Category: Mid-Life Mama

Posted in *Workshops, Fragile Life, Mid-Life Mama, Nuts & Bolts, Teens, Tweens, What's Next? (18 & beyond)

CHORES–Why they’re WORTH the FIGHT

Posted on by Kelly (of rituals)

children-parent-tug-of-war
I’ve written about the importance of chores before, including these posts:

The Necessity of Chores

HALF! Day

How Full is Your Plate? an online workshop for moms

But what I’ve failed to fully admit is how much easier it would be to  do everything myself.
(And it would be done a lot better.)

Why do I bother?

I’d like to say that I do it all for them–to make them better citizens, humans, energetic beings (and that is true); but another truth is that I don’t want to do everything so it’s worth it to have some jobs done less than perfectly.

BUT the angst. THE ANGST!
The reminding. The redirecting. The reprimands.

Sometimes I find myself questioning if it’s worth it, and questioning whether I should be encouraging other people to suffer like this by leading workshops on chore sharing in the home.

And then there are those other times, when in the distance, I hear the sweet and soothing sound of a boy swishing a toilet, or vacuuming a room, or emptying waste baskets; and I think: I AM BRILLIANT.

But what if you like doing your own chores and want them done perfectly?

I still recommend sharing the load. Here’s why:

The Necessity of Chores

But what if your teen’s resistance is so strong that it takes way more energy than you can manage to keep them in the game?

It’s still vital. For them.
Try a dose of creativity, like this:

HALF! Day

And now for a new chunk of highly salient information expanding on why it’s worth the EFFORT:

Kids need conflict to grow up. Particularly teenagers. It’s part of the individuation process. It’s how they begin to separate from our cozy nest and shape their own flight.

When I accept that conflict is necessary, I surrender to it, and not just that, I RESPECT it.

This is quite revolutionary.

Conflict isn’t in the way,
it IS The Way.

I’d like to take credit for this awareness, but my therapist gets a lot of that.

See this post for how I put it into action:

Episiotomy (of love)

And here’s something even more radical for your consideration:

Since conflict is a necessary part of the developmental process, particularly with teens, then how cool is it that they get their daily/weekly dose of parental conflict in a way that makes such a foundational difference in family life–working together to honor and contribute to the space we share–rather than investing it in other areas with much higher stakes.  (Think sex, drugs, alcohol.)

Posted in College, Fragile Life, Mid-Life Mama, Milestone Moments

Passion. Purpose. Partying.

Posted on by Kelly (of rituals)

There are two freedoms – the false, where a man is free to do what he likes;
the true, where he is free to do what he ought.
~Charles Kingsley

Is it me or is there something inherently wrong with dropping your child off at college? And not just because you’re leaving him at an institution. But because that institution is filled with throngs of the people who are of the same age and predilection.

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Photo: J. Scott Applewhite/AP/Corbis

Is this kind of homogeneous grouping  ever a good idea? Think of nursing homes. Prisons. The military. North Korea. British cooking. Congress.

As we arrive at my son’s new, sophomore year suite, we find his roommates steeped in the activity of the only Sunday night of the semester without homework.

I fight the urge to say,”You don’t have to stay.” Instead I whisper, “Everything is a choice.”

He whispers back, teasing me: “Like heroin?”

“Yes, like heroin,” I say, “And staying in this dorm.”

As we hug goodbye in the hallway, I suggest that he reconsider the academic dorm, but he lets me know that those students are even more serious about drugs.

I don’t want him to be too serious.  I think fun is important. In fact, when we arrived at the top of the stairs with his luggage and I heard the music blaring through the door of his suite, I had a moment of remembering.

The abandon.

The freedom.

I like freedom.

Partying is one way to explore it.

But it can quickly become a destination instead of an avenue.

(Plus, college is an expensive party.)

 

Posted in Insight, Mid-Life Mama, Milestone Moments, What's Next? (18 & beyond)

the measure of success

Posted on by Kelly (of rituals)

My early life was bent on success. Born as the eldest of a generation and upheld as the example of all things fine, I led cousins in values and chewing gum expeditions and living room performances, until the age of 7, when life removed us from our family seat on the Atlantic, and took us west, alone, to the Rocky Mountains, where the limitations of love forced creativity, and led me to fashion my own entourage out of neighborhood clubs and backyard variety shows, festivals and fundraisers, until the wind beneath my wings crashed at the age of 14 upon the brutal death of the Queen, my paternal grandmother, Lila.

I dabbled then in darkness, and folly, for a long, long time, until I found myself in love, truly in love, of my own volition, at the age of 22. And as with each of the beaus who came before, I screened this possible partner with my youngest siblings–in his ability to forgo his pursuit of me in attention to them–with humor and kindness. He passed. With flying colors. His predecessor was also a child-loving man, but when it came to considering our own offspring, we argued, at great lengths, upon the manner of discipline and permission and authenticity which ultimately led to the dissolution of this relationship or should have; and either way, it ended badly, and prepared the way for the right man to become the father of my legacy.

DSC02294Sons. I always imagined a daughter. My Lila. But my mother warned that daughters would demand too much drama for no-nonsense me. So sons it was. Two. Lloyd and Aidan. Old Grey-One and Fiery One. And beneath the gift of these children, my trajectory of success took its final dive as it collapsed into diapers and nursing and playdates and carpooling.

The Old Grey-One is now at the tail end of his teenage years, but it was his approach of adolescence when I set out to rediscover my own prowess–desperate to call something mine. There were many forays that led to deadening ends, until I found my treasure buried right beneath me, in my words, first begun when I was at the tail end of my own teens, destructive as they were.

Several blogs and dozens of inner (and outer) journeys later, I find myself scrambling up the steep cliff of completing a work of memoir. A quiet task. Silent really. Lonely. Unknown. Unaccounted for. With no guarantee, of anything, particularly–success.

And yet, successful is how I feel this Autumn though the harvest belongs to my son–as I release him with his backpack and his passport, into the security line for a flight to Central America; and watch as he snakes his way toward the narrow passage which delivers his life–to him.