all parents get this at one time or another by friends or family. i get it most often from my mom. it starts with a story of something norah or lainie is doing: clinging to me, not eating, throwing a fit over nothing, etc. and the response fairly often is "that sounds like what you/your sister/your brother/my child did". usually this is said by someone, like my mom or a friend, who has children older than mine and they are remembering what this stage of life was like when they did it.
i'll be honest. it doesn't feel very helpful in the moment. it feels like we're just going to swap horror stories about how these children are out to ruin meals and playtimes with their crazyness and the lesson is that it is just going to happen so deal with it or you are a worthless mother. i'm certainly not saying that is what this well meaning person intends with this advice, just that is what it can feel like on some of those long, rough, trying days.
but that is not what that really means.
take when my mom tells me that norah's picky eating and gagging violently over food that displeases her sounds just like what my sister did and that my sister clung to her and refused nearly any one else holding her like lainie is now doing. i remember my sister not eating well when we were kids. i remember mom constantly telling her to put her knees down and to try to eat just one or two more bites of meat or veggies or whatever the problem food was that meal. i also remember the crying and whining she did over it, too. and i remember her getting very upset when mom wasn't around.
do you know what i know now? i know that my sister is a healthy adult. and while she is still a bit choosy over what she eats, she is able eat a meal with people, even in public, without any problems at all. i haven't seen her gag over a bite of food in years. and she has a life away from my mom. she is able to go whole days, weeks even, without even speaking to her, let alone holding on to her or refusing to be in a room without.
or when my mom tells me that when i was norah's age, i also would get very angry and give up on whatever toy/game was thwarting my attempts to conquer it. i do remember some of this, especially in later childhood when i discovered i wasn't very good at video games and decided that must mean i don't like them at all.
and now? i'm okay with sucking at games. i have learned to try again and not completely flip out when something doesn't fit together. or when my block tower falls down. i can even totally handle when i have to push my clothes basket around the obstacle instead of said obstacle moving out of my way by the power of my will.
what that advice really means to me now is that my children will survive whatever trial we are going through now. that maybe i won't find that perfect solution to get norah to eat what i want her to eat or get her to not completely lose her mind when she gets upset. there may not be a magic formula to get lainie to let me eat without having to hold her. and there isn't some trick to getting both of these tiny girls to behave at the same time while we are at the store or at church.
that advice is trying to show me that my girls will grow up and out of these things. my imperfect parenting through these rough days is probably not going to scar them for life. my lack of a solution for getting norah to eat vegetables now will not result in her developing a debilitating fear of all things leafy and green. my holding lainie all the time because i just don't know what else to do to comfort her does not mean that she will not be able to go to prom without me. and, most importantly, my needing Jesus's forgiveness for when i fail them will not make them hate me forever.
it doesn't seem like good advice when you are sure you are scarring your children for life with your bad parenting, but "this too shall pass" really is very true and can be very comforting.
