When my boys are men, I’d love them to look back on their kid-years and say – about me –
‘She got some things right, and lots of things wrong, but she definitely ENJOYED being our mom.’
And so this article by Brené Brown, inspired by Toni Morrison, really rang true. It’s changing my parenting, the way it changed theirs.
The bottom line is this:
Do I *light up* when I see my kids?
Does my (sighted) son see on my face (and does my VI son hear in my voice) that I’m delighted to see them?
For sure, I want my boys to learn nuance and tone and all the textures of God-given human emotion. I don’t want to be fake-faced – manically cheerful – when gravity or grief or reprimand is necessary and appropriate.
But too often they walk off a playground or into a room and I greet them with sighs and eye-rolling. My face says Hurry-Hurry and What-NOW?
But –
Our greatest success as parents is surely to show our children the Father.
Along the way, most of us get it more or less right to make sure they’re literate and able to fry an egg and iron a shirt. Yet our biggest parental win is to give them a picture of their Heavenly Father, who is mighty to save, sings over them, calms their fears and is relentlessly glad to see them.
In whatever season of parenting we find ourselves, let’s make it our mission to light up for our kids, the way our Father lights up for us.
. . .
Have an amazing weekend, friend!
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Dalene Reyburn 