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Keeping kids safe from everything has become a new art form in the U.S. Preparing them for every possibility is the norm for parents these days. Worrying about their friendships, their homework, their online presence, their development, their extracurriculars and more takes up a lot of our time. It has become normal to us to regularly worry about our children’s happiness and well-being.

Worry can mean anxiety or unease, but it can also mean “to fiddle with repeatedly.” Worry worry worry. Sounds a bit like hover hover hover.

I’m not positive that we have truly supplanted one for the other, but I do think that sometimes parents do one while thinking that they’re really doing (and showing) the other. Worry and care are not the same, but we have somehow gotten them a bit confused with each other. It’s not quite as bad as ‘literally’ now meaning ‘figuratively,’ but I think that increased worry for our kids can show itself as a badge of honor, love and even “good parenting” for today’s privileged parents. Worry is easier to talk about and claim, while not sounding self-important or too crunchy (i.e. “I just really love my kids!- and who doesn’t?). Worry is also easier for others to identify with (“You worry? Me too!!!!”).

When we’re motivated by worry, we tend to be moved to act and do something to alleviate that anxiety. We might worry that our kid isn’t doing enough to get into a good college, so we work to add more hours to the day and more activities to the schedule. We might worry that our child isn’t developing their fine motor skills quickly enough, so we assess and find a specialist who can help them along the way.

Caring is not so straightforward. When we care about someone, sometimes it’s the things we don’t do that show that. We don’t tell their secrets. We respect their privacy and their abilities. We let them speak for themselves. We even let them fail while still being there for them.

I’m not saying that there isn’t a place for worry in the parenting landscape. It is practically an inevitability for parents. I just worry (ha!) that we give worry too much weight. That since it now proves our love and devotion to our kids, the more of it, the better! When what we really need is a balanced diet of care, love, patience, some anger, stability, dependability, consequences, realistic expectations and some worry.

But we also need to remember that our worry is our own problem! We have to know when to deal with our worry internally and not let it erupt all over our kids. When they fall down, we have to control our own impulses to gasp and rush to them. When they don’t finish all of their homework, we have to control our rising panic and let them deal with the consequences.

Let’s work to not confuse worry with care. They sometimes look alike, but they behave very differently, especially in worrisome situations.

Life has regained some equilibrium. We are “settled” into our temporary housing and have places to sit and sleep. For a journey that’s been a little up in the air, these are luxuries. But since I find myself in cold weather, without a car, without a TV and without any of my things around to “keep me busy,” I’ve been relearning how to properly waste time.

There are many folks who, when faced with a dearth of activities or distractions, would create projects and goals for themselves. Well done to all of those people! I find myself occasionally being envious of them but never to the point that I actually become them. When go-getters tell me about their current plans for life, I always find myself feeling tired listening to their ambition.

So I’ve been trying to reacquaint myself with the quiet of everyday life. I suppose some might say that this is one of the better ways to live in the moment. Without anything to work toward (for right now), I am able to just be here instead of projecting myself into the future and trying to live there instead. I am nowhere right now but on my couch (and on my computer).  Well, this is how I’m trying to frame this very slow portion of my life anyway. I’m trying to give myself permission to have very little to show for myself at the end of the day. I’m trying to justify <cough> the time I’m “wasting” by saying that it’s good for me. It’s a good lesson in quieting my mind and body.

I believe everything that I’m saying, I just wouldn’t be saying it if I didn’t find myself with a lot of time to kill. Blergh. Even the way we identify “ill-used” time frames my days as wasteful. No wonder I’m trying to push against that and say that it’s ok not to fill my time with “productivity.”

Alas. I’ll have to use some of my “free” time to allay my feelings of guilt at having free time.

In other, more cheerful news, the TV just arrived. Let the time wasting begin again!!!

 

The past week hasn’t been as bad as it could have been. We have managed to (mostly) move across the country…again. And this time, we had a small child in tow. We all made it to the snowy east coast with much of our sanity intact. Amazing.

I even managed to learn a little bit along the way. Another amazing feat.

As I was whittling down the contents of the fridge and coordinating packers and movers and inspections, I managed to be very ill-prepared to meet some of my daughters’ needs. I would go out of the house for a few hours WITHOUT ANYTHING FOR HER TO EAT. That’s actually how we boarded the first of two planes to take us across the country; sans snacks. Occasionally a little pang of guilt/worry would cause me to sweat for a moment and voice my concerns to my unconcerned husband. After a few futile conversations, I decided to reframe my “negligence” as a boon for my kiddo rather than a curse.

How does my being ill-prepared work out well for my little one? Welcome to my journey of justification.

I’m helping to paint a more realistic portrait of the world.

A world where crusts stay on bread! A world where when I say “That’s all there is,” that’s what I actually mean! A world where if you’re really hungry, you just have to eat what’s offered! Also, a world where In N Out Burger is the only dinner available! So that’s what we have (and we eat it with relish!).

 

It’s not imperative that I’m always an ill-prepared parent, but it’s nice to know that even in times when I am, it’s probably not going to hurt my kid. It might actually be a little test in resilience and patience for the both of us.

Happy New Year!

2015! Has a certain futuristic ring to it, doesn’t it? The last two years have brought plenty of changes and now, this new one promises to bring some of its own. This year will bring lots of learning, speech, increased awareness and motor skills in my little one. And it will bring TONS of opportunities for me to capitalize on daily ‘teachable moments.’ In fact, it has already begun.

So, I give you fair warning, if you are hanging out with my kid and me and I start to ‘teach’ her something, please just ignore us for a while- cause it’s going to be super annoying! You don’t believe me? I bet you’ll even be a little annoyed by the end of this post.

#1 I REPEAT MYSELF SOOOOOO MANY TIMES

She’s a little kid yet, so telling her a few times to do something just isn’t going to work! So I’ll be the broken-est of broken records.

“Put the block IN! In the basket! The block goes IN! Nope. In here. IN IN IN!” And on and on and on.

#2 I AM SUUUUPER STUBBORN

Going along with being a broken record, I will not stop repeating myself until the stupid block is in the stupid basket. Since I take myself so seriously, if I ask my daughter to do something, I then have to see that she does it. Argh, I’m getting annoyed with myself just thinking about this.

#3 I INTERRUPT CONVERSATIONS TO ADDRESS MY KID

You and I (the adults) will be hanging out, drinking coffee, being civilized and then my kid will ask me for some blueberries without saying please!! And I, in the most annoying move ever will start to ignore YOU, my friend, and wait for my daughter to remember how to appropriately ask for something that she wants. Then I’ll apologize once my Eye of Sauron refocuses on you, but it just won’t be the same.

I’m positive that if you are a friend of mine, I have annoyed you in the past. But moving forward, I fear that the levels of annoyance that I will elicit in people will reach epic new heights.

2015! The year of the perpetual eye roll!

Ugh. Whatever.

“Katie, put on the ‘rock you’ song!”

He was, of course, referring to Queen’s opus magnum “We Will Rock You.” And I, of course, knew that that’s not how the radio works.

“I can’t make the radio play a certain song pal. It plays what it wants to…”

Do you remember a time when if you weren’t home for a favorite television show, you just missed it? Let’s face it, when your best bet was programming a VCR, there was little hope that it would actually record the new episode of Beverly Hills 90210. Now we all have the luxury of expecting TV, radio and internet to give us exactly what we want exactly when we want it. I mean, I LOVE fast forwarding through commercials, but they were simpler days when you just lived with the few choices you had.

Being able to moderately control kid’s TV choices is an invaluable use of modern technology, but I would argue that there is some value in making them live with whatever TV or radio has to offer at any given time.

#1 You can only watch/listen to one episode at a time

I have done my fair share of binge watching, but I admit that I prefer having to wait a week for a new episode. Otherwise, it’s so easy to start another episode and another and all of a sudden you realize you’ve been sitting on the couch for 2 days straight falling into the black hole that is Lost. Teaching kids to wait a little is arguably more important than teaching me to do it. I’ve already been practicing my waiting for a few decades. They are new to the art and need some more time…to develop their skills.

#2 You might stumble onto something new (and you might like it!)

I have met kids who only like to watch Doc McStuffins. That’s not a bad show (and maybe it’s good that they only like one thing), but if they would just give Sesame Street a try, they might find out that it’s pretty great too (I admit a slight bias). If you can select only what you know you already like, then just like being a picky eater, you can be a picky watcher/listener. Parents get tired of these repeated shows and songs way sooner than their kids do. So helping their kids discover a new band or show might be in everyone’s interest!! Just let the radio play!

#3 You might not watch TV at all if there’s nothing on that you like

A possible bi-product of not always getting to watch/listen to what you most want is that you might choose to do something else altogether! You could stare at the ceiling or read a book or write your own TV pilot or do a puzzle or pull your sister’s hair or walk the dog or take out the trash or annoy your Mom or do your homework or learn to play the clarinet or knit your brother a scarf! So many choices!

#4 Letting the radio play could lead to spontaneous dance parties (or some learning!)

Bam! Time to boogie!