Parenting Part V

        I have a friend who suggested that parenting is concentric circles: when a baby is born they are extremely close.  When they start to walk, the circle widens.  When they go to school it expands more.  When they start making friends it expands again.  When they leave for college it expands hugely, and when they partner with someone else, the circles in which we connect to our children expand once more.

        My youngest has a partner now, and Christmas break was an exercise for me in seeing just how far the circle of closeness that I share with my youngest child might expand.  Youngest's partner came home with her for Christmas break, at my request.  But while Youngest still managed to take whole days out of the month to spend time with her local friends, she could not do the same for me.  We caught moments together.  Little spaces in the midst of the busyness of the season to have open conversation. Still, by "open" conversation, I mean that I was open and she listened... as much as a 19 year old is willing to do. It was painful for me.  

    I didn't handle it well, becoming angry at her over little things because I was having a hard time sharing honestly about the deep grief I was feeling at her absence. At the time I felt she could handle my anger more easily than my grief and disappointment at the lack of closeness. I didn't want her to feel pressured to be closer than she wanted or needed to be. Reflecting back, that was undoubtedly a bad choice on my part, but it made sense to me at the time.  I'm aware that this is normal. Youngest is doing what she needs to do at this point in her life.  She is making appropriate choices and stepping away as is to be expected as she pulls closer to her friends and her partner.  All of that is what we raise our kids to do.  But at times, I admit here in this safe space, it leaves me feeling a bit lost.

    I have always put my kids first.  I knew that parenting meant that my number one priority had to be to raise and protect my kids.  But when I became a solo parent, the only one to raise them and to care for them, this feeling of mama-bear, protect the kids and draw them close at any cost - that feeling became exponentially stronger.  They were no longer just my priority, they were my life.  Yes, I still worked: to support the kids.  Yes, I still had friends and connections: so that I could be a better parent and support to my kids.  I moved back to the Bay Area, because I felt they needed more family and support. For the last 14 years, almost everything I have done and chosen to do has been for them.  

    So now that they are all basically out of the house?  I realize I am still the bank for them: funding their schooling, supporting them financially.  But even that has a clear deadline to it.  Youngest will graduate college in 2 1/2 more years.  She plans to go to grad school but she expects to fund that herself and is working to save the money to do so.  I can see the next widening circle coming at the point at which they are no longer reliant on me for their funding.  And I'm preparing, as much as I can, for the even greater distance that will accompany that change.

    Yes, I have my own partner: David is an incredible partner and friend. Somehow early on, though, we set up a dynamic where I support the kids and he supports me.  That has to change so we have a more equal relationship, and that will take time. I have friends who are extremely important to me.  But of course they also put their own families first.  I have my job, my work.  But there are days, like today, when I question whether I am making any difference whatsoever.  I wonder what the point is when I clearly have not been able to persuade anyone who didn't already understand our call: beyond anything else we are to be about loving, supporting and caring for the least of these, for those who are in pain, for those who are marginalized, for those society rejects as unwanted, unneeded, unvalued.  I have not been able to convince anyone of this, and it literally breaks my heart in light of the damage and the hurt that is coming to our most vulnerable at this point in time.   And so I wander and wonder what I am doing.     

    I think all of these feelings are common as attached parents watch their kids grow up and leave the nest.  As I have said before, we celebrate their growing, but we also grieve it.  We delight in their independence, but we also miss their dependence on us.  We celebrate as they step into the world, but we also grieve the closeness.  These are all part of raising kids.

    So today I commit to doing something that is life-giving for me that is not about caring for my kids.  I signed up for a horticulture class at the local community college and today I will begin that class.  I've written many times about my love for plants, trees and gardening.  I am going to take this class to spend time learning and being with plants.  This is for me.  And I'm hopeful that it will nourish me.  My plants are my new babies, and I'm looking forward to learning more how to care for them, how to be a better plant-mother.  For those of you who are in a similar place to me, I encourage you as well to find a way to nourish yourself, to step in a new direction that can give you meaning and joy.  We will never stop being parents.  But we can learn new things and find new purposes as well.  Thanks be to God!

Parenting Part IV: What We Say Matters

     I've written a great deal about parenting lately, but it is, once again, on my mind so I'm taking to my typing once more, in part to process through some of what took place over the winter break.  Today will focus on Middle once more.

    Middle and I really had a wonderful time hiking and talking during the few weeks he was home.  I love that time with him.  I love hearing his thoughts and hearing about his experiences.  But, as I've mentioned before, we have a history of arguing. And while it is so much better than it was, occasionally those arguments still arise and they can be as volatile as ever.  This time there was only one big argument.  And it was not just Middle and I who were involved.  Eldest and Youngest were also present, and the argument ended up being the three of us on one side arguing with Middle.  It was so intense that both Eldest and Youngest finally stomped off in anger.  

    The subject of the argument is immaterial.  However, the next day when Middle and I were walking, he said some things that were harder for me to shake, and which I really should not dismiss easily.  He told me that at one point in our argument, I had said something about him failing to be open-minded.  I didn't remember having said that, but I'm sure it is true that I did.  One of Middle's greatest contradictions or paradoxes is that he is both able to think outside the box in creative and awesome ways, and yet at times he entrenches in specific beliefs that leave no room for other people's experiences or the possibility of things beyond his set determined belief. Do I think he is at times closed-minded?  Absolutely.  Still, I didn't remember actually voicing that, and found myself feeling horrified that I had called him a "name" in a way that was hurtful to him, and that stuck with him.  

    He also told me that when I talk about our relationship, I usually start by mentioning how much we have argued throughout his life, and how much we continue to do so, though he has worked very hard on this. Obviously this, too, is true.  Ironically, I usually mention it to say how far we've come.  As I said above, there was only one argument during the three weeks he was home.  I'm also aware that when I talk to other people about Middle, I often describe him as my "miracle child."  He has blossomed into this absolutely amazing young man who is working on a degree in physics with minors in math and political science.  Despite being a full-time student, he also has a half-time job in the physics department at school and has won awards for his inventions.  He is published in several abstracts and is an active part of the physics research team, even as an undergraduate.  In addition to work and school, he has become quite the athlete: rock climbing, ice climbing, skiing, running, cycling, hiking and more.  He has numerous scholarships because of all he has done and continues to do.  And he chose to go to Norway for a year all on his own to study abroad, something I never had the courage to do.  But more than all this, he is kind, he is incredibly polite, he is compassionate and loving. He listens well, and tries so hard to do what is right by other people. My son who struggled so very much as a boy has grown into a young man I admire deeply.  He is my greatest pride, because he has overcome so many difficult and challenging obstacles.  He made good choices, and he is thriving as a result.

    Despite feeling so very proud of him, I feel I can take very little credit for who he has become. Middle has always brought out the worst in me.  Or to phrase that in a way that doesn't put the blame on him, I have been with him, consistently, a version of myself that I despise.  The worst in me comes out when we argue.  I feel triggered, often, by what he says, and my parenting of him has always been less than what I would want it to be.  I would honestly give just about anything to go back to his childhood and do it differently, though I'm not sure I could do it differently even now.  Our arguments, though much rarer, still trigger me in a way that leads me to do what I know a parent should never do, namely saying hurtful things, such as calling him "closed-minded" despite the fact that he is a person I love more than I can possibly articulate.  

    The point? What we say matters.  I was surprised by what he remembered from the argument and more, how he heard what I say about him when I talk about him to others.  The little comments that he experiences as hurtful probably have a much greater impact than all the "I love you" and "I'm proud of you" statements put together.  They stick longer.  Like the barbed stickers that get stuck on my sweaters after a hike, they stay, while the compliments and expressions of love are more like flower petals that roll off.  Unfortunately, all the apologies in the world cannot dislodge those barbs from our spirits.  It is therefore essential that we work hard to avoid saying hurtful things in the first place.  When we are triggered, stepping out, stepping aside, breathing deeply, or whatever works for each of us to stop the flow of words is essential.  

    I'm so proud of my son.  I'm proud of him for being able to talk to me about what I said that was hurtful, too. It was a reminder to be more aware and to take the needed time to step back before speaking, especially when I'm angry.  As I said above, I wish I could change the words I've said that have been hurtful.  But I can't. All I can do is to use these lessons to work to do better. Love is action.  And my actions of love for my son have to look like working towards greater kindness when I'm angry with him.  Not easy, but essential.  Always.

Parenting Part III

     The last two days I've written about the parenting challenges I've been having with my son and my youngest child.  Now we come to the eldest.  At 24, Eldest (they/them pronouns) really is an adult.  Sort of. Regardless of their status, I find Eldest the hardest to write about and yet for the last couple years Eldest has been the one I've been most concerned about.  They are the hardest to write about because it is not as easy to write about parenting them without betraying personal information that they would not be comfortable with my sharing in this format.  With Youngest, I wrote about a situation she is in that I have found challenging.  With Middle, I wrote about our relationship from my perspective.  But with Eldest?  My concerns about Eldest have much more to do with personal factors.  So I will do my best not to be "revealing" while still sharing the challenges of being a parent to my first child.

     Eldest is currently living at home.  They are attending an on-line graduate school.  That is their "work" for now and it made sense, then, for them to save money by living at home while attending school.  But this has been challenging for both of us.  

    In many ways parenting adults is harder than parenting kids in that we can step in when our kids are young, we can "take control" when we see that things are not right, we can insist on doing things a certain way.  When they are adults, it is not as easy.  I still weigh in, I can't help but do so.  However, that is as far as I can take it, especially with my 24-year-old. So when they make decisions that I think are unhealthy, even hurtful for themselves or others, I can say my piece but then I have to let it go.  That is hard. In some ways we've worked this through. The first year Eldest was home was really tough.  I had a hard time letting go of expectations for their involvement in certain activities that I felt were family activities and family commitments, for example.  But we did work that through.  I've been able to adjust my expectations so that now, if they decide to accompany us on something that I previously would have said was a "family event" I am very pleasantly surprised.  If they don't, that's their choice. It took work on my part to step back, but I've done it and so that part feels better.  

    But there remain these areas where I have a much harder time letting alone.  I have wishes for all of my children that I don't think are outrageous: I want them to interact with their world in ways that are positive and helpful.  I want them to find work that is, ideally, meaningful, but even if it isn't meaningful, I hope that it will be satisfying work for them.  I want them to have dreams and visions and to work towards those ends. I want them to have friends and positive, healthy relationships with others. I want them to have a spirituality that is life-giving and meaningful to them. I want them to pursue positive and healthy activities with their free time. But more than all of these, or maybe as a sum of all of these, what I really hope for them is that they are functional and have joy in their lives.  

    What happens, then, when they aren't?  When all of my hopes for them are not being fulfilled and when I cannot help them because they don't want my help, don't want to hear what I have to say, don't want to take my advice, don't want my interference, and don't want to do any of the things that I "know" would help?  I've tried so many different approaches: sharing articles, my own struggles, stories I've heard. Mostly I've just been direct.  But I can't fix this.  I cannot make my adult children make better choices, and I cannot help fix things or improve situations that they don't want me to fix.  And wow, is it hard to let that go!

    As I've said many times before, their pain is my pain.  When they hurt, I hurt.  So my job here is two-fold.  First, I need to learn to be okay with hurting for my kids and not trying to fix it.  I need to learn to sit in the pain and not try to move it out for my own sake.  

    Secondly, I have to learn how to love from a distance: to figure out how to live my own life and how to find my own sense of wholeness and joy, even when I see them struggling.  This second one is really tough.  

    There is a song that I first heard a few year ago now that used to remind me of my son, but now reminds me of number one child.  It's called "little flower" and some of the words that move me so deeply include: 

                                                            "I won't walk beside you. 

I won't take you home.  

But I'll hold your heart from a distance 

as all your blossoms come and go....

And when you wake all alone in the darkness

As the autumn winds are blowing cold

You might hear a voice in the distance

A love that never let you go"

    Eldest is with me, but in so many ways, Eldest is no longer with me.  This first child who used to be my shadow, my mirror, and in many ways my best friend, has gone in a different direction, even while home.  Eldest still lets me in, but it is very different now: there is a distance, a way of keeping me separate and apart, that is difficult when I want their life to be better, more full, happier and I am no longer allowed to help.  To love from a distance, while physically close together, is a new experience for me.  And it calls from me everything I have to give as a person and as a parent.     

    Parenting is both the most rewarding and the hardest work I've ever done.  I think I may be closer to the kids than I otherwise might have been because of the traumas we've experienced together.  But this particular stage of parenting, this one of letting go of each of them in different ways and to different degrees calls me to pull from resources deep within to learn to love from that distance. That kind of love feels even deeper than when I loved them up close as young children.  It is a more independent, respectful, and equal love.  But it also requires an ability to trust and to be okay with a distance that is new for me. 

    As I said when I wrote about Middle, that first day, I imagine God must feel the same as we ebb and flow in our relationships with our creator-parent. 

Parenting, Part II

     Yesterday I wrote about my son.  Today I write about my youngest daughter. Youngest left for school a couple weeks ago because she volunteered to help with school orientation.  She had gotten into a four-bedroom apartment on campus, but the process of getting in and being assigned an apartment was a little odd.  She clicked on an apartment she wanted.  She was the first one.  Later, three others clicked on that same apartment, and hence it came to be that she had three flat mates whom she'd never met.  All of them were friends.  All of them were male.  All of them were serious party-animals: inviting their friends over to join them in heavy drinking and smoking and using weed and other substances.  NOT GOOD.  Can I say that again?  NOT GOOD.  

    She was there alone for the first week because she was helping with orientation for the first years.  But soon the other apartment mates began to arrive.  One has been fairly nice: asking her if there were rules for the apartment that mattered to her.  She told him she didn't want smoking in the common areas and wanted to know if guests were over.  But the other two won't talk to her, didn't introduce themselves, started smoking and inviting folk over right away, and thus it began.  While Youngest has her own room with a lock, the doors are thin and the noise and smoke from the others has been intense and problematic.  Add to that that Youngest starts each school day with 8am classes while they are up late with their "activities" and it has really been a nightmare.  Youngest told me that these boys are not even that nice to each other.  One asked for a ride somewhere and the other two refused saying he just used them all the time.

    After only a couple days of this Youngest was clear she needed to move out.  I was clear that it was a dangerous situation.  A group of 19 year old boys, drunk and high with only one female there, one they don't like and don't even care about enough to greet?  She applied to housing to move out, and I moved into a state of not-sleeping.  I kept worrying about what was going to happen.  

    While Youngest is not prone to drama or exaggeration, the few things she did share convinced me more and more that this was not a good situation.  Her stuff was moved (like dishes and food), then her stuff started disappearing (again, like dishes and food).  No one asked if they could have her loaf of bread, or her fruit, or her cup, they just took it. They still refused to acknowledge her existence and refused to tell her when they were bringing other friends over. Then the ants showed up.  Youngest is very clean: but not everyone is.  So we ordered her ant traps because she was the only one who cared that the ants were there.  

    Today marks two weeks since all of this began.  From the beginning I've been asking if I could call the resident life people and push on them to get her moved.  But Youngest was very clear: she is a 19-year-old adult now, trying to live as an adult.  She wanted to take care of it herself.  She knew who to contact, she had contacted them. She took my advice about what to say, and they said they were working on it and we just needed to wait.  But it felt more and more unsafe to me and I was not seeing the movement that I felt was essential in getting Youngest out.  As a parent, how do you know at what point you need to step in?  I kept worrying that my choice not to step in was setting her up for a disaster.  But I also worried that if I forced my way in, Youngest would feel I had crossed a line and would shut down, something that had happened before. I also worried she would feel disempowered that she had somehow not been able to do it on her own, and that I had not trusted that she could.  But I struggled to not interfere.  The best I could do was to just check in with her again and again throughout each day, making sure she was still safe, still okay.

    Then today she woke up sick. It was not just a little cold.  Her throat hurt, she was exhausted and running a fever, she felt she'd been run over by a truck.  She went to eat breakfast and her food was gone, so there was nothing for her to eat.  And she was certain that her illness was caused by a mixture of stress and filth from her flat mates.  

    Mama bear here had had enough!

    "Youngest, I am asking for your permission to contact resident life on my own.  There are many reasons why I might be able to move what you have not been able to move.  It is time, and I need this from you."  She gave me permission, though honestly, if she hadn't, I would have contacted them anyway.  

    I left them two messages.  The first one using the terms "dangerous situation for my daughter" and "illness caused by the stress of a scary and unsafe environment", and the second, despite promising Youngest I would be "nice" using phrases suggested by my professor sister like, "I will be contacting the title 9 coordinator since this is a hostile and unsafe living environment if this is not dealt with today" and "I will also be contacting the authorities since illegal activities such as underage drinking and drug use are part of the issue unless this is dealt with in the next 24 hours."

    Within a half hour Youngest had been offered a different apartment. While she cannot move in until Saturday, she has a contract now for a two bedroom apartment with a female flat mate, whom she has contacted by email. Still a stranger, but this HAS to be better! The process is moving and she can now try to sleep off her illness and pack.  I may be flying back to CO on Friday to help her move just to ensure that there is no unpleasantness with her old flat mates.   

    So many thoughts about this.  First, I will still not sleep until she is out of there, though she does have a couple friends who have invited her to sleep on their couch if necessary.  

    Second, I still feel that it was right to allow Youngest to try her best to resolve the issue on her own since that is what she insisted on doing. She feels empowered by her own abilities to make the phone calls, send the emails, and to do what needs to be done for herself.  While my help was necessary in the end, Youngest got the ball rolling.  She could not have continued what she was doing on her own behalf now that she is ill.  And she feels good about what she was able to do.

    Third, I trusted my own instincts in this, and at the point at which it became clear to me that residence life employees were not going to help in a timely way without some pressure, I added the necessary pressure.  Youngest does an amazing job of adulting in general.  But she is still naive about the dangers in the world or what it takes sometimes to motivate busy and perhaps overworked people to help you. I don't like threatening.  But I will do what I can, whatever that is, if I feel it will not make the situation worse.  

    Fourth, I had a number of folk in my life second guessing my choices in this. Some said I was not standing up for my kid with enough strength or insistence. I understand why they felt that way, but when we judge others, we never see the complete picture. If I had interfered sooner, Youngest would not have felt that I trusted her, and she would not have felt capable of dealing with it as much as she did.  I had constant contact with her and kept offering to step in, to fly out, to write, to call.  Youngest was very clear until this morning that she did not want my interference in this but wanted to handle it herself.  And as I mentioned yesterday, there is huge value in trusting your kid to try to work through their problems on their own.  We may not agree with their choices, but trusting them to make those choices is important to their growth, their independence and their ability to adult on their own.  More, it is important to their sense of self-worth as people who are no longer seen as just "children" in need to being defended and protected, but as capable adults-in-the-making.  For this reason, I may have to let her move on her own, as much as I want to help.  She is again saying she has friends who can help and she'd rather feel she could do it without my help.  I may not like all her choices, but I have to respect them.  And still, there were others who said I was being too much of a helicopter parent, but I stepped in when I felt it was necessary.

    And the lessons for me?  Several.  I need to continue to trust my own instincts while still listening to the wisdom around me. I need to let go and trust that I've raised capable, amazing children, and yet, even as I let go, I still need to be ready to step in when needed. Third, as I said yesterday, we are so connected to our children that they truly suffer nothing alone.  When things are bad for them, they are bad for us too.  I'm looking forward to Youngest being out of her current apartment, not only for her own sake but so that I can sleep again!  And finally, once again, all things come to an end: good, bad, indifferent: they all move.  This has been a true challenge, but it is almost over, and for that I am grateful!  

Parenting, Part I

         I jumped back in to work and life with both feet once the sabbatical ended, which means finding time to actually write has been difficult.  I need to make it a priority, just as I have made gardening a priority.  Writing is therapeutic for me and hopefully helpful for those who read what I write as well.  While my list of things I've wanted to write about is extensive, today I feel it necessary to write about parenting.  And specifically the focus will be on my son.

     Middle flew back to Alaska yesterday for his fourth year in college (notice, I didn't say his "senior" year... the program he is in is a five year program and he wants to do a couple minors as well, so probably more like a six year program for him).  As I sat in church preparing for the service, someone asked me if it was going to be hard now that Middle had left.  My first reaction was, "I will miss him greatly, but at the same time, I'm ready for life to return to normal."  I felt his leaving marked the end of an extraordinary summer that encompassed my sabbatical, as well as time with Youngest and then time with Middle before they both went back to school.  I love my son so very deeply, but he and I have always been a bit like oil and water.  Now that he is an adult, we do better, mostly.  But it takes a great deal of energy for us to navigate how to talk to and interact with one another well.  It takes work, on both our parts, to be careful about how we say things and to ask for clarity when we need help understanding the other point of view.  During the couple weeks he was home, we were not without conflict and it was deeply painful conflict at that.  Even the middle of the night before he left at 4am Sunday morning for the airport, we found ourselves in an argument.  When each of us gets stressed, we have been in the habit of "poking the bear" and we relate to one another as that bear.  The stress then of his leaving sent us into a last round of arguments.  It's exhausting, for both of us.  And at times it is very hurtful, no doubt for both of us as well.  As a result, I thought I was looking forward to at least having things be not quite so exhausting once he was gone.  

    But I've found myself wondering if part of the reason we fight so much and so deeply isn't the level of love we have for one another.  Middle is my only son.  I didn't know what it could be to raise a son for many reasons, not the least of which is that I am one of two girls in my family of origin.  But the bond I have with him runs so incredibly deep that sometimes I feel I may be too enmeshed with him.  I mean several things by that.  First, it has been a challenge for me to let him go and choose to do things that I believe to be dangerous or other than what I think is best for him.  He's a 21-year-old young adult, but it's been difficult for me to accept that. So when he decided he wanted to go ski-packing in the arctic circle in the middle of winter, I was concerned, upset and and I tried to talk him out of it.  But he survived it fine and seems to have had a wonderful experience.  Now he wants to rent a dry cabin in Fairbanks to live in next semester.  Again, not what I would want for him: a dry cabin is exactly what it sounds like it would be: a place without running water and many are also without electricity.  We have the conversations: "How, then, will you keep yourself warm during the month or so that it's -40 degrees?"  "How will you even START a fire at that temperature?  Or sleep through it without freezing off parts of your face?"  "Where will you bathe?"  "How will you pay for the car that you will need to get to and from school?"  "Where will you plug in the car in those temperatures when you don't have electricity?"  "What if the generator goes?  Then what will you do?"  And the questions go on.  It is hard for me to let him be the adult he is trying to be, but I'm working on it. 

    Secondly, his opinions that differ from my own can be hard for me to take.  I'm working on that as well.  He has his own worldview and ideas, and sometimes they upset me, especially when I can't understand how he sees the world the way he does. Still, I believe I've done more growing through my relationship with my son than I could have expected.  He challenges me to be better, to be open to seeing the world differently and to accepting the differences between us more fully.  He challenges me to let him be the adult he is, and by extension to let others be who they fully are.

    Perhaps because of all of this, though, I was looking forward to a short break from the intensity that is our relationship.  But, no surprise, now that he is gone, I just find myself heartbroken all over again.  We raise our kids to leave us.  And I keep expecting that each time they go it will be easier, but it isn't.  I look for him when I look out my office window, hoping he will show up for lunch or to go for a walk.  I listen for him at home, wondering what he will say about what I just heard or saw.  I am trying to let him have a little space to start his classes (which began today) and to settle into his new room at school.  But he is on my mind and in my heart to the point where little else can hold my attention today.

    What is this strange part of life in which we are part of creating beings who break our hearts constantly but also fill us with so much love it defines who we are and who we want to be?  What is this strange activity called parenting that takes over our beings and makes us see more clearly our own flaws and shortcomings while calling us constantly to do better and be better for those who are moving on anyway?  Why were we created to love with such ferocity those who will return that love not to us but to their own offspring?  

    For me, it connects me to God as parent.  And I find myself wondering if God also loves us with an intensity that is so beyond what we can imagine that we can only return the very smallest measure of that love to God.  And I wonder, because for me faith has never been "heaven insurance" but has always been about relationships, if God also feels that same loss and pain when any of God's children choose other than relationship with God.  Maybe.  We don't know.  

    For today, my thoughts are with my son.  I am so proud of the young man he has become.  And I am so grateful that we stay connected, even across the miles.  

      

Those hard parenting moments

        My eldest child is late to enter the "teens" officially.  What I mean by that is that the typical behaviors we associate with teenagers: rebelliousness, trying on different selves, bonding more with friends than with family, believing themselves to be so much smarter and more knowledgeable than their elders - my eldest has been late to arrive here.  But she is here now.  Oh boy, is she here now.  As a result, while my eldest is now officially "in her 20s", in reality, I have three teenagers.  And with COVID, it is a 24/7 kind of a deal.  There's no escaping this.  I can't go away for a weekend, or send one of them to spend the night at a friend's house.  Eldest should be away for her junior year at college, but she's been home now for almost a year and will no doubt continue through the summer at this point.  And while each of the kids can escape to their own room, there is no place for me to escape to.  I share my room, and my husband claims it during the day for his work space.  I'm in the common space then, and so when the teenagers are out in that space expressing their "teenage-dom", it is me who gets the full blast of it.  

      Don't get me wrong: for the most part I really enjoy my family.  I not only love each of them, but I truly LIKE each of them as well.  I have found myself grateful most of the time for the weird gift of this time when I get to be around them more, get to really be together with kids who will be gone all too soon.  And truly, for the most part my kids are very nice, interesting people.  They are caring and growing and learning and often still respect what I have to say, still value me as their parent.  But while this is mostly true, there are moments when the teenage attitude is utterly too much to deal with.  When I wake up to sarcasm, sass, and criticism, being told that they don't want me to talk to them at all, even when they are in the same room as me, when they pull away if I put my hand on their shoulder and shrug me off, when they clearly are trying to push my buttons and set me off - all of it when I can't step away easily, when there just isn't a place for me to escape to, sometimes it can simply be hard to take.  This behavior was hard to take when it began, but over this year long period it has become increasingly so.  

      I read an article recently that basically said that parents need to let teenagers act out in these horrible ways at home because they are "trying these things on" and if you allow them to behave this way at home, to act out their stress using you as their punching bag, that they will avoid behaving this way in public where it could truly damage relationships.  It went on to say that parents should, therefore, just put up with it, be graceful in the face of abuse because teens need to know that home is a safe place where they can act out their stress, and just be freely themselves without any risk or loss. 

     I call BULL on that article.  Absolute bull.  By accepting that kind of behavior, you teach a child that it is acceptable to be cruel and unkind to their loved ones.  We give them the false belief that there are no consequences to lashing out in inappropriate ways towards those who love them.  We teach them that elder-abuse (even verbal abuse) is somehow okay.  We also know that being a teenager is in many ways like being a toddler: their job is to push on the boundaries and figure out where they are.  It is, therefore, important that they actually find those edges, are given those boundaries, and are reminded that certain behaviors are not okay.  Being unkind is not okay now, or later, or ever; it's not okay with strangers, not with friends, and not even with family.  

    That doesn't mean that I will respond to their bad behavior with rejection or revenge.  We have to model appropriate responses to unkindness.  We have to model who we want them to choose to be.  But I also am not going to just sit by and allow the unkindness.  I will point it out.  "I really felt hurt when you made that comment."  I will protect myself.  "It isn't okay to say things in ways that intentionally hurt other people.  There are alternatives to expressing oneself with sarcasm and judgement, which are hurtful."  I will give them alternative ways to respond, "I would have had an easier time hearing that if you'd phrased it differently.  Perhaps in this way..."  I will help them to be self-reflective, "I'm wondering why you felt you needed to say that and why you chose to say it in that way.  Can you explain it better to me?"  And at times, I will just take myself for a walk because I need the break from it all.

     Most of all, I will just breathe...

     I don't get it right all the time.  My responses are not always those I want.  And when they aren't, that also gives me a chance to model apologizing and naming what I should have done differently in response as well.  It also allows me to model gentleness with myself and self-forgiveness, as well as forgiveness for their behaviors.   Some days that's easier.  Some days that's harder.  

    This "living with teens" is giving me a lot of opportunity to grow.   

    One day at a time, folk.  One day at a time...

Watching our fledglings leave the nest

         I've been feeling very down lately.  Anxious, sad, stressed, depressed.
         Lonely.
         I couldn't figure out why.  Yes, we've experienced an important family death lately.  But I felt that didn't really account for the level of my anxiety and sadness.  It certainly didn't make sense to me that I'd be feeling lonely while surrounded by family, while reconnecting with family folk I haven't seen in forever, while anticipating my daughter coming home from school for winter break.
        But then I remembered that it was that time of year which is always hard for me, or has been for the past 9 years.  9 years ago my life changed radically and I went from being a partnered person caring for my three thriving kids into a solo mom dealing with tragedy and stress and loss and trying to help my kids through the same.  This time of year, every year, I feel this way.  I think that our bodies remember, our bodies house those memories associated with season and time, even when we don't consciously remember what is triggering our feelings.
        But this year is also different for me in another way.  My eldest daughter has "gotten it together," is leaving the nest, is spreading her wings, making friends at school, not calling as often and certainly not needing my help or support as much. She is learning well how to "adult," and she is stepping into doing what needs to be done on her own, she is living her awesome, beautiful life in ways I don't even begin to understand.  She is connecting deeply to others, to her peers.  She is doing it right.  She is doing what we all hope our kids will do - stepping into being her own person and taking flight.
       The truth is that I am struggling with it.  When I became a mother, even though I was working and still had friends and other family to occupy my time, I moved into a new identity.  My primary identity became that of being a mother.  I love being a mother.  I think about my children constantly, even when I am not with them, they are the lights of my life, my biggest joys, my greatest gifts and the raising of them has been my biggest accomplishment.  This became doubly so when I became a solo mom.  They were where my focus had to be.  Their concerns became my largest challenges.  Their needs and fears and sufferings took the largest part of my attention. Truthfully everything I did, and have done ever since, including working, has been to make sure they have what they need and are okay as they step into life.  I had to do this, or they would not have become the healthy, happy, well-adjusted kids (in the face of and despite great crisis) that they have become.  The fact that my eldest is thriving in school and in her life is in part a testimony to the depth of love and support I gave her that has enabled her to bloom, to work through her losses, and to grow into a beautiful young woman.  I know this.  I can't take full credit, and I won't.  We were surrounded and continue to be surrounded by a community of helpful, caring people and they have credit too.  Eldest herself also needs to take a lot of credit, for being willing to do the work, to grow, to learn, and to step forward.  But I can claim a piece of it.  They know they are loved beyond measure.  They know they are more important than anything to me, and that I would do anything to make sure they are healthy and happy.  That knowledge and that experience has made a difference in their ability to move and grow and live.
       Still, I find myself feeling a little bit like Shel Silverstein's Giving Tree.  When they were born I gave them my apples, fed them off of the sweat and tears of my work and my care.  But when we went through crisis I gave them not only the branches, but my very trunk so that they might survive and thrive.  Again, I made a choice to do what I believed was necessary for them to be okay.  And it has paid off for them.  But now I am the stump, especially where my eldest is concerned.  I am waiting for her to come home and rest for awhile on that stump that is me before she leaves again for other adventures.  And this is a sad and hard thing for me.  I won't change it.  I will not ever choose to hold her back from her dreams and adventures, from her living her life as fully as she can.  But I am lonely for my eldest daughter.  And, at some level, for my other two children as they become independent teen-agers.
       I think about the olive tree in our back yard.  We cut down this huge olive tree because it was blocking the window, causing problems on the roof, was creating great mess both in the yard and tracked into our house, and, most importantly, it was creating pollens which were making my son (with his allergies to olive pollen) very sick.  We cut it down to a stump, and yet it has not given up.  Hundreds of new branches continue to sprout from the sides of the stump each year.  Each year that tree makes it clear that it belongs there and has no intention of dying.  I know that I can choose to be a stump like the olive tree: to find new ways to grow and thrive once my kids are gone.  I can invest more in other relationships now and to find my purpose, meaning and identity in my work and other activities.  I can and I will.
       I also know, though, that this still involves grief. Every change is a loss at some level.  And grief is a natural part of watching our kids grow and leave the nest.
       Today I am grieving my daughter.  Even as I am proud of her and grateful for who she is becoming, I am grieving our closeness, her needing me, her dependence.  I am grieving being the person she was closest to whom she loved the most.  I am grieving the primary identity I had as Eldest's mom.  I will always be her mom, but it can't be who I am first and foremost anymore.  My life has to be more about other things now, and less focused on her.
        I know most parents go through this, and I know that I, too, will survive it.  Being a parent is about self-less love.  We don't do it to have people always around us who will love and care for us.  We give of ourselves and watch the blooms grow that are our children.  I am so grateful to be mother to my three wonderful kids.  The grief is just a small part of that.  But I am naming it today in the hopes that others who might be feeling similarly know they are not alone.  And to name for myself that the sadness I'm feeling is okay.  It's a testimony to the depth of the love I gave and give still.  And for that I am grateful.

Sermon 5/8/16 - Love One Another - Mother's Day

Luke 13:31-35, John 13:31-35

After God created Adam and Eve, one of the first things God said to them was “Don’t.”
“Don’t what?” Adam replied.
“Don’t eat the forbidden fruit.”
“Forbidden fruit?  Really?  Where is it?”
“It’s over there,” God said, wondering why God hadn’t stopped after making the elephants.
A few minutes later God saw the kids having an apple break and God was angry.  “Didn’t I tell you not to eat that fruit?”  the first parent asked.
“Uh huh,” Adam replied.
“Then why did you?”
“I don’t know,” Adam answered.
God’s punishment was that Adam and Eve should have children of their own…
---
It is not easy to love even our own kids all the time, and as we know, not every parent does it well.  Mother’s day can be a really hard day for a lot of people as they reflect on their childhoods.  It can also be a hard day for a lot of women who wanted babies but couldn’t have them, or who lost them, or who raised kids but struggled to be good moms.  Far too many children suffer abuse, neglect or simply an absence of love at the hands of their parents.  While we cannot condone this behavior from any parent, I think there are moments in every parent’s experience when they might have just the slightest understanding of what might lead to the tragedies of abuse.  Even the best parents suffer disobedience and rejection at one time or another at the hands of their children.  When we tell our children “no” to something they really want, it is not uncommon for a child to strike out.  Even toddlers push parents away with angry tears.  For parents of many teenagers the words, “I hate you” are not unfamiliar.  Jesus described this experience well when he said in the Luke passage, “How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings and you were not willing!”  And yet Jesus continued to act loving.  Good parents continue to care and love their kids even when they are rejected, even when their children disobey.  It is not easy, but it is part of parenting.
Parenting is hard for another reason.  A good parent will risk anything, everything to protect their child.  When we love, we want to protect them just as Jesus wanted to gather the children of Israel to himself as a hen with her brood, protecting them from the foxes in that society.  And this protection is impossible.  We cannot protect our children from every bad thing.  There are horrible things out there; kids shooting other kids, pedophiles, murderers, kidnappers.  More universally, all children get their hearts broken, get sick and suffer disappointments.  Even though sometimes these trials help kids to grow and be strong, every time my child hurts, a part of me dies.  We lose parts of ourselves daily in the process of loving as a parent.  It is hard to love in this way, and as I said before, not every parent is capable of this kind of love for their children.
In todays’ passage from Luke, Jesus describes God’s love for us as the love of a mother hen gathering her chicks in to herself.  In the John passage, Jesus refers to his followers as little children and then proceeds to ask them to love one another as he loved them.  Jesus asks us to love one another with God’s love.  The closest we can come to understanding the depth of this love is to compare it with the kind of love we have as parents for our children.  Even a parent’s love falls short of what God asks, but it is the closest we have in human understanding for the kind of love God asks, and expects us to return to God by loving one another.  But this is hard.  It is hard to love our own children well, and it becomes increasingly challenging when we apply this to others, to strangers, to enemies, to people we fear.  But it is something we are called on to do as Christians.  It is also something we promise to do every time we baptize someone.  We promise to help raise the child, or adult, in the way of Christ, a promise we can only keep by loving with the depth of love of a good parent.  Even beyond the bounds of our membership and baptism, we are called to “love our neighbors” with the same love Jesus had for us; the deep love that we are closest to experiencing when we love our children.  And in this way, because of those promises, every one of us is a parent, a mother, to everyone else in this room.
Barbara Brown Taylor shared a story about bringing home a Blue Silkie Chicken
because she had heard that they made good foster mothers. She shared about
her nervousness in letting a guinea chick be introduced into the pen with the silkie.
But everytime she would do this, the Silkie would invite the orphaned chick under
her wings. She pointed out that it was counterintuitive for the mother hen to do this.
In terms of preserving her own species, it did nothing to help these orphaned chicks
of other kinds. Still, without fail, the mother would always invite the chick under
her wings, care for it, nurture it, and raise it. She ended her story this way, 
"'Jeruselm, Jerusalem, How often have I desired to gather your children
together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not
willing!' Jesus had chicken neighbors too, I guess, and from them he learned
about God's wings. Watching them he knew what he wanted to be and do. 
One cluck from him, and I know too." (Barbara Brown Taylor, "Barnyard Behavior"
Christian Century. October 2006).

While I was on study leave at the beginning of this week I met a man who ended up telling me his story.  He told me that he had grown up extremely poor in Mexico.  His cousin invited him to come to the United States to help make money that he could then send to support his aging parents in Mexico.  He was 16 years old when he came to the United States, he did not speak a word of English, and his cousin dropped him off at a restaurant where he was told he would work and live.  He worked every day, 17 hours a day, no days off for a year before he knew enough English and finally had the courage to confront the restaurant owner and ask why he’d never seen a penny.  The owner told him that he basically had been given to the restaurant owner as a slave to pay off his cousin’s debts, and that because of that, he would never see a dime.  The man then beat him up and dumped him on the street.  He was now 17 years old.  After three days on the street with nothing to eat and nowhere to sleep, he went back to the restaurant and asked the chef for help.  The chef’s girlfriend was there who was fluent in Spanish and they agreed to take him in.  They helped him gain citizenship, helped him enroll at the local college and helped him to get back on his feet.  My new friend told me he would forever be grateful to that couple, who became surrogate parents for him, and truly acted with kindness, compassion and sympathy.  This is in great contrast to the restaurant owner who had many opportunities for kindness but practiced none of them.
          Michael Piazza quoted Dr. James Cone's The Cross and the Lynching Tree,  “When (Martin Luther) King agreed to act as the most visible leader in the civil rights movement, he recognized what was at stake. In taking up the cross of black leadership, he was nearly overwhelmed with fear. This fear reached a climax on a particular night, January 27, 1956 in the early weeks of the Montgomery bus boycott, when he received a midnight telephone call threatening to blow up his house if he did not leave Montgomery in three days ...”  He went on to tell a story that Dr. King often told about what he called his "spiritual midnight," when he struggled with what could happen to him, his wife, and newborn baby girl. That night, after receiving the threat, Dr. King heard God say to him, "Martin Luther, stand up for righteousness. Stand up for justice. Stand up for truth. And lo I will be with you, even to the end of the world." Three nights later, while Dr. King was at a bus boycott meeting, his house was bombed. Fortunately, his family escaped harm, having moved to the back of the house when they heard something land on the porch. When Dr. King was told at the meeting that his home had been bombed, he calmly asked about his family and then went home to comfort them. "Strangely enough," he said later, "I accepted the word of the bombing calmly. My religious experience a few nights before had given me the strength to face it."
When I look at scripture what I see is a path of love that led Jesus to the cross.  And Jesus told us to follow him in that path of loving, even to the cross – literally, not figuratively.  Loving is not easy.  While referring to his own love as that of a mother hen, Jesus refers to Herod in this passage as a fox.  And as we know, the fox will get the chicken, foxes do get chickens that come in front of the, and Jesus was killed.  If we too care about the world as a mother hen cares for her chicks, if we too would go out and meet the fox face to face to protect others, if we too would love to the point of putting ourselves in the path of a fox, we too risk death.  Loving is not easy.
Many Sundays you participate in a benediction and charge which ends with the phrase; “Care for one another and love one another.  It is all that easy and it is all that hard.”  Mostly, I think, loving one another as Christ loves us, loving one another as a parent loves, is hard.  We are called to see one another as we really are.  WE are called to be good news to the poor and liberation to the oppressed.  We are called to lay down our lives for one another, even as Jesus laid down his life for us.
So where is the good news in this?  The good news is that loving is itself the greatest most fulfilling experience we can be given by God.  Loving as a parent loves a child is a deep love like nothing else one can experience.  Loving my kids is truly the greatest gift I have been given.  There is a woman I know who has been unable to conceive.  Every mother’s day she avoids church because hearing about how wonderful mothers are reminds her of her own inability to become a mother.  Her story is not unique.  And she would not experience such despair and loss were it not the case that the deep love one experiences in being a parent is its own reward.  I tell you this not to say that we shouldn’t celebrate the gift of motherhood because we should.  We do need, however, to celebrate that gift in a way that is still loving for individuals who find mother’s day a challenging holiday.  And while I do not want to diminish her loss or the loss of others in her situation, I think that in spite of that loss we are still all called to love one another to the depth of a parent loving a child.  And I believe that in every case where we learn to truly love to the depths of our being, the loving itself is more fulfilling and rewarding gift than we can imagine.  Even when that love is not returned, real love is a gift to the lover.
Not only is the gift of loving its own reward.  Also, when we are able to love like this, I believe we are given the ability to see God.  We see God’s face in those we love, we experience God’s grace through the act of loving.  We experience God’s resurrection.  Every time I die a little in loving my children and experiencing their pain, I am born again stronger, with a greater ability to love my kids, with a greater ability to love others.
It is not easy to be a Christian.  We are required to love with our whole beings, with our total selves.  But loving and the ability to love ever more fully and deeply is its own reward and promise.

Raising Kids Alone, Part II

On October 2, 2015 I wrote about being a solo parent from the perspective of recognizing that it really does take a village to raise a child and that we are all called to be part of that.  I shared the struggles, the challenges, of trying to raise kids alone.

But I found myself today reflecting on this in a different way, from the perspective of the gifts that I experience in being a solo parent, as well as being the solo head of house.

I have found that my children are much closer to me than they were before.  The downside of this is that I worry they have not done the "growing up and away" that kids are supposed to do, or at least not as early or as fully as other kids.  But while I have a bit of concern about that, I also really enjoy the closeness I share with my kids. They talk to me.  I know not every parent experiences that from their kids.  They share with me their fears, their hopes, their dreams and their frustrations.  They ask for one on one time with me and we value that time together, both individually and as a family.  We are close in a way that I see only shared by other solo parents with their kids.

Secondly, I get to make the kid and parenting decisions on my own.  There is no debating, the decisions are mine to make. I shared the downside of this before which is that I know I sometimes make mistakes with those decisions, or I don't always choose what is ultimately best for my kids (though I try hard to do so). None the less, there are times when it is simply easier to not have to make every decision about the kids with someone else.

Thirdly, while I have had to learn some things I never really wanted to learn, on the other hand, I've learned many things that I now value knowing.  Even more, I've learned how to DO things that I never expected I would learn how to do.  I had no desire to learn how to mow a lawn, but I know how to do that now.  I had no desire to learn how to fix basic household things, or how to hang outdoor Christmas tree lights, or how to change the furnace filter, but I know how to do these things now.  I know many women learn these things without becoming single moms.  And because I believe in equality, it embarrasses me at some level how traditionally our roles ended up being divided in some ways. But they did. Not anymore.  And finally, I never thought I would learn how to do this:

     Cutting hair and shaving heads (sometimes he chooses to have a shaved head) just never made the list of things I expected to learn how to do.  But I do it now for my son on a semi-regular basis.  (As an aside, my son's crabby face is not because he doesn't like having his hair cut.  He didn't like that his sister was watching. (sigh).)

       Yes, being a single parent is tiring at times.  I can become overwhelmed when everyone has immediate needs at the exact same moment.  But there are huge gifts as well.  And for today, I am grateful for the life I am leading this day.

Raising kids....alone

       There was an article posted on Facebook recently that was the musings of a divorced mom sharing her struggles and angst with the role.  She was sharing how it is hard to have the kids all by herself at times, and then just as hard to have to share them with someone who removes them from the home for a few days at a time.  She valued the kids having time with their father, but missed them when they were gone.  Still, when they returned to her and she had them all on her own, she found her energy was short and she often wished for help.  And I found myself just thinking how different it was to be not only a single mom but also a SOLO mom - a parent who has full custody, full responsibility, full time being a single parent with my children.
     My experience is not unique.  Parents whose co-parent is deployed oversees, or whose spouse has died or is incarcerated, or single people who adopt all share this experience.  Sometimes they have one child, sometimes more than one.  Sometimes they have all straight A stellar kids, sometimes they have a special needs or especially challenging child like I do. Whatever our circumstances there are many of us.  And yet, one of the factors that I think most of us share in common is the overwhelming SENSE of being alone - of trying to do it all ourselves when we simply don't have the time, energy or resources to be able to do that.
     It takes a village to raise a child.  Yes, it absolutely does.  And yet, we live in a culture that emphasizes independence, that separates people into their houses and boxes and buildings.  We live in a place where asking for help is often taken as a sign of weakness, and where it is not really tolerated on a long term basis.  I have asked for help with the children in the past, from people who have offered help, and yet have been greeted with "I don't want you to become dependent so the answer is no".  The whole idea of being "dependent" is incredibly feared, stigmatized and seen as one of the ultimate "bads" of our society.  It is a little more acceptable to ask family to help, rely on relatives, especially when it comes to the raising of kids, but even then, I've overheard countless conversations with older people that basically come back to, "You shouldn't have to be helping your children raise their kids.  You raised your own already. You are done with that." And, truthfully, it is not just those helping who resist the "village" idea.  We live in a place where advice given on child rearing is often resented.  We don't know everything, and yet we are supposed to, and somehow when we are given advice we take it as a personal insult to our lack of innate knowledge about the best ways to rear children.  I've also heard of numerous situations in which kids become attached to the "help", and then the parents replace the helper because the parents become envious of those deep connections to their kids.  How does all of this work with the true wisdom that it does indeed take a village to raise a child?
       As a solo parent, I make all of the decisions for my kids on my own: where they go to school, what they eat, what clothes we buy, who watches them when I work, what they can watch on TV, how much media time they are allowed, what activities I will enroll them in, where we go for vacation, whether or not we pray at dinner and at bedtime, who we will spend our free time with, what influences they will be exposed to, where they will live and play and study and work.  I do it all on my own.  I can consult with others, but the ultimate decisions are mine.  I am aware that I often get it wrong.  I don't pay them enough attention because I work too much.  And when I do have time and attention to give them, I am not always in the best spirits or give them the kind of attention they really need and deserve because I'm worn out.  I probably let them see way too much of my own moods, frustrations and fears because there just isn't another adult in my home with whom to share those things.  I do an adequate job, but not a great job.  They aren't abused.  They are fed and housed. They are loved, and they know it.  
       But I know it isn't enough.  And there are moments at which I am all too aware that I am just simply not enough.  There are moments in which I make a decision and worry that it isn't right.  But more, I'm aware that the limited resources I can give them, regardless of the decisions I make, aren't enough.  It takes a village to raise a child.  Where is this village that we talk about?  Where are the villagers who can be called on to help raise each child?
       In the Presbyterian church, we baptize people of all ages, and that includes infants.  We do this because for us it is a sign that God chooses us even before we are old enough to understand it.  We also have rules around that.  A person cannot have their child baptized in a Presbyterian church if the parents are not members of the church.  The reason for this is that a big part of our understanding of baptism is that it is a commitment from the faith body to be the "village" that raises the child.  A big part of the ritual is a promise from the congregation to raise the child as a child of God.  The congregation promises to support, love, nurture and raise each baby that is baptized in its midst. Sometimes people move, but the promise is made on behalf of all congregations to which that child might belong.  Sometimes people come in to my office whom I have never met and who have no intention of attending church and ask me to baptize their baby.  I understand that.  It usually means something very different to those individuals - they are worried about the baby's salvation or afterlife, usually.  That isn't what it means for Presbyterians, so in those cases, I usually encourage the person to find a different denomination to baptize their child who might have that other understanding.  But I digress.
        The point is that in our churches we make promises to each child baptized in our midst that we will help raise them.  How seriously do we take those promises?  How deeply do the parents whose children are baptized in the church take in that promise of help and care and nurture for their kids?
        My sense is that it is not taken with the seriousness with which it was intended.  I say again, with absolute conviction, it takes a village to raise a child.  The "myth" that we should be independent is simply that, a myth. All of us are interdependent. We are all connected and to believe that you are independent or even SHOULD be independent is to believe a lie.  But it extends even beyond our daily reliance on other people into the bigger picture that our connections go deeper than we know. When you are hurting, I am hurting.  When your kids don't have enough attention, my community and my world is lessened.  And when we offer care and love and support to one another, all of us are enriched.  I have more energy and love to give when my kids are loved and cared for.  And you are more able to care for others when I have the energy to care for you. When I have enough, all of my interactions with others are more positive, and that extends outwards. It is circular. and it deepens.  I'm reminded of a song I learned at church when I was little, "Love is like a magic penny.  Hold it tight and you won't have any.  Lend it, spend it and you'll have so many, they'll roll all over the floor!  Love is something: if you give it away, you end up having more!"
        I am deeply grateful to those who have chosen to be part of the village raising my children.  I am grateful every day for those who offer help and who take an active interest in my kids' lives.  I hope that you are enriched by it as well.  But for me, it is absolutely essential for all of us.  It takes a village to raise a child.  And as we build that village for our children, we are blessed to find ourselves part of a community that nurtures and feeds and "grows" us as well.