This post has been writing itself for years. These three phrases or ideas being played within my mind whilst navigating the intense period of our lives where we bring up our three little girls. I'm writing today, sat on our breakfast bar, in the tidiest house we've ever had since our first baby. Our third baby is asleep. Our other two are at Nanny's for their half term sleepover. I'm trying not to miss them.
The house is immaculate because we're selling. We're selling the house that we brought them up in, we're selling the house I gave birth in, the house we have made the strongest memories of our lives. It's time to move on. We have done everything we can to this property and I need to slowly detach myself. We've outgrown it. Our lives are bigger than it. We're bursting at the seams and we need another home to hold us and create new memories - for the next chapter.
[ˈsakrɪfʌɪs]
1. give up something that is valuable to you in order to help another person
(an act of giving up something valued for the sake of something else regarded as more important or worthy)
2. to kill an animal or a person and offer them to a god or gods
Parenting seems to be as much about sacrifice as it is relearning how to raise children. Every child you have throws different challenges but we never quite predicted how much our lives would change. Sacrificing certain parts of our old life was hard. But I don't mean sacrifice as if we're taking something away. I mean sacrifice in a way that it enhances life, that the old way of life is renewed. Almost as if birth is a renaissance of sorts for both mother and father. There is a sifting through the importance of what is necessary and how to slimline needs. My biggest sacrifice has been my career: but what has replaced this is a sense of acceptance that my career path has meandered into wonderful streams that I never thought possible. I am now tutoring pupils from Hong Kong, Spain, Thailand, and Switzerland. The different times zones mean I can work while the children play at their nursery settings. I've been able to reshape and reform my work around the comfort of keeping the children happy. I feel privileged that I've managed to carve that out of family life and the sacrifice I thought I was making in a stronger sense actually turned out to create a flexible way of working. Yes, I miss the classroom and camaraderie of a staff room but I get my socialisation through my friends and other parenting connections. From birth, creating Parent Village, hosting pregnancy workshops, starting in a prep school classroom, to now internationally private tutoring, life after children certainly is a journey that's always changing.
Looking at the definition, I have sacrificed something of value to me for something I deem more important: the raising of a family. If we look at the religious definition, did the old me die when I gave birth? Was I the offering in order for my child to thrive? Maybe a tad extreme, but there was definitely a re-birth, a renewing, a process that meant I would never be the same person again and that comes with change, acceptance and surrendering.
[səˈrɛndə]
1. stop resisting to an enemy or opponent and submit to their authority.
2. give up or hand over (a person, right, or possession), typically on compulsion or demand.
This word has stuck with me since around the birth of my second child. She came into this world like a whirlwind, she was cast into this world to make people happy and think differently. If our first is structured, orderly, and caring, then our second is wild, free, and funny. Who knows what the third is like... When my second was born, there came a new understanding of not just giving in to them but sometimes taking the easier route: there is a time in life to take the road less travelled. And with two under two, an unsteady road is unreliable. I needed to surrender to them. When times get hard, I sometimes bite back and we all end up winding each other up. But they don't know how to simplify a situation. I have to be the one to be still, or be the one to give them a blue cup instead of a purple one, or be the one to wash their teeth first before their pajamas or let them have one more dance before bedtime. Knowing when to stop and when to go. We can always be right, though. There's only so many different coloured cups I can offer. There's only so many types of ways I can cut a sandwich. Surrendering to me is not 'giving in' to them, it's actually creating something that they enjoy. It beings them happiness, contentment. They need to have a form of control, too. They sometimes need to feel like they are the masters of their fate, and the captains of their soul.
To look at the definition, giving up on demand sounds extreme but really, surrendering is about being able to calm down, slow down and soften.
[ˈsɒf(ə)n]
1. make or become soft or softer.
2. make or become less severe.
3. remove mineral salts from (water).
This one has been the hardest for me. I can be loud, enthusiastic, and opinionated. I am in a constant relearning about how to soften to certain things: to responses, to demands, to life. I have never feel so overwhelmed, overstimulated, and I never knew there was such a thing as feeling 'touched out'. I'm not sure of what the answer is to all that, but I'm learning. Slowing down, going at their pace, rather than ours, to become all in one. My responses should be soft, (not like that annoying all-patient mother that is required of us - that is too much to hold) - so I try and think of being them - they can barely control their emotions but we can sometimes. I can't be calm all the time. I do find it important to show the children all emotions and then how to respond, recover, and rebuild. We are resilient people and we keep coming back, not matter what is thrown at us emotionally. I want them to know that they are emotionally strong. That they can do anything if they're determined, passionate, and enthusiastic enough. If we need to soften, it's in order to control the environment. To decompress a situation; to calm it all down. Be more by being less. Breathing to calm. Taking 10 minutes of calm while they watch a bluey episode (or 5). Sit in the garden while they make mud cakes. Let them cover the bathroom in water whilst having a water fight in the bath. Splash with them in puddles, not take photos of them doing it. Do it with them, not next to them. Be present and spend time with them, doing what they fancy doing. Soften the limits of our own expectations to let us all feel more free.
[ˈfriːdəm]
1. the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants.
2. the state of not being imprisoned or enslaved.
3. the state of not being subject to or affected by (something undesirable).
Comments
Post a Comment