother whom I'd advised years ago to quit her job and stay home with her
newborn, even though she was getting lots of good promotions and making a good
salary. She and her hubby have added another youngster since then. I don't see
her that often, and we'd never really discussed how her decision to become a
stay-at-homer had worked out for them.
Got my answer last
night. She came up with me with a big smile and a big hug, thanked me for
encouraging her to do what her heart was already telling her, and told me that
her children's teachers rave to her at every parent-teacher conference about how
smart, happy, friendly, funny, obedient, popular and most of all, GOOD her kids
are, compared to most of the other kids.
"The teachers say
they can just tell which kids have a stay-at-home parent," she told me. "They
just have a certain glow."
The look of joy
and pride in her eyes signaled that she didn't give a darn about the loss of
income and status that she'd suffered by quitting her job . . . because that
glow that her two kids have, that glow that came because of her, is priceless
and eternal.
I broke into a
grin. Thank You, Great Gardener. You inspired another one of us to devote
herself to the root system . . . to produce some new blooms in Your garden of
children who'll lift their faces to You, and glow.
And I thought
about the little 2-year-old from our trip last weekend, and all the love and
attention that her parents were showering on her. She'll be one of those kids,
too. She has already made our eardrums glow!
But
remember this, young parents:
They may be loud.
They may make a lot of you-know-what. They may try your patience 'til you feel
like pouring a fifth of vodka into their baby bottle and drinking it yourself.
But one day, if
you hang in there and do parenting right, keep at it, and stay on your knees,
where you do your best thinking . . .
one day the light will break . . . and it'll be loud and clear . . . and you'll
know that, with the help of the Gardener guiding your hands and your heart,
your kids have a very special glow.
And there's
nothing better than that . . . although earplugs on a long car ride with a
2-year-old would come mighty close. †
