Becoming Parents

The Traffic Light Experience

Have you ever been the first in line at the traffic stop and then you suddenly take a short nap as you wait for the light to turn green?

If we are pretty honest with ourselves, at some point this has been us! Especially on a Saturday afternoon when you’ve had that awfully stressful week, yet you have all the kids’ games to go to right through to the end of the Saturday, it’s 3.00p.m and you find yourself behind the steering wheel “Thank God you say I am going home to put my feet up!” Next thing you get a jolt because of the blaring horn of the driver in the car behind you and you are suddenly brought to reality. For one second you had let your eyelids close, you had let your guard down.

Well, that jolt is exactly how I feel about being a parent, from the moment that baby comes home with you from the hospital, ‘sleep’ as you know it goes out the window and forever you are in front of the line.

At one time we were naive, and thought that after the kindergarten days we could rest up a bit and breathe some sigh of relief, we’ve come through the ‘terrible two’s’ and ‘tantrum three’s’; and then we get to the adolescent stage thinking “What are they mad at us for?” Recently I discovered it’s not because of anything we did, it just is! Then, they have the jobs and once more we cannot really sleep, because…; next stop, time to think of the marriage partner and that in itself is another book to be written.

“When did we sign up for this?” One night in bed, I find myself having a conversation in my head with my late mom: “You never told me it will be this hard.” And I suddenly smile to myself when I hear her voice all those days long past telling me not to sleep too deep, to wake up early and be about my chores, to do the mundane things and not bother if my brother said thanks or my sister didn’t care that I had just made the bed.

Becoming a parent is definitely like being the first at the traffic stop. We are about to go on a road trip and sometimes it feels like we don’t really know where this road will lead. Like my devotional taught me this morning, for some of us this newness, this beginning often times makes us scared, threatens us in some ways because we are out of our comfort zone and at the best of times, we really want things to just stay the same. Our family and friends want us to be the same, they may say they want us to succeed until they realise that our success brings up commitments that take us away from doing things the way we used to do them before. Now, we have other responsibilities that strip us of the time to have those long chats on the phone on Sunday evenings like we used to, our days are filled with things like reading assignments, and doctors’ appointments, school game nights and whatever activities our children are signed up for, and before we know it decades have passed and lives have moved on. If we are lucky most of our friends are in the same cycle and we get to celebrate these moments too, when we do occasionally have the time to catch up, if not we find new acquaintances that may later become friends just because of their proximity (remembering the song to the sitcom ‘that’s when good neighbours become good friends’). Large family gatherings become sacred and so and so the story goes. I boldly write this today because for some time now I have been reading the pages of a past journal from ten years ago. I smile when I see how meticulously I wrote down my schedule for the children, for myself, and the amount hours collectively I put into every chunk of things I did. And so when I stumbled upon this thought written by Ralph Waldo Emerson:

“To laugh often and much;

to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children,

to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends;

to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others,

to leave the world a bit better whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition;

to know even one life has breathed easier because you lived.

This is to have succeeded.”

I pause for a moment to write and say thank you…

To all those parents who have sacrificed their high paying jobs, and passed on promotions because you could not live far from your family and children. To Fathers who have stood through temptations to worldly living and forsaken all to keep the sanctity in their homes. To mothers who have spent sleepless nights on their knees bringing their children at the ‘midnight hour’ to the mercy seat and sending encouraging messages. To all the sisters and brothers who send those encouraging messages when they are most needed! To cousins and friends who are always there to cheer the next project, no matter how unbelievably absurd it sounds and even looks on paper (smile, wink). To all who make us laugh and make this journey a bit lighter, you are the jolts we need when we let our guards down.

To you and to me, I encourage us to keep going, I am not going to lie to you that it will get any easier, but I can assure you of this, if you and I decide to stay in the present we will feel and enjoy; and transform our minds to a daily renewal of acceptance of the gift that each new day brings and the peace of mind knowing that we have witnesses all around us (both seen and unseen) that cheer us on and are greater on our side than any hardship that we may face.