Leading Our Children, Part 2
March 2, 2007 |
As I mentioned in my previous post, women are bombarded with many models of parenting. Now let me tell you more about the “mommy tracks” I’ve been on, and what I’ve learned about leading my children.
The complexity of my own situation as a parent astounds me. I’ve been a stay-at-home mom, an outdoor-photographer mom, a work-from-home-worship-leader-mom, a self-employed-traveling-and-speaking mom, a married mom, a single mom. I’ve started three businesses while my children were still at home, and transitioned in and out of several careers. Funny how there wasn’t a manual for what I ended up doing. If there had been, the chapter titles alone would have terrified me.
My son, Peder, is now a graphic artist and filmmaker. Since he was in high school, we have worked together on various projects. (My company is the first one listed on his resume.) When he was in college about an hour and a half away, we would spend a day or two together every few months, working on worship videos. Yesterday, we were in a meeting together, proofing the final copy for a line of photographic cards I just started. Peder has done all the design work, and forgive my bias, but he’s really good.
As we reviewed the proofs with the printer, I remarked that many of the photos were actually taken when the children and I trekked up to the Colorado hills together on weekends. With his sharp 20-something memory, Peder began to recount how he’d experienced the various scenes: lugging my tripod up a craggy gorge so I could capture the waterfall at just the right place; wide-eyed as our rusty old four-wheeler hugged the mountainside to avoid careening into the canyon below (Mom just had to get to those wildflowers at the top); chasing marmots in the alpine rock as I captured a mountain lake in the last light of summer.
Later, when we were driving back from the meeting, I thanked Peder for taking the time out of his busy work schedule to design the cards and see them through to production. He said, “Mom, it’s what family does. And it’s worth it, just to see how much you’re into this. Anna and I always worry about you when you’ve lost your passion. You’ve always supported us and pushed us to do the things we love. We want the same for you.”
My parenting formula isn’t anyone else’s. But I do know this: Yesterday, my son shared something eye-opening. Something pivotal. Regardless of the situations we were in (and some of them were traumatic—they lost their dad early on), we all tried to find a way to live life from our deepest places. Our most passionate places. Those places that called on our best selves. Mothering was that for me, definitely. But so were photography, worship leading, writing, speaking, running an advertising business, and now a card business.
I think the key to my parenting was this: The particular “mommy” or “career” track I was on at any point didn’t seem to matter nearly as much as living the one life I had to the best of my ability. For me, that meant involving my children as much as I could in my pursuits. Most of the time, however, it was not direct involvement, but a day-to-day sharing of dreams, complete with successes and failures.
For those of you who are both leader and parent, your matrix of mothering may look entirely different from mine. Yet if you view passion (that is. living significantly) as a requirement for life and not an option, you will infect your children with a view of life that will help them create rich, God-honoring lives. Rather than just making do with life or worse, settling in as victims of circumstance, you will lead them into the realm of possibility. Regardless of the track you’ve chosen, if you have a dream, live a dream, and share that dream with your children. They will become dreamers and livers of dreams.
Oh, there’s one parenting track I left out. It’s called the “realized life” track. We have not because we ask not. Ask for the strength and grace to develop your gifts to their fullest potential. Don’t settle for living someone else’s life or the one you think you’ve been handed. Even if you have only an hour or two a week to do it, start co-creating your best life with God, and your children will do the same.
Sally Morgenthaler is a frequent speaker and writer, Christian educator, author of Worship Evangelismand other books, and innovator in Christian practices worldwide.
Posted by Caryn Rivadeneira on March 2, 2007
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Comments
Oh boy, you pegged me :) What is a life without passion anyway??? I think my resume would show about 60 different ventures, and I have stuck with a handful. The ones I have the most passion for each day end up winning my time and attention, but God promises that for everything there is a season, so it doesn't bother me at all :)
Posted by: Sally on March 2, 2007
Very inspiring and challenging article. I just prayed your recommendation and asked God to make me the writer He pictures me to be!
God bless you richly.
Posted by: Nana Yaa on March 4, 2007
Great writing! I also write, am a professional storyteller and poet,and of course a mother. I have been praying similiar to your suggested prayer for a while. Before I became a mother I was a deputy. Besides that I enjoyed a short term internship at my state's leading tv news station learning to write for them. Then I went on to write for almost four years at our largest newspaper. My resume has gotten crowded through the years. But the thing that I enjoy the most is the work I do with at-risk youth in a local juvenile detention center. I teach storytelling, poetry and writting through self created programs. I definately don't want to be the "normal" one. But I do want to be God honoring and enjoying it.Right now Iam trying to stay on track. Great article.
Posted by: Phyllis Jason on March 6, 2007
Sally and Phyllis, you are both braving the reality of having many gifts...I love your commitment to letting God harness your passions and bents, including motherhood. Deputy, writer, journalism, story teller, parenting...This is art, this is dance! If we were machines, manuals and formulas may work, but thank God we are not. And we come with a gift even more amazing than our passions and talents: the gift of choice. Sounds like you are both choosing well. Nana, may you see the brilliance and breadth of God's picture for your writing.
An addendum to my mothering: my daughter Anna, who is getting her masters in clinical psychology, just called and told me she has been accepted into an internship working with delinquent middle schoolers. She's thrilled. The work will be extremely difficult, as these are children in a "last stop" program before detention facilities. But working with marginalized children is her passion. Last year, she worked with autistic children in a program that focused on dolphin-therapy. We drove all the way down to Key Largo together to get her started in the 2-month program...a mega-road-trip from Colorado!! It was some of the best mom-daughter time we ever had!
And we needed the time together - we had a June wedding to plan. FYI, her new husband, Nathan, is her biggest fan. Right now, they have two puppies, with child-bearing probably a ways off (Anna is 22). What will her choices be if they are blessed with children? I have no idea, but I suspect Anna will find a way to "dance" for God the whole way through: mother, psychologist, wife, writer, and whatever else God leads her to do along the path.
Sally Morgenthaler
Posted by: Sally Morgenthaler on March 6, 2007
Sally, your words are such a blessing to me this day. I find myself in transition once more in a desire to put God and family first and as you say, to live life with a passion. Not the life that I've been handed, but the one that I need to live out. Seasons - I've been through many in my last 42 years - through various career tracks and dances with God, through the death of a four year old son and an ectopic pregnancy last year. But God is ALWAYS good and He nudges and guides us when it's time to move on. God bless your work Sally! Your words today resonate in my heart and I thank God for mentors like you :)
Posted by: Cathy on March 6, 2007
THANKS TO GOD HE IS THE ONLY ONE THAT Can get us any where we want to to go put him first in your life and life takes its own pray is the first step fast for the lord and he will move the mountain you will get to the side you need to be . thank you father god because you are the only one and the one that can help us for every thing in life. thank yall great word that really everybody needs to hears. thank you god bless yall
Posted by: amanda macias on March 7, 2007
Thanks Cathy for your reminder that God Is ALWAYS good
Posted by: Dorothy on March 8, 2007
Great article! Thank you so much. Very encouraging. I am a Mum of 2 children , one on the way. Family and most friends are a trip on a plane away. When I said Yes, to God for the mission field, I was single and I took it seriously. I still do, but being a wife and mother means harder decisions. I have now travelled to 26 Nations, my 6 year old to 21 when he was 3 years old, my two year old to 8. They are both born in different countries. We lived mobile with our suitcases -place to place for 4 years. 21 Nations, 11 cities in the country that we are currently working in, and 11 parts of the major city that we re-pioneered a ministry. We came to the country 4 1/2 years ago, when just before it went through a major strike and a shutdown for 2-3 months, of which time we had no funds (ATM machines, transfers, credit cards-nothing worked.) then being in a city. I am an island girl. All ths to say, it was the grace of God, that we survived, but more than that grew in a knowledge and trust of God that keeps us every day. We continue the adventure with Him in ministry, especially with young adults. I am with you, a life of compromise or fear or without passion is hopelessness and despair. No thanks! It is tough, but God is faithful! Run the race to the end! God bless you!
Posted by: Maria on March 8, 2007
This hit me where I hurt: "Don’t settle for living someone else’s life or the one you think you’ve been handed. Even if you have only an hour or two a week to do it, start co-creating your best life with God, and your children will do the same." I do so WANT to live with passion so I may teach my children through my example - but it is hard. "Victorious living" was not something modelled for me as a child - oh, our family loved Jesus but that didn't mean we were joyful... Now I find myself reverting to a negative, woe-is-me attitude when I am tired or things don't go my way. Thanks for the reminder that even if I only have ONE HOUR A WEEK I can CHOOSE to spend that hour following God and the passion he has given me! And thanks to all who post here - hearing your stories reminds me that it can be done!!
Posted by: Mrs Ruz on March 10, 2007
My kids haven't known their mom much as a working outside the home woman as I quit fulltime work before they were born.
I've been freelance writing lately and my son thinks its a funny job - to sit at a computer at home and write things.
I am always looking back to my own life to recall impressions so that I can sense what my kids might be seeing, thinking, needing. My mom returned to outside work when I was the age my kids are. We missed her a little, but became independent as we were given jobs while she was out. I noticed she seemed to love her new work too so I was happy for her although I didn't give it that much thought at the time.
Now that mine are 12 & 14, I've invested so much energy into parenting and housekeeping that I'm burned out and bored of it. That's partly due as well to the fact that they have their own interests and I'm merely their cook, financier and taxi. That's a little sad. Housework doesn't hold the same urgency and I feel I'm getting dis-passionate about it. I've been feeling guilty, though, because I realize this is a critical season to be a role model to them now that they are more mature.
I want the kids to see a mom who is fulfilled beyond them, and fulfilling her purposes. I don't want them to think I'm lazy, non-employable, or a computer addict. I'm searching for outside work for my sake now, and partly for setting an example to them. It's hard though, after not being out there for so long. It's really hard.
Posted by: Rosalie G on April 1, 2007