JennieGScott.com

Category: Parenting

  • A Family the World Calls Broken

     

    Sometimes I despise Christian radio.

    Don’t get me wrong – my car radio is usually tuned to Christian stations, but I have moments when their talk shows come on and they sound so self-righteous I want to scream and change the dial.

    Recently, there happened to be an “expert” on families and marriage talking about “broken” families. You know, families like mine. Families who have experienced divorce and deal with remarriage and, in his eyes, need to be called “broken.” (Side note – if you did not grow up in a “broken” family and have not experienced divorce yourself, are you really an expert? What do you authentically know about divorce? Can you really understand the experiences of step-parents and step-children? Your reading a book about it and looking at families like mine as a case study in your PhD program do not, in my eyes, make you an expert whose advice is more valuable than my experience. And your condescending tone and pitying banter leave MUCH to be desired. But I digress.)

    Good grief, what a term. “Broken” families.

    Listen. I understand. I understand that God’s design is for one mother and one father to live together forever in holy matrimony and to raise their children as a unit. Happily ever after. That’s the goal. It was my desire, too. My wish. My plan. But it wasn’t what happened, in spite of my wishes and plans, and for you to call me – my life – my family “broken”, meaning “having been fractured and damaged and no longer in one piece OR IN WORKING ORDER…” Well, I despise that term.

    I do.

    My family is in working order in spite of the fracture, and THAT, dear expert, is what I want you to know. THAT is what you should be describing on the radio. THAT is what you who are far removed from a “broken” family need to understand. God works in spite of – and sometimes because of – our brokenness. Have we forgotten who our God really is?

    I know my family isn’t the way the “experts” say it should be. I know it isn’t what the Bible describes as best-case-scenario. But guess what? NEITHER IS ANYTHING ELSE IN THIS WORLD. It’s called sin, and it destroyed the perfect plan for everything. It destroyed the ideal, and it took away the best-case-scenario. It left everything broken. BUT JESUS IS REDEEMING IT.

    Every day, I face consequences of sin breaking my family. Every day, I face situations with my family that we should not have to face. But in the midst of the brokenness and sin, there is my Jesus. And He is making everything beautiful in its time. And that includes right now.

    You go ahead and keep calling us broken. I’ll keep calling us redeemed.

     

     

     

     

  • What to Remember When Your Schedule is Hectic

     

    Life right now is hectic.

    The male child is playing football, the mini-me is doing gymnastics, and the husband is traveling nonstop. We are always on the road or in the gym or at a practice. Dinner together means eating chicken nuggets in the car, and the few minutes we have at home consist of me loudly repeating, “Get your homework done. Pack your lunch. Bring me your dirty clothes. Let me sign your agenda. Get in the shower. Use soap and wash those feet.” I find myself speaking in commands and issuing orders like a drill sergeant.

    Anybody else feel this way?

     

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    Here’s what I keep reminding myself: this is a season. These are activities my children have chosen and love, and the discipline it takes for them (and us) is a good thing. They are learning responsibility, time management, being dedicated, and working as a team. I am learning self-control and management skills that will be useful when I am CEO of a major company one day. 🙂

    This season will end soon. And if I’m honest, I don’t want it to end because it will mean these children will have moved out and these childhood days will have come to an end and my mothering of little ones will be over.

    Last night as I watched my boy-becoming-man make tackles and block runners, I had so many thoughts. First, and most obvious, was, “What am I thinking letting this breakable boy play such a violent sport?!” Next, however, was, “Take him down! Wrap up around his legs!” (Being a mother of a football player is a crazy thing. I am simultaneously terrified and cheering for the destruction of the other team. Go figure.)

    I also thought, “He has grown so much since the first practice. He is less afraid and more confident. He has made new friends, and I love to hear him talk about how he can read plays now that he used to not know.”

    Yes, the practices are tiring. Yes, the schedule is grueling. Yes, I often just want to be home on the couch watching Netflix.

    But.

    More than anything, I want my kids to thrive. I want them to learn to lose graciously.  I want them to work hard and be good teammates and manage their time well. And if a little craziness in this season will accomplish these long-term goals, so be it. Bring on the craziness. A life skill we all need to learn is to balance everything we do, and it’s my job as a mom to help my children learn this skill. Crazy seasons are an invitation to learn to balance well.

    In the crazy, I want to keep perspective. This is for a season, this is for their good, and this is what it takes to make them into who they need to be.

    Even crazy has a purpose.

     

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  • Ten Things I Want My Son to Know

     

    OK, son. You’re in that weird stage right now where you’re technically not a teenager yet, but you’re not a little kid anymore, either. I know it’s super strange. Your body is changing, your voice is sounding different, and your brain is struggling to keep up. The next few years are going to be different for both you and for me. I’ve been thinking about some things you should know, and while this list is definitely not exhaustive, I figure it’s a good start.

    • Deodorant and foot washing are not optional. Ever. They’re just not. As your body changes (you’ll learn this in sex-ed), your hormones go berserk, and you. will. stink. You already do. (No offense.) It’s not your fault, and it’s nothing to be ashamed of, but Lord have mercy, it is something you can control. The deodorant is in the top bathroom drawer (I’m assuming you forgot?) and foot washing involves soap. With a washcloth. And a vigorous scrubbing motion. No, you cannot count standing in the soap suds on the shower floor. Not sufficient. Scrub those stink cells off your feet. Then repeat. converse-867775_640
    • You won’t always (or maybe ever) be the best athlete on your team, but you are overqualified to work your butt off. If I ever see you being the last one to get to the line, or if you think it’s acceptable to saunter off the field, you will hear my screech from the stands and feel my wrath at home. Your coaches should all say the same thing – “Man, is that kid a hard worker.” I’ll be more proud to hear that than to hear you’re the top hitter. Seriously. Work ethic matters more than your stats.
    • Don’t ever get too cool to read good books. I know that somewhere in middle school, many guys stop liking to read. (And as a former teacher, I know it’s because we educators start assigning crap-tastic books and forcing you to read what you hate. But I digress.) You love to read right now, and the books on your shelves have taught you so many things you can’t learn in school. Reading opens doors to worlds you need to see. A man who doesn’t read is often a man whose mind is closed. Don’t be that man.
    • Your world is going to open up in the next few years. I want you to venture into it and explore what it has to offer, but I want you to do it in the confines of what we’ve taught you matters. I want to live in the limits of the values we hold. This means you won’t do everything that others do. You won’t go everywhere they go, and you won’t say/think/drink/experiment with everything they do. There is no shame in standing on your own. There is no shame is saying that something’s not for you. There is great shame in realizing you’ve violated your own standards. Remember who you are.
    • Nothing is off limits when it comes to approaching me. If you have questions about something, you can ask me. It might embarrass us both or make me cringe, but who better than someone who loves you to see your face turn red? If you’ve done something wrong, I am still here. My love is not dependent on your choices, and though I’ll be praying you make the right ones, if you don’t, you can still come to me. Our home is your home base, and it is your safe place.
    • Keep asking me to scratch your back at night. I know I get annoyed when you ask for 5 more minutes every single night, and I know I always say I’m ready to go to bed, too, but that time with you is my favorite. It’s just us, and when you’re facing the wall, you often open up and tell me things that I wouldn’t otherwise know. It lets me know you need me, and there’s nothing a mom needs more.
    • Your outfit doesn’t all have to be the same color. Seriously. If you’re wearing a red shirt, your shorts don’t have to be red, too. Variety is the spice of life, bud. Look at the color wheel and learn about complementary colors. Your future wife will be so impressed if you can pick out your own clothes. Trust me on this one.
    • I will never stop giving you chores. You’ve been putting your laundry away for years, and hauling out the trash and cutting the grass aren’t going away either. As you get older, your responsibilities will only increase. It’s preparing you for life outside our house. Get used to it.
    • No, you still can’t have a phone. I know. I’m mean and everyone else already has one. Too bad. God didn’t tell me to make you happy, and what everyone else has is not my concern. Unlimited technology does nothing to give you the character you need, and it opens up a world you are SO not ready to enter. (I’m 36 and not ready for it either.) My calling as a mother is to help you discover your calling, and scrolling through selfies on Instagram isn’t it. Friends in real life are more valuable than likes on social media. And no, I don’t know when you can have one. Maybe when you actually start putting your laundry IN the basket instead of on your floor. Baby steps, son. Baby steps.
    • I love you like nobody’s business, but understand here and now that you will not be a 30 year old man living in my basement playing video games. You are expected to be educated for a job or trained in a skill that can provide you with housing and food. I will do everything in my power to aid you to this end, but at some point you will leave the nest. Even if it’s my foot kicking your backside out. There is nothing healthy about an adult refusing to be an adult, and in this house you will not be enabled to stay a child. Nope. Forget about it. I will not do for a man what he can do for himself. I love you, but I will also love coming to your house to visit.

    So there you go, babe. Just some nuggets of wisdom for your preteen self. We’re headed into uncharted waters for our family, but we’re in it together. Unless you forget your deodorant. Then it’s every man for himself.

  • I Wish I Had Known They Were Lasts

    I can’t remember the final time I bathed either of my children.

     

    For years, I scrubbed their tiny bodies with Johnson’s, my knees screaming for mercy as I kneeled beside the tub. Night after night, I wrapped their sweet-smelling pink flesh in hooded towels and wrestled their slippery selves as I forced their toes into feety-pajamas. I slathered chunky thighs with pink lotion, combed wisps of baby-fine hair, stacked bath toys in their usual spots, and mopped up rivers of bath water cascading through the bathroom. Every night, we had our routine.
    And now it’s done.
    My big kids bathe themselves now, and although I used to long for this day to arrive, it’s bittersweet. Sure, it’s nice to say, “Go take your shower” and sit on the couch while it happens, but some nights I’d give anything to watch them marvel at splashing again or to shampoo their hair myself. Sometimes, I’d love to see baby toys sitting where big-kid shampoo and loofahs now do. What I wouldn’t do to wrap their warm bodies in hooded towels and snuggle them against me one more time.
    Lasts are hard, but sometimes only after the fact. They’re hard because we don’t know that they’re lasts. There was no big ceremony for the last bath I gave. There was just a gradual releasing of that task to finally-able hands. I didn’t know the last diaper-change would be just that, because in the moment I seriously doubted that potty-training would ever catch on.
    I had no idea as I brushed teeth for the last time that I’d never do it again, and I couldn’t have imagined as I man-handled toddlers into car seats that one day they’d just buckle themselves.

    Motherhood makes your soul scream, doesn’t it? When the pregnancy test shows positive, you scream with excitement and wonder that you and the man you love have created a life who will walk in this world. When the hormones rage, you scream for the nausea to stop and for chocolate in any form. When the first contraction hits and you feel like you’re splitting in two, your body screams for that child to just get out while your soul screams, “I don’t think I’m ready yet!”

    When your squishy-faced miracle breathes on his own for the first time and is cut free from your life-giving body, your soul screams in praise to the Creator of all life and your heart changes forever.
    Each day after your name becomes “mom” is a soul-scream of pleasure and pain. Sleep-deprivation and feelings of inadequacy make you howl that you’re just messing up, but 30 minutes later he coos as you sing and you know that you’re doing it right. Every day, without fail, your mom-life is a dance of horror and wonder, and your soul screams at the amazement of both.
    I know there are more lasts headed my way. The last day of elementary school is weeks away for my son, and both children put away their own laundry as it is. I rarely make lunches anymore, and they can pick out their own clothes (with relative success). Lasts are a part of this life as a mom, and my goal for today is to remember the sadness that previous lasts have wrought and treasure the moments I know will end. School drop-off lines are a pain in this moment, but I’m sure they don’t compare to the pain of watching a teenager drive himself to high school. Entertaining nine-year-old boys might not be the most relaxing way to spend a Saturday, but playdates will come to an end and those boys will move away.
    One day will be the last time I wash his sheets, and one night will be the last he spends in his bed at home.
    Lasts will come whether we want them to or not, so in light of the sadness of future lasts, let’s enjoy the now that still is.

  • Joy Is Coming

    Single moms, I woke up this morning thinking of you.

    There’s no reason why other than that the Holy Spirit reminded me I was once one of you, and there’s no one who understands who hasn’t actually been there.

    So as I was drying my hair and simultaneously trying to get my children ready, I thought of you and prayed. I closed my eyes and was transported to the hardest days of my life – the years I spent as an all-alone mom, a woman who was working and mothering and exhausted in a way that cannot be explained in words. I teared up as I recalled the nights I spent wide-awake because my overtired brain could not stop thinking. I prayed on your behalf, asking our God to give you real physical rest and to relieve the burden that is weighing on you most.

    I am no longer one of you, but in some ways, I feel like I always will be. I know just how you feel, and I want to tell you today that you are not forgotten. I know how alone you feel and how worried you are. I understand the helplessness you feel when there’s just not enough of you and the effort you give falls just a little short. I remember always trying to be enough and never feeling like I was. Today – whether it’s a good day or one of those where you didn’t want to get out of bed – today, I’m telling you that you are not forgotten. You are not alone, and your God will never leave you.

    You, single moms, are rock stars. You do it all because you have no other choice, and because you do it all so well, no one knows just how hard it is. No one knows the constant pit in your stomach, the pulse-increasing worries that overtake you even in the calmest of moments. No one knows the nights you’re awake until wee hours because the house must be cleaned, the laundry washed, the lunches made, and the bills paid. No one knows because your complaints stay inside – you stuff your hardships down and just forge ahead. You, ladies, who are forging ahead – you do it out of love for those babies of yours, and I’m telling you that your work done out of love will never be in vain. Never, even if it feels like it.

    I’m crying as I type because, dear sister, I know. So often, that’s what I needed to hear in those hardest of times, so that’s what I’m saying to you today. I know. Our situations might be different, the ways we became single very different, but I know your heart, and I know your fears. I wish I could say I know your future and could tell you that everything will change soon, but all I know for sure is that even in the midst of your hardest of times, if you seek the Lord, He will be found. Though your situation may not change, your perspective can.

    Can I tell you what I know now that I’m on the other side? Those hardest of times were necessary.

     I hated them, yes. I agonized through the years when I felt abandoned and forsaken, and I pleaded with God to deliver me from those times. He did, eventually, and my lips will never stop praising Him for what He delivered me from and what He delivered me to, but those times? I needed them.

    Those times taught me true faith and gave me a testimony that God is indeed who He says He is. Those times taught me that circumstances don’t define us – and they don’t determine our worth. Do I want to go back? Absolutely not. But would I rewrite my history to exclude those hardest of times? No. I wouldn’t do that either. Those times made me who I needed to be. That’s what I know, and that’s why I’m thankful.

    I never understood the verse that says, “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance” (James 1:2-3.) How can a trial be joyous? The trial isn’t. That’s not what it says. The joy is not in the trial; the joy is in what the trial produces. The joy is in who you become and what you learn and how your faith becomes authentic because it survives the trial intact and stronger.

    The joy comes, friends.

    The joy comes because God remains.

    You, single moms? You are not forgotten. And joy is coming.