Introduction to my parenting thoughts

Parenting is great and terrible, like so many things, and those experiences are hard to write about when your kids are grown.

I have a friend writing a parenting book. Writing about parenting sounds terrible. And like the main thing I could speak on with any level of expertise. And also, no expertise at all.

My parenting journey has been wonderful and also unexpected. It has been the regular challenging that all parents face and at times so painful we didn’t know how to go forward.

Because of our infertility we find ourselves regularly encouraging young couples who are struggling to get pregnant. Several years ago John and I each met with someone and afterward agreed that while talking to them we wanted to yell, “Don’t do it! It’s terrible!” It wasn’t a great moment in our lives.

As with so many things, Both/And. Parenting is terrible, painful, disappointing AND it is beautiful, wonderful, life changing and affirming. You can’t have one without the other. In every world, in every trauma, in every heartbreak, I would chose to be a parent again. Even with the And of parenting.

But write a book about it? That’s brave.

Maybe I have a handful of posts about it. I don’t know how to help you be a better parent but I might have a couple stories to tell about how to navigate the emotional challenges of raising kids.

A few weeks ago I saw this post and replied.

I don’t know why I replied because I don’t think I am a “girlie” at this stage of my life (although I weirdly enjoy the phrase), but I am certainly familiar with the healing from trauma era (also weirdly love how we are all in an “era” these days). Several people have liked or commented on my response. Since I get a notification when someone likes it I have had this pop back up to remind me of it and make me think about it the past few weeks.

The part I wrote about how my trauma, “deeply defines me but is not my identity” is what I have thought about most. While my heart knows that is true, my mind has been asking, “is that true?” Do I behave in a way that reflects the truth that my trauma is not my identity, or am I stuck in a trauma loop and still behaving like it is the primary part of who I am all these years later?

The other part of letting my parenting trauma define me but not be my identity is particularly relevant in this adult parenting stage of life. After 30 years of parenting it is no longer my primary identity. I have been stumbling around here on substack writing the various things that come to mind each week trying to discover the answer to the question of who I am post full time parenting. Because my adult parenting years aren’t going to look anything like I dreamed, nothing like my parents have experienced or like my siblings are experiencing. This season of my life won’t be filled with adult children and grandchildren. So who am I apart from my kids and what is my identity?

Writers answer these questions by writing, so in the search for the answer I have been writing some future posts about parenting in trauma and grief lately. And I am not going to lie, it is hard to know exactly what to say about grief and trauma in parenting without sharing the entire story of grief and trauma. But, as I said in an early post, I am not writing about my children here because their stories are not my stories.

So how do I write publicly about my grief and trauma in parenting without oversharing their stories or dumping a bunch of trauma onto the readers? A couple times I have casually shared aspects of my trauma experience in a group conversation and immediately realized by the looks on everyone’s faces that I am a boiled frog when it comes to my trauma and can forget in a moment what is and isn’t appropriate to drop casually as if it requires no processing.

Hopefully this platform gives me more space to discern before I speak. The challenge for me is having the wisdom to hold back what needs not be said and say what does. Praying I am able to walk the line in a way that honors my family and our experiences while encouraging others who have found parenting to be a bit challenging as well.

Looking forward to sharing some of what parenting through hard things has taught me and maybe together we can think through who we are becoming on the other side.

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Random:

We made it up to our cabin for a couple days this week. I’ve been seeing pictures of breathtaking fall colors online all month and was pretty sure by the time we got up here it would be over. And it is, most of the trees are bare with only a few yellow and orange leaves holding on and standing out in a crowd of white, brown and gray branches. But when you are surrounded by nature it is no less spectacular. And while seeing the bright colors on the trees is a highlight, our time here has been filled with walking through or riding over those colorful leaves that have blanketed the paths. Instead of observing the colors we have been able to stand on top of them, feel surrounded by and inside them. It is a different but equally spectacular experience which we have loved having this week.

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