I No Longer Raise Children

For the last little while I keep thinking about a phrase I heard (or read) awhile back. It basically makes the point that maybe if we all--parents, that is--stopped raising "children" and started raising productive and responsible adults we'd be in a better place.

Think about it.

The end goal is to have healthy, reliable, honorable, capable, contributors of society; to have responsible adults.

Our goal is not to have eternal children; a bunch of big people who are emotional 5 year olds...especially when it comes time for them to have children of their own or care for us when we're old and feable.

I wonder how my choices would compare as a Mommy early on if my personal directive had been "raising up adults" rather than "raising children".

I wonder now if I have been engaged in the service of bringing up responsible adults or in lifting them up into something they already were: children?

Along with this is another principle pointing out that if you treat someone as they could be you create room for growth, whereas as if you treat someone as they are now you stunt them from progression.
Putting these two concepts together gives me a strong leaning preference for removing the words "raising children" from our language and social consciousnesses.


Certainly we want to "...teach in a way that does not restrict learning...", influence the development of rich knowledge, deep compassion, intense loyalty, pure integrity, strong family ties, positivity, industrious creativity, responsibility, spiritual connection, and relationship maturity.

So, I have decided I'm no longer raising children...

Nope.

I'm now raising future productive adults...
                  Now...How do I make up for lost time??? And...what's my first step to positive change?

I Love My Children

I love my children more that I could ever express or explain. The words I have just don't come close to describing how I feel about them, the joy they bring into my life, the cause they give my heart to beat, the light they bring my days and my nights, the warmth they put in my blood, the color they wash my world with, the blissful music they play in my ears, the certainty they give to my purpose, the strength they urge me to find within myself, the sheer terror I feel with the slightest thought of losing them, the beauty and satisfaction I experience when they smile and laugh and appear content, the overwhelming peace that washes over me when they lay silently sleeping deeply nestled and gracefully dreaming, the exhilaration that explodes through my veins when we embrace.

No. There are no words I know to come close to what I experience, what I know, what cherish when my mind wonders towards the thought of my children, or when I hear their names.

By the same token there is an equal failure in language to articulate the pain, desperation, frustration, anger, sadness that dwells within my heart when my children suffer an injury or a crushing blow to their own hearts.

Motherhood living is so much more than anything anyone can ever really prepare you for, more brilliant and dim than can be explained. Being a Mother brings this women to the most exquisite bliss and suffering, the deepest agony of joy, the most bitter sweetness, an introduction to every level of color and grays, secure uncertainty, insecure certainty, hopeful helplessness, hopeless helpfulness, confused clarity, clear confusion, faith, fear, and, oh, so much more perplexing wretched beautiful things indescribable.

I love my children. A simple, under stated, lack luster, shallow, inadequate four words...the only ones I know, the only ones to give...yet they mean so much. Because I do love them, I'm willing to be an advocate, a sacrificial lamb, the "scape goat", the monster to be hated, the wiper of tears, listener to rants, the receiver of hateful spew, the seeker of the lost, the reader of stories, the cook of food uneaten, the prayer of prayers, the alarm clock, the taxi driver unpaid every time, the brusher of hair, the turnip squeezed everyday hoping for blood, the bank teller, the singer of songs at night, and the tired emotionally drained ball of mess that I am.

And...every so often, I get the most loving supportive hug, the sweetest smile, the look of gratitude, the THANKS, the enjoyment of meals made, the thrill of seeing them attain something they really wanted or needed...

I love my children. It really doesn't begin to put all that other stuff in there, does it? Nah, not at all.

But.  There it is:

I LOVE MY CHILDREN!!!

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Being Bipolar Means...

Having two teens being treated for Bipolar Disorder--also know as Manic Depression--I live within my blender life on a higher setting that some. It is difficult to understand all the complicated feelings of your average teen on any given day anyway, but when their brain is working against them, too, it can be a very isolating and frustrating experience for them. Here is a video clip from YouTube I thought was touching.

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It's ON

SO...two of my awesome teenage children are bipolar. Yep! Bipolar. Which means, we live in a world where the floor is a teeter totter covered in egg shells. You just never know if you're going to have a pleasant day, a pissy day, a day where you kinda just want to hide, super energetic and fun day, or a very aggressive day where violence or shredding communication will abound,...you just never know if you're going to be tossed up in the air or not and if you do if it will be fun or painful.

So, the last few days my son has been sleeping and sleeping and sleeping...just sort of being "blah" and today...WHAM! I pick him up from school and he's just chatter, chatter, chatter, chatter, chatter... I took him to the store and he was off the hook...kinda like Brendan Fraser in the 1997 movie "George of the Jungle" when he eats all of Ursula's coffee grounds and has an overly dramatic killer caffeine buzz. My son was skipping here and there and was ON, so on if he had a switch it would have been set to TURBO.  He was trying to strong arm the cart to push us in one direction and then BLAM...SWITCH directions!

WHOA! Buster. Stop. Breathe. F O C U S.   Pump your breaks.

This would be an introduction to ONE type of mania. The cranked on high, full throttle, busy brain activity--except the frontal lobe, that's where reason happens, logic, the filter for which you realize something may not actually be a bright idea after all, yeah, THAT part sorta gets lazy and just, well, goes on strike, takes a break, blows it's circuit. What you're left with is GO GO GO GO GO.... for better or worse...

Now we just have to see if he's going to trigger his sister and in which direction that running duck with go...