In case you haven’t heard, Texas is frozen right now.
Literally, we’re all whining about it and it’s SUPPOSED TO BE MARCH! What in the actual world? We’re all hibernating and covered in blankets and watching the same movies over and over again until the sun comes back on Thursday. My mom told me this morning that she didn’t have any milk in her house, and if you knew my mom, you’d know that this maybe has only happened once before in history. She’s cold and she’s doing without the milk, thank you very much.
Side note about my mom and the milk: we used to stop at the gas station to get milk and bread on the way back into town from road trips. Every. Single. Time. (at least it felt like it). It was just kind of an expected thing, but oh, let me tell you about the trauma. It would have been a long 7 hour drive from west Texas. Everyone was stiff and sore from sitting in the car on that two-lane highway back from the land of oil rigs and tumbleweeds. It was usually nighttime, so our beds were calling our names, and instead of the sweet release from the insides of the van, there we were, sitting in the parking lot of the JP’s gas station on Lake Shore drive. For milk.
Anyways...we’re all frozen.
One of the movies we recorded on our DVR yesterday was the Sandlot, which we watched with our kids for the first time. I hadn’t seen it as an adult and watching it again was like jumping back in time for my husband and me. Not that either of us were alive in 1962, when the movie was set, but the scenes brought up literal memories from both of our childhoods. It made us nostalgically sad to think how the world is no longer the safe place that it once was, as depicted in the movie. Sad that neighborhood kids can’t just run outside and down the street to play baseball all afternoon with their friends. Sad that the creativity of our children is certainly stifled. They’d have no idea how to search for bottles to gather 0.98 cents to buy a baseball from the town square hardware store. They would never spend the night in a treehouse overlooking the yard of an unknown neighbor with a malicious dog (creep alert). They’d never even have a chance to put together a pulley system to lower one of them down into said yard without the intervention of a hyperventilating mother. (Looking at myself)
But my kids watched the movie with completely different eyes. The movie conjured up brand new emotions for them. They watched in suspense and nervous anticipation as the Sandlot boys tried to get their treasured baseball back from the clutches of the unknown beast on the other side of that metal fence. Their imaginations were wild and vivid with questions, fears and excitement. They saw the script as a hope for their future. Someday, they’d be those kids who were out playing all day long with their friends and using Erector sets in life or death situations. They didn’t feel nostalgia, they felt anticipation.
So my thought is that these actually are the days. Nostalgia is good, but we are the ones to make these days worth missing. We are the ones who can choose to engage our neighbors, live open-handedly, unlock our doors and play in our front yards. We are the ones who can organize neighborhood block parties on the Fourth of July and the ones who can teach our kids safety within limits.
We are the ones who can teach our children to invite the new kid to play. And while we’re at it, let’s teach them not to make fun of him when he’s new to the sport. We all remember how it feels to be new at something, desiring to fit in, hoping to be enough.
These are the days that we get to snuggle up with our kids and watch a movie three times in the same 24 hours. The days that we can take scenes from those movies and turn them into teachable moments. My guess is there aren’t too many days ripe for teachable moments before they’re met with sass, entitlement and eye-rolling. These are the days when popcorn is dinner. When bathtime is an adventure. When finishing a puzzle is impossible and spilled milk is inevitable.
On top of my nostalgia, I watched the movie and saw something else that I’d never seen before as a kid. At the very beginning, when Smalls asked his step-dad to teach him to play catch, the dad was distracted in his trophy room. He was disengaged with his step-son because he was busy with his stuff. His trophies. His pennants. His baseball. He was distant and ambiguous and generally, unlikable. And had he been more present with his son, he maybe would have saved him from some of his humiliation over that summer. Maybe he would have told Smalls all about his special baseball. “The one signed by Baby Ruth?” “No son,...not Baby. Babe.” He could have taught him so that it might have been easier for him to fit in.
One...Smalls did fine on his own. It was a rocky start for him, but he did fine without the hand-holding from his step-dad. However, if his dad had taken the time to teach him, Smalls never would have swiped the ball and hit it over the fence and there wouldn’t have been a movie to make. So if you’ve been a distracted parent, there’s no guilt or shame coming your way. Smalls was fine. Your kid will be too.
But at the same time, I couldn’t shake how distracted and unengaged that father was towards his step-son. And I don’t want to be that parent. It makes me want to take a hard look at the things that are distracting me...my “trophy room” to reference the movie. What things do my kids think are more important to me then they are? I hope it’s just two things...my marriage and my Jesus.
But two...it’s a different world now. Kids are different. Activities are different. I don’t know what the world was like in 1962, but based on the movie, every single parent of every single kid was basically absent from the story. They’re nowhere. There’s not any parents hanging out at the Sandlot, making sure everyone was wearing sunscreen and hydrating appropriately. Oh my heavens, those boys even went to the pool by themselves and the one kid who couldn’t even swim jumped off the diving board in the deep end. Where was his mom!! In 2019, that would NEVER fly and we all know it. So we’re there. Always. Making sure. Instructing. Watching. Monitoring. Keeping the peace. Protecting.
And if it’s not you, it’s a parent who you’ve assigned to do this for you while you’re absent. Never are we just unaware of where our kids are and unable to get in touch with them.
I'm having a moment where I'm wondering if this is just me?
Is this just me?
Parenting today is all the time. Sure, it changes as a child grows and gets older, but I don’t know a parent that can just check out for an entire Saturday and expect their kids to return in time for dinner.
Parenting is a full time thing. Are we distracted sometimes? Sure, but we’re present ALL THE TIME. We always know where our kids are. And if we aren’t with them, we’re texting them (or the adult in charge of them). We’re in contact always. We hover because we’re terrified of any number of things going wrong that we saw on the news or in a cell phone video.
So I think my takeaway is to be less distracted and less present. Yeah, less present. I said it.
I think my kids are entering that phase of life that they need to know that I’m not standing behind them every single moment of the day. I’m not suggesting a parenting style of absence, but I can see the need to take a hard look at my ability to let go of control. And that’s hard. When you have a baby and they need you for everything, you get used to being on demand. You stay near because they’re little and they need it. And then somewhere along the way, they begin to need you less. Yet, do we hover anyways? Do we fight to keep the control?
We shouldn’t.
I once heard a speaker at a parenting seminar talk about planned emancipation. It’s the concept that you systematically let go and willingly give your children new freedoms at planned intervals. He said that the one thing our kids want more than anything is independence, and I can remember how that felt. They want to break free from us and we can choose to parent them in one of two ways. We can either fight against this desired emancipation, trying to hold on and “keep them little”, creating a power struggle. Or we can proactively release them into new independence, showing them we believe in their ability to make good decisions. Planned emancipation is giving them new freedoms and responsibilities before they ask for them while at the same time, protecting them, believing in them and preparing them for more.
So while I’ll still be at the pool with my kids this summer, I’m preparing for planned emancipation. And while they are indeed still little, I’ll be reminding myself that these actually are the days.