“Don’t you want to be big like daddy?” I asked. “Sit up like a big boy,” I instructed our two-year-old toddler over dinner. The words came out of my mouth tonight faster than I could catch them with my hands. Instantly, I felt my guts sink inside my stomach. I actually don’t want him to be “big like daddy” yet. I don’t want him to be what he isn’t – big. I want him to be little because he is little. In a world where we are always looking onward to the next big thing, we often miss that “thing” that’s right underneath our nose – the thing we can’t turn back time to appreciate.
In my own life, I am always looking forward to “the next big thing.” I’m looking forward to the next birthday in our immediate family. The next holiday to decorate for. Counting down the days until a trip away with my husband. Hyper-focused on the next mom’s-night-out with my girlfriends, where we will go, what world problems we will solve, and of course what I will wear! Looking forward to those things doesn’t make me careless or completely absent from my everyday life, but it does cause me to be distracted, more or less, from what’s right here in my hands.
Our oldest child just graduated the eighth grade last month, farewelling middle school and embracing the big wide world that is high school. I remember the first time I ever met him (which by the way was just four years ago,) and he was this little scrawny, blue-eyed, eight-year-old boy who would run up to hug me as soon as I pulled into the drive, his head touching just right above my belly button. Now, his eyes meet mine square on, his height just about equaling mine, and if we hug at all, one of us is probably leaving for an extended amount of time away on a trip. He’s going to be in high school next year. HIGH SCHOOL. How am I even old enough to parent a high schooler? Time flies by so fast. Babies don’t keep. Eight-year-old boys don’t keep, either.
At our dinner table, we talk a lot about what’s ahead for our big kids, mostly because we want them to be aware of those big decisions, big character-building moments that lie ahead for them. We want them to know that when they’re faced with choices, often, those choices can and will shape their futures. We encourage them to make the right choice, to stand up for what they believe in – the things that we’ve taught them to be morally and ethically sound. We work on instilling in them confidence to stand strong when they’re faced with a pressing choice amongst peers. And so we talk and talk and talk some more about life’s pressures. We talk also about how our big kids will be driving soon and then college and moving out to build their own lives. It is fun to relive those days of my life, to share what those big milestones felt like to me and inspire them to think beyond the world outside of Muhlenberg County. But if I’m being completely honest, while I’m sharing these conversations of futures and dreams and possibilities, the maternal voice inside my head is screaming, “PAUSE! TIME OUT! Could we not rush this?!” Could we not dismiss this last little bit of time before they taste freedom behind the wheel of a car? Before they know how good it feels to sit with friends in a Sonic parking lot after school and suddenly their family at home is the last thing on their sweet, adolescent minds? Could we just wring out every last drop of this season when they’re not so big – too big?
Our youngest boy is about to start potty-training and pillow talk with my husband these days is about tiny underwear, tips and tricks and timelines. Again, the same maternal voice in my head begs to pause time before we reach this new milestone. And again I remember that babies don’t keep and that time stops for no one.
I want to be a prudent mother; wise with time, especially with child-rearing and the brevity of it. For us, this summer is THE summer before things change for our kids. Before our oldest is gone more than he is home, before his social calendar takes total precedence. It’s the summer before potty-training our youngest, kissing away diapers and the little bit of flexibility that brings with traveling, running errands, etc. It’s the summer that our 12-old-daughter turns into a teenager. The summer before she enters a middle school that merged countywide. This is the One before our whole world changes faster than we might be ready for. We know it. We see it for what it is. The mama in me isn’t ambitiously wishing it all away so that we can skip to the next part. The mama in me is reminding myself again and again and again: don’t miss this. Don’t get distracted. Celebrate every little thing. Talk about everything we need to talk about. Listen to everything they say. Teach them every chance we get. Pray about all of it every day.
Our roles as parents won’t hold less value next summer. We won’t be less important and neither will the needs or wants of our children be. But life will be different – a beautiful kind of different I believe, but different. So let’s not miss it – not one little bit. And for the love of summer, let’s have some FUN!
-by Destini McPherson
