Reflections

For some time now I have been contemplating this question. "What kind of Mother was I?"
As the saying goes, its a deep subject. I remember in great detail the birth of each one. If you want the details, just ask! They were all relatively easy births, only a little Novocaine to put in a few stitches. From there on the days begin to blur. Yes, I remember being up nights. One time when Brian was a baby and I was rocking and nursing him in the middle of the night next to the old oil burner in the back bedroom, I heard a noise and found the collie dog at my elbow. She had laid up against the porch door and it had come open. She heard me and came to find me. That is about the most i remember about being up in the night with the children. (the bats? thats another story.)
As they got older there were lots of stressful days, i suppose. Vern reminds me once in a while that I would call him in the barn and ask him to come get the kids for a while. I suppose that was in the wintertime. In the summer time he didn't spend so much time in the barn, but he was always willing to have them outside to follow him around for a while.
They always helped us on the farm. Melissa had a little plastic wheelbarrow that Vern would put a dab of silage in and she'd wheel it up and dump it for a cow. Brian always like to help on the greasiest dirty job. One of my favorite pictures of him is on all fours trying to see under a lawn mower parked in front of the shop. Joel, well, he was the opposite. He never liked the dirt of farming. But, again he always helped. i remember once he and Annie helped us pick rocks in a hayfield. He discovered he had disturbed a ant farm under a rock. The ants were frantically trying to move their eggs to a different location. He laid on his belly and with a stiff alfalfa stem carefully helped them. Annie says feeding cows is how she learned fractions. Patty got 3 3/4 pounds of corn, Lucy 1/2 pound, etc.
Did we work our kids too hard? I don't know. We did what we had to to to make a living. Melissa did a little babysitting when she was older. Brian worked for some of the neighbors on occasion, I suppose Joel did too, I don't remember. I can't remember if Annie did or not. But I don't think they ever lacked for spending money. From the time they turned 16 we provided them a car and gas money. And the car was theirs when they left home.
Emotionally. That is the harder one. The longer I work in the medical field the more I think every one has emotional problems. We all have issues with our parents and the way we were treated. No one's parents were perfect. And in the case of raising our children we only did what we knew to do or were capable of processing. Yes, some of this was passed down from our ancestors and now that we are older I realize not all of it was good, but its all we knew. How true is the saying that babies don't come with manuals. And even if they did, each child is so different there would have to be a specific manual for each one.
I wish, in hindsight, I would have been more conscious that the only manual is the Bible. I wish I would have had the wisdom to read and understand the times that Jesus interacted with children. I wish I would have understood better how to love one another even as He loved us. I wish I would never have said an unkind word or done an unkind deed.
But now that time of my life is past. I cannot undo it. I can weep for my mistakes and ask forgiveness but only God can truly forgive and forget. My dear children that I love so much can forgive, but unfortunately, they will never forget.
Our own lives as children was maybe not all it could have been. (you have all heard Dad tell the story about getting a licking for throwing the rock through the machine shed roof and later being told he had it coming anyway.) I suppose that is part of the struggle of becoming a better person as an adult. If we had all been raised by "perfect" parents, what would we be like? If there was no struggle in our lives we wouldn't seek something better and in seeking something better we find God, the only "perfect" parent, and Jesus, the only perfect older brother.
My only hope is they will learn from my mistakes. That the errors I made will inspire them to be better husbands, better wives, better parents.
And that in the process they will grow in wisdom and love.