Parenting: Part Love, Part Guerrilla Warfare!
The picture above is of my parenting and marriage books. It shows how much help I have needed along this journey called “motherhood” (and wifehood)! I think most of them were purchased on bad days when I felt completely overwhelmed and at a loss of what to do. Judging by the amount of books I own, there have been quite a few of those days!
Parenting is hard work. Kids don’t come with an instruction manual. Parenting books can be very helpful, but reading too many gets confusing! Sometimes it is better to let them go and ponder on what God has said.
My oldest child is nine years old. For this reason I really don’t feel qualified to hand out parenting advice. If they become well-adjusted, God-fearing adults, then I’ll feel more confident in sharing tips. Right now I’m doing my best, and praying for God to make good people out of my failures.
All children are born needing a guiding hand. Some children need more than others. I wish every mother with a difficult child knew that. By “difficult”, I don’t mean a child who misbehaves because they have never been trained. I also don’t mean that a child is “bad.” I’m referring to a child who is born with a strong-will (or more aptly put: a weak-will). A child who doesn’t seem to “catch on” (even with constant training). Good children, who have trouble understanding, or interacting, or simply wearing socks 🙂
Does it ever feel to you that parenting is one part love, one part guerrilla warfare? That you are using surprise tactics, ambushes and raids one minute, then love, hugs and cheerleading the next? I do.
Moms, we are in the pit, doing the work, fighting the battles. The rewards are coming if we will just hang on and don’t give up.
Some days I seriously wonder if I am cut out for the task of raising these little ones. But then I think of God. He does not make mistakes.
He knows me.
He knows my children.
He gave those children to me. Thus, I am the right mother for them.
I recently came across this quote on Making Home and thought it was excellent:
“It is not an easy thing for a parent of today to bear always in mind that every child of his is as truly an individual as he was when he was a child.”
~Henry Clay Trumbull
Our children are individuals, and so are we. God paired us together, so we must be a perfect match.
Rest in the fact that He knows and sees.
Please don’t think no one cares that you fought (and won) a battle to get your kid to wear a hat on a sunny day—God does. (And so will your kids…someday.)
I remember a child of mind who, when she was not allowed to eat the sand at the beachm throw herself down and licked it up. she was only about 3 years old. she has turned out to be a fantastic daughter and a great mother
This adequately describes my first born. He is a good kid who has trouble wearing socks. lol. But seriously. Yes.
Stacey, what a wonderful post and so timely for me. I have just sent my first born off the kindergarten this week and what a week it has been. My son is so strong willed and very set on what it is he wants (and doesn’t want) to do. But you hit the nail on the head. He is who he is. And the one thing I have realized up until this point in mothering is that just as we are raising, teaching and training our children, they too are raising teaching and training us as adults. Never could another occupation teach me such patience, love, kindness and tolerance as parenting. I give thanks to God for my 2 (almost 3) little ones and know that I am in deed the mother they were meant to have and that they will turn out well.
Thank you for this wonderful post, I have a very challenging 6 year old son in the mix of 3 other kids. Its easy for me to wonder if he was meant to be an only child. But I know in my heart God gave him (and all of them) to me/us without mistake.
Karissa, I know just what you are saying! Those challenging children can really stretch us, can’t they?
I truly believe that knowing God does not make mistakes and choose to pair us together is helpful (and enables us to rise to the occasion).