Good morning!
We are cruising on through January; one son went to college this week, and another turned twenty-two.
No one started any cryptocurrency shams or sheltered any confidential documents (to my knowledge), so I call that a parenting win.
The Part Where There’s an Essay: A Coach, not an Instruction Manual
This will not come as a surprise to anyone, but there are times when the giant, unwieldy task we categorize as “mothering” wears me out. What am I actually doing here? Am I having any effect? Is anyone listening?
The time with this older age of children is so different from the younger ages. There are complicated emotions; heartbreaking decisions; upsetting lack of decision; grief, pain, and growth. In some ways, though, it’s vaguely similar to the young years with my kids. They are all still growing: taking faltering steps, some successful and some not. More than that, I find myself struggling to hold my temper at times. I still struggle with the desire for control, even as it is slipping further and further from my grasp.
Among the times when I am most prone to discouragement as a parent are the times when I expect my role to be less like a coach and more like an instruction manual.
You elderly people remember instruction manuals, right? They are black-and-white booklets, smoothly folded, stapled, and tucked neatly inside the package with that coffee maker you just bought. They are here to help you.
What do they do? They give you directions on how to set up your new coffee maker. They point out all the parts you need to know about. They warn you away from doing something that might hurt you or your new coffee maker. They never, ever repeat themselves. And at the end of the day, they make sure you know how to get some coffee tomorrow morning.
An instruction manual:
Gives the instruction one time
Gives the same instruction no matter who they are speaking to
Cannot adapt to different situations
Is not emotionally related to the outcomes
On Sunday, I was reminded of the opposite of an instruction manual: a coach. As the North London Derby (Dear Americans, this is a soccer match) wrapped up, some ugliness erupted between the teams. A fan of one team jumped down from the stands and kicked the other team’s keeper. Players began shoving each other.
Mikel Arteta, coach of Arsenal, was in the middle of the field celebrating his team’s victory when he noticed the foolishness near his team’s goal. He ran down the field twice, pulling players out of the scrum and reminding them that they’d won, directing them toward the section where their fans were seated.
He didn’t need to do this. There were plenty of assistant coaches around, along with other players with cooler heads. He could have stayed out of it. But he immediately snapped into action, being mindful of the physical risk as well as the reputational risk to player and team alike.
Here we see the distinctions drawn.
A coach:
Stays in the picture for the long haul
Can adapt instruction to the recipient
Cares about the people he’s advising
Gives instruction lots of times, in many different ways. Inspires.
Is not divorced from the outcome; his reputation is related to it. Risks himself for the sake of his team.
I’m most prone to battling my emotions over parenting when I slip into “instruction manual” mode.
I expect to only have to say things once. Why can’t people just remember and do it?
I expect to be able to communicate a truth to all my kids in basically the same way. Aren’t they about the same?
I expect to be able to live my life, without interruption; things ought to go according to plan.
I don’t want to be the proactive, discipling mom -- I’d rather be the reactive, tired mom. Nobody ever does what I ask, so why bother anyway?
Selah.
Lord, grant us patience and perseverance as we try to shepherd the younger ones with the compassion you have shown us. We remember the kindness and compassion with which you have drawn us. Help us do the same.
“I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love....” Ephesians 4:1-2
“And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.” Galatians 6:9
For the Anglophiles
We’re in the midst of BBC’s Winterwatch, which is a festival of content centered around nature in the UK winter. More can be found at the BBC Youtube channel. Here’s a little sample from 2021:
It is British! It is wintry! It is Winterwatch!
Seriously, there are some wonderful nature videos here. If you have kids at home, see if they might like it.
Reads & Listens of the Week
Upstream interviewed Abigail Favale about How Gender is Destroying Sex. Favale is the author of the recent book The Genesis of Gender.
Script of Every Movie Set in Boston from The New Yorker’s humor section. I love them all, and I will watch every one. “People are shoveling snow into six-foot-high piles while others walk past, tightly gripping their winter coats to shelter themselves from the bitterly cold wind. Everyone is angry. They are angry because they live in Massachusetts.”
Transactional Learning is not Enough: I don’t love the nitpicky interaction with the tweet that kicks off this discussion, but by and large, I agree that this is a shortcoming in the conventional understanding (on the right and the left) of what education is for. “They [the liberal arts] were intended to be liberating arts that cultivate a rightly ordered freedom among students.”
By far the read of the week: With Great Story Comes Great Responsibility. “So, then, our challenge is not to transcend or escape the power of story, but to treat it seriously and pull ourselves out of the inevitable ruts we get stuck in where we’re always the heroes.”
The real trouble is that “kindness” is a quality fatally easy to attribute to ourselves on quite inadequate grounds. Everyone feels benevolent if nothing happens to be annoying him at the moment. -CS Lewis, The Problem of Pain
Absolutely spot on regarding instruction manuals and coaching in terms of parenting. The great heartbreak comes when they choose by their own agency what will destroy them and as a parent you can only pray, grieve, and lean deeper into the Everlasting Arms. I know there is a far greater theatre that our lives are being played out on than what my timeline of life shows, and that has become a point of comfort for me. I applaud and encourage you, Kelly, to play that brave coach. Your children will be so blessed by your presence with them!
Resolved: the next time I’m stuck in bed with a winter illness I will be consuming no media except for old BBC Winterwatch videos. 🙌🏻