Beware of…

*I have edited this this since I first posted. I wanted to clarify what I mean by equality and inclusion.

Here are a few bits of advice for the kids to digest when they need it. I’m writing a long post as I try to hold still while my back heals.

1-Convalescent by Whistler — Convalescent by James Whistler

Beware of the idea that we all need to be the same.

There is a lot of noise today about equality, which is okay. We are all children of God and we are all alike unto God. (2 Nephi 26:33) Unfortunately, many activists have decided that equality demands that we are all treated the same. We need to have the same responsibilities, the same attention, the same size pickle slices, or we are not really being treated as equals. There are gross inequalities in the world that need to be addressed, but I am concerned about the trend of counting titles and responsibilities as evidence of worth.

This hyper-focus on fairness simply teaches that what we have reflects our value. If we don’t have the same responsibilities as someone else, we have cause to be offended. By worldly logic, a person who presides over a church or runs a corporation is the only one who is really getting all he is due. I believe these attitudes are founded in pride in accomplishments, titles, and our most primitive desire to have the same size cookie as our neighbor.

In contrast to this, I believe that our worth comes from being children of our Heavenly Father. Evidence of our worth doesn’t come from what we have, in what we know, or say, or who approved our academic studies and gave us a diploma. It doesn’t hinge on whether we sit in a prominent place at church or the boardroom, or what we are asked to do by God. Our worth isn’t even supported by “equal opportunities.” I believe that when we focus on who we are rather than on what we have, we can be happier.

When activists teach that we need to be the same, the importance of family roles and the power of gender are often ignored or mocked. My gender and my life story are gifts! I treasure them.

Beware of the word, “Inclusion.”

I have learned to be skeptical of the enticing word, “inclusion.” It’s often used as a tool to muddle the lines between right and wrong. Inclusion sounds so great. It’s all about open-mindedness, implies that you are trendy, and means that you love and accept everyone. Worldly inclusion carries with it the idea that people should accept all behavior, not just people. In other words, we are encouraged to embrace the sin along with the sinner. Of course this message is often clothed in language that makes you feel like a jerk if you oppose sinful behavior. This is when you need to open the Bible.

The Savior spent time with many people, including sinners and outcasts, but never, never condoned sins. His love guided Him to show respect and focused attention. However, love for people didn’t mean He compromised on commandments to make them feel more comfortable. Were there groups who received His rebuke? Yes. He was patient as disciples tried to make sense of His teachings. He knew that they would not achieve perfection right away, and He didn’t forsake them when they stumbled. This is real inclusion.

Discontent isn’t an automatic virtue.

Discontent is high on the list of virtues for many worldly thinkers. It’s implied that if we are content, we must be growing complacent, or we must be ignorant of something that should really bother us. Those who fight traditional values the are seen as having something more valuable to say than the quiet masses. This isn’t always true.

Those who have an answer for everything don’t always have the right answers.

There are times when someone will argue their point and I don’t know how to answer. Does it mean they are right and I am wrong? No. It could mean that they are better at arguing. When someone launches into a well-reasoned argument against a commandment or a principle, I try to remember that God has said that “…my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” (Isaiah 55:8) and “…the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God” (1 Cor 3:19). I have learned that you can trust your impressions from the Holy Ghost that something is wrong, even if you can’t formulate an answer right away for why it is wrong. It’s also okay to carry unanswered questions. Over time, as you nurture your faith, not your doubts, the answers will come. (Alma 12:10)

No one is worth losing your faith over.

We can’t put our trust in personalities, no matter how charming or educated or kind. There is no one– no philosophy, no personality, no group for whom it is worth losing what is most precious: our faith, our family, and our covenants with God. There are really dynamic people who know how to promote their ideas. You may admire someone or a cause, but never give anyone the power to rob you of your testimony of the gospel. You can trust the prophets. You can trust the scriptures. Hold tightly to these and you will be okay.

Summer Rules

Today I feel better because my kids are back in the house. I held a morning meeting to outline expectations for this awesome gift we have called summer. I told them that summer is a time that is easily wasted if we’re not careful. We have some rules:

1. Media time (anything with a screen) is restricted to one hour in the morning and one hour in the evening. The kids will determine when these hours will take place each morning, adapting for the needs of the day.

2. Before media can be used (regardless of the time), the following jobs must be completed: read scriptures, make bed, read, play piano, do one job around the house.

3. We have specific projects to work on: next week we finish painting the basement, help with the sprinkler system, and repair a scooter with our time. The week after, we paint all baseboards upstairs… etc.

I am following the rules, too. This means that I am breaking the media rule right now to write this post, so I will end.

I want this summer to be fun. I want the kids to make real progress in their music, reading, and work skills. I want to spend time with them, focused on their faces, not trying to interact by sharing the conversation with screens. I have found that the kids set higher goals for themselves than I do. Summer is a great time to capture their zeal and help them make specific plans for their goals to be completed.

It’s also a great time to spend the afternoon reading, which is what most of us did today. Hooray!

Let’s Dance

It’s the last day of school today. Paige is at “Senior Sunrise” this morning on the football field of her high school with friends to commemorate their first day as seniors.

The radio played the song, It’s a Beautiful Day as I looked up at the sunrise after saying goodbye. Yes, it’s a beautiful day for her. She was sustained as Laurel class president on Sunday at church. She has many exciting things to look forward to this summer and next year.

The little boys performed in a dance festival. The memory of all of those those kids dancing on that grassy stage keeps me smiling. Chivalrous Timothy delivered the umbrella from his backpack to me unexpectedly and this saved me from the intense sun. His teacher pulled me aside at the fifth grade party and told me that Timothy is a real gentleman.

The teacher gifts are wrapped. I chose jewelry this year because the teachers were extra special. We had a thank you note clinic at the kitchen table. So many people have been good to us.

I made the last lunches yesterday and I am ready to throw away the lunch totes. They are gross. Timothy’s shoes have so many holes that we may begin to receive donations from strangers on the street for our welfare.

The fifth grade slideshow is finished. Daniel helped me with it. Hooray for that helpful, smart kid. He was voted the Einstein of Class 2018 by his classmates.

We had fun hearing Daniel play in the year end concert. He played cello in the orchestra and the piano in the jazz band.

I am reading lots of fun writing from Mark. His teacher compiled a year’s worth of his weekend news. Mark wrote each Monday about the events of the weekend. Cousins, parties, ski trips, and any ice cream served were items he felt were important. The illustrations! They are brilliant!

Paige brought home her art projects from the year. What a treat it was to go through them! It will be a summer of painting for her as she works on her AP art portfolio.

Timothy’s best friend leaves today for a year long trip around the world. Tim and I have a date this afternoon to the Lego store. It’s a tender time.

I have been a volunteer in the classroom, driven carpool, chaperoned field trips and kept track of reading minutes. Richard has been Paige’s math teacher with many late night math sessions. We have all worked hard.

Now it’s time to dance and take a break.

Mark’s Baptism Day

This weekend Mark was baptized. It was a nice day with beautiful weather, lots of family and friends, talks by Daniel and Timothy, music by Paige and me, and cooking. Baptism days are always busy, but I tried really hard this last time to relax, even if it meant that the tent with bunting never got set up, my hair was not curled, and we didn’t get a proper family picture with all of the cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents who gathered. I think I got everyone photographed at dinner but three.

My sweetest memory of the day was when Richard had Mark in the font, ready for the ordinance, and Richard looked up at me. That exchange was simple, but sealed the moment. The work and joys of parenting, gospel preparation, and the new phase we are entering came into focus in a look, but none of those details of parenting were there; it mostly felt like love and joy.

5th Grade Field trip

Memories:
1. Tim asked me to come.
2. We spent just as much time in the gift shop as the exhibits. Tim hoped to talk me into buying an electronic bug that could climb upwards through a tunnel.
3. The boys have discovered food. They kept going back for more. After three orders of fast food I realized that we were running late to get to the fountains before the busses arrived.
4. They weigh 89, 79, and 69 pounds on earth. On a neutron star, they would each weigh about 400 billion pounds. On the moon they would weigh in the teens.
5. Girls flirted with Timothy. Help us.
6. These boys were good company, polite, and obedient.
7. Tim said thank you as I walked away and that made it all worth it…even the motion sickness from the IMAX movie.
8. Timothy’s knees, elbow, and hands are scabby from a bad fall on a scout hike last night. I asked one of the boys if they had seen Tim’s wounds and he said, “Unfortunately, yes.”

Timothy has a unique way of turning my heart. Can I ever explore all the reasons I love this boy?

Three more Wednesdays

Reader — “Pink Note: The Novelette” James McNeill Whistler, 1884

Only three more Wednesdays until school gets out. Each Wednesday I don’t have carpool or volunteer responsibilities at the school. It’s a day for “myself” but I usually spend it cleaning the house, and rarely move beyond cleaning to creative projects.

I’m not good at having a day to myself. I feel guilty if I indulge in a day of reading; I don’t enjoy shopping; I have less creativity when I have too much silence. Cleaning and other maintenance work is what gets me though each Wednesday.

The other night I found the list of house projects I was going to accomplish during the school year. I was going to paint the whole house, decorate every room, and landscape the yard. Ha! I sheepishly checked off the handful of projects I had completed and resolved to check off more things in the coming weeks after school gets out.

I work much better when the family is around. They would probably say that it’s because I enlist them to help me. And they would be right, but they might not realize how a house full of my little people enlivens me.

Happy 8th Birthday, Mark!

1-IMG_20140518_163302 — “Mom, can you bring me fast food and eat with me at school for my birthday?”

1-IMG_20140518_163401 — Boys in second grade are both predictable and surprising, silly and charming. Happy friends.

Mark was born in the desert 8 years ago and longs to return there. His early and idealized memories include playing in fine, dusty dirt, chasing lizards when they tried to sun themselves on the fence, and catching toads when it rained.

He has always thought of himself as one of the big kids and has followed them everywhere. He’s well-traveled in museums, parks, baseball games, and dance and music performances.

He is my only child who ever wanted to snuggle in my lap.

His birthday wish list included only Legos and a watch. (Easy!)

Remember when he was 4 and wanted to be called “Zoomer-Smasher-Dune Buggy?”

Remember when he was 3 and he wore that sombrero all over Nogales, Mexico?

Little memories of my redhead dash across my thoughts today. Little boy body dressed in a Superman cape, chasing brothers up the street… Little studious boy with his own desk in the corner of the home school room, working on math problems… Little boy jumping around on his base during the baseball game because he can’t hold still… Little boy with a closet full of red shirts…sweet baby in the crib, making a nest of blankets and stuffed animals… little boy driving around the grassy field in his jeep playing hard rock music on the radio… little boy snickering under the covers as he reads Calvin and Hobbes books at bedtime…

I can’t imagine life without our Mark, Markie-boy, Marco Polo.

Flight

Being a parent means that your hopes and thoughts fly along beside your children wherever they go.

Daily departure time wishes, hugs, and prayers are important because they give the kids a glimpse into our hearts. My Evangelical Christian friends use the phrase “covered in prayer” which I think is beautiful, and describes my belief that prayer is a gift from God to bring protection, comfort, and power to His children. So, we send them off each day with our best wishes, covered in prayer.

Mark’s field trip

Memories of the second grade field trip:
Mark and Tommy were my buddies.
Mark enjoyed the life flight, surgery, and x-ray simulators at the children’s museum.
We ate outside near the fountains. I packed a blue Gatorade in his lunch, which made him very happy.
We ditched the library tour and read comics instead:).

My Changing Role

I have been thinking about my changing role as a mother. The memories of babies’ days belong to parents. These bundled-up, nestled memories of our babies have become a treasure to me. I’ve written before that I consider these memories a gift that is uniquely mine. No one else will ever know exactly how it felt to be the mother of baby Paige, Daniel, Timothy, and Mark.

The middle years are full of shared memories. We can have dinnertime conversations remembering these times together. These are the playground years, the dance lesson and baseball years. I have loved these years, too. 2009 was a very special year because I realized that my children were all old enough to have adventures together and we did! We traveled over Arizona, exploring, learning, dancing, reading, and playing.This is my last year with two children in elementary school. These are such fun years!

The high school and middle school years have now arrived, where much of my children’s lives is a mystery to me. I don’t see them in their classes or how they interact with friends at lunch and I am not part of their recreation or social life. There are fun things about these years, too, such as Prom invitations, fun with friends, driving, and bigger achievements. I mourn the loss of time together, but I know it is good that they are growing independent and strong.

I invested that effort in their early years to help them to achieve this independence. I trusted that a good start would help them to be strong later. I never doubted the value of my role in their lives when they are young. Now that they are older and my role is less prominent, there is more insecurity. Did I teach them enough? Did I smother them? Are my questions about their school day enough to maintain a relationship? Did I just embarrass them in front of their friends?

As I move to a different place in the universe of my teenagers’ lives, I welcome assurances of the continuing worth of my role in their lives. Literature is a good comfort to me, as I can find these written words accessible whenever I need them. Several authors have become my midnight friends when the world is asleep and I need a conversation. Such questions as, “Do my little efforts really make a difference?” and “Is my work still a great work even though it’s backstage?” are important questions to me.

I finished Middlemarch last night. There are many themes that I enjoyed, but the reason I read the book was to study its heroine, Dorothea. A few of the last passages of the book meant a lot to me in my current thoughts.

Many who knew her, thought it a pity that so substantive and rare a creature should have been absorbed into the life of another, and be only known in a certain circle as a wife and mother. But no one stated exactly what else that was in her power she ought rather to have done.

and…

Her finely touched spirit had still its fine issues, though they were not widely visible. Her full nature…spent itself in channels which had no great name on the earth. But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life.

I’m not sad about the changes in my mothering. I am just going through a period of adjustment. If I focus on the principle of “incalculably diffusive influence,” I feel much more centered as I navigate these new roads from the concrete acts of mothering to the intangible. It’s a shift in ownership of memories. The baby time is mine, the middle years are shared. Their later years are increasingly their own, but a parent’s influence is forever.