Galaxy Quest: Advice for Parents Who Want to Know

It feels so good to be with my grown children back in the USA this week. My oldest son and his family have been spoiling me rotten, and as I was wrestling this morning with a title for this musing, I remembered our perfectly American Saturday night last night: a mega bowl of popcorn and a popular movie silly. "Galaxy Quest."

My son gave me a stack of photos yesterday – you know, the old fashioned kind, the ones you have to hold in your hand or paste in a scrapbook to look at. He had come across a roll of film and, curious about the contents, had it developed. The pictures were from Christmas 1992. What struck and relieved me most, as I sorted through these hard-copy memories, was that no one posed with their new toy like a fishermen beside his trophy tuna. Instead, in every picture, my children were hugging somebody.

To have physical evidence that my kids really loved and appreciated each other as children, and that we -- all the adults in their lives -- found joy in their childhood, meant a lot to me, for my memory is aging and I am well aware that I cannot trust it completely anymore: either I get little too rose-colored, like an old love-letter curling slightly at the edges, or I become critical of my past, like an old epistle, read so often it takes on too much meaning.

There are some things, however, I remember with absolute clarity. This is the biggest: I LOVED being a mommy. I loved every stage of being a mommy: infants, toddlers, elementary school, tweens, teens, young adults: bring it on. However, I am sure now that I am different now. That is what going through all those stages does to a woman. Grandma’s hair turns silver so that her children will know she is different; so that, as adults, they will forgive and revere her. The wiry head is a lopsided crown proclaiming: I did it. I was imperfect, but I did it.

Two-Plus (today's name for the precious person who married my second son), is about to give birth to her first baby. Evidently, at her recent baby shower, a well-meaning mommy-peer, who is also new to the ranks, gave her this earnest piece of advice: Do not listen to anyone else’s ideas about parenting. It’s your baby, and no one else can tell you how to parent. My darling Two-Plus was amazed.

Her friend’s green-counsel reminds me of a Jerry Seinfeld routine about helpful aliens parking their spaceship in the yard just as Dad is putting everything in the car for a family road-trip. Surrounded by too much luggage for the trunk, Dad says: ‘EVERYBODY STAND BACK. IT GOES IN A WAY ONLY I UNDERSTAND.’ ‘But Dad,’ you whisper, ‘they came from another galaxy! I think they know how to pack.’

I admit I am increasingly wrinkled, shrinking, and poofy, but I am not an alien. Whatever worthy advice I can offer younger mommies and daddies is because I am human too. It’s not because I was Mother-Extraordinaire, but because I was Mother-Pulling-Hair. I over-extended, over-expended, and over-expected. Most of my mistakes, the kids and I grew through, but some of them had consequences that echo in our lives today.... Buuuut if you aren’t interested in becoming the wiser-then-I-was (because the only “how-to” you trust is the book you wrote yourself) then all I can tell you is how it feels to live with the consequences.

I have, and will continue, to share my parenting experience (good and bad) at Musings and in other ways with younger mums and dads who want to know. But for today, standing here in the driveway, surmising all the bags and equipment you have yet to pack, my best advice is to go get some more. ADVICE that is. The parents who have earned their silver crown have a wealth of valuable information.

Toss the “feed-Baby-pureed-liver” prattle if you want (I'm not talking about heeding Know-It-Alls) , but listen for the meaningful stuff from meaningful people. Ask ‘em ('cuz the worthy ones won't necessarily tell you unless you ask) how they got across the galaxy, make notes, and then -- if I were you -- take a picture together. When younger people come to you for your experience someday, you’ll need proof that the kids were once short; natural color hair was normal; and -- though they have long since returned to the stars -- it was wizened, generous aliens who helped you sort the car for that family trip.

Muse with me: What's the best parenting advice you have ever received?

Related Musings:
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Musings On Our Relationships with Kiddos
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Riveted

When Dale slipped out the door to the airport this morning, I was still under the covers. It is never a pleasant sensation to wake up and realize he is gone. This morning I felt that an additional uneasiness -- the one I always feel when his destination is somewhere in the Middle East: a place where, as we all know, people and tradition clash in unforgiving ways. I lay in bed, reminiscing about our trip to Israel last fall...and then made the connection to another memory from a trip only weeks ago to...

Stockholm, Sweden

Turning a corner in the Old Town of Stockholm, we barely avert being towed down the river of humanity suddenly surging round us. These people aren’t tourists – too much tension for that. The banners and chanting take deciphering -- Swedish to English – but we finally get it: this is a tide of disgruntled demonstrators called Communists. (Strange coming from a people with one of the lowest poverty rates in the world.) As I purposefully turn my eyes away from a confrontation between protestors and police on horseback, I glimpse something even more disturbing: a child in the middle of the parade on Daddy’s shoulders.

Tiberius, Israel

We enter another orthodox church of stone, built on a holy site, predictably full of wooden pews, stained glass windows, and shrines of golden saints. At least the cathedral is cool, if not awe-inspiring, and so I sit: near the middle, where I can watch people best. They come and go, site-see-ers seeking souvenirs and spirituality in the Judean desert. For the most part, they spend the ten minutes the tour operator has given them digitizing the dark crannies and dusty crypts, drifting without a program; except for the woman who suddenly bustles past me, a daughter of six or seven in hand. The woman stops with dead reckoning in the very center of the chapel and lowers one knee to the tiled floor, then bows her head. Two seconds later, Mother stands and turns to Child waiting two feet behind, pointing forcefully at the spot she just rose from. The girl moves quickly to mimic the rite verbatim; hair covering face, skirt beneath knee, almost a pratfall as she scurries out the door after her Model.

Jerusalem, Israel

From this hill, our three Israeli companions point out The Church of Holy Sepulcher, the Dome of the Rock, and the “Mormon University” on the opposite slope. Did you know we are Mormon, we ask? Surprised faces. We did not! We have some questions for you, they say. I leave it to Dale and sit beneath a tree a few yards away. The surreal aspect of the situation suddenly hits me, and I watch our animated friends with fascination. Earlier that day, Shlomi had explained that he was Jewish, but secular. When Benji joined us, his yamaka gave him away as orthodox, a Zionist actually. And as the day progressed, Moti made it clear that he practiced his religion, but moderately. Why? I had asked all three. Why do you believe and live as you do? Shlomi shrugged, Benji smiled, and Moti looked thoughtful, but their answers were word for word the same: I was raised that way.

Nazareth, Northern Israel

Our personal guide Aton, though well over 60, is powerfully built and moves so decisively, we have a hard time keeping up. Yet when he tells the stories of Jesus on the shores of Galliee, or reads Matthew 5 atop the Mount of Beatitudes, he holds very still and his voice is full of care. Tell us more, we say, about YOU: you are Jewish? I am. Yet you give tours of the Holy Land. Yes, I enjoy the faith of the Christians and wish I could believe too. Why don’t you? I was raised in a Kibbutz as an Atheist.

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These and dozens of other experiences traveling abroad, have expanded my view of humanity. I appreciate in a new way how deeply rooted and interconnected faith and identity are. So entrenched become the belief systems of our childhood, that the scriptures use the word "riveted" to describe how "the creeds of men" are imbedded in "the hearts of the children."

I will treat the little people at church today with increased respect, and cannot help wishing, as a precursor to the wish for world peace, that all grown-ups would do the same for children EVERYWHERE.

Muse with me: How might this perspective affect the way you teach children?

Related Musings: Romance the Heart
Jerusalem, Jerusalem
Northern Israel in a Day

Highly recommended/ directly related
post by fellow Muser, Bri Colorful:
Determined

Photos of children''s faces from Dreamstime

Clueless or Creative

As I commiserated with my best mommy friend Becky (I think we referred to our little ones as “leeches” that day), she said that she expected her headstone to read:

Here Lies Mom
Keeper of the Stuff

(…as in “Mom, hold this ” or “Maaahm, where’s my shoes?”)

Not wanting my headstone to look exactly like hers, I imagined mine would say:

Here Lies Mom
Family Referee

(…as in “Mom, she took my __!” or “I had it first!”)

Bickering between siblings was considered an inescapable fact of family life by everyone I knew. Still, I hated it. I wanted a family of peacemakers, not rabble-rousers. It was frustrating that I was following the counsel to teach my children to follow Jesus and all else that we are commanded to do in order to invite the Spirit into our homes-–yet the daily, even hourly, disputes continued. The “natural man” aspect of it grated my spiritual nerves raw. It just wasn’t right.

One day as I was reading King Benjamin’s address, he started talking directly to me:

“And ye will not suffer your children that they go hungry, or naked; neither will ye suffer that they transgress the laws of God, and fight and quarrel one with another, and serve the devil, who is the master of sin, or who is the evil spirit which hath been spoken of by our fathers, he being an enemy to all righteousness. But ye will teach them to walk in the ways of truth and soberness; ye will teach them to love one another, and to serve one another.” (Mosiah 4:14-15)

Even as the rightness of it flooded my heart, I knew that another Family Home Evening lesson on the evils of contention wasn’t going to cut it. What more could I do in my little vineyard? Wait a minute--I told myself--you may be clueless, but you are also creative! Sit down, think it out, pray it out – be proactive. A glimmer of hope lighted a distant corner in my brain. I knew the answer was in there…just a nudge or two from the Spirit and I might yet come off conqueror!

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I recently conducted a workshop on creativity called: “A Gift for Expression”. The room was full of musicians, but what we learned about the subject applies as much to moms and musicians. Elder Dean L. Larsen points out for instance, that Father expects all of us to cultivate our creativity: “It may well be that this aspect of our development in mortality is as important in the eyes of a creative Heavenly Father as many other attributes that receive greater attention and emphasis.” We ought to be focusing on becoming more creative; the way we concentrate on becoming more patient or humble or forgiving - or, as Mary Ellen Smoot (former General Relief Society President) puts it: “…we are children of God. Shouldn’t we be about our Father’s business? Shouldn’t we be creators as well?”

Becoming a “creator” for the first time at age 21, I remember being more afraid of the potential hurts I’d cause as a young mom, than of the hurt I would pass through in childbirth. With multiple personalities to deal with as my family grew, there was no way I had enough education or experience to handle the complexities of “people-making.” My pre-natal worries were eventually subdued in prayer: “You have the Holy Ghost,” I heard. “Use him.”

Crawford Gates, LDS composer, suggests something interesting about the gift of the Holy Ghost as it relates to creativity: “How does it make us different? May I suggest that one of the ways the Holy Spirit helps us is that it makes us more creative?” President Uchtorf verifies that this is true: “The more you trust and rely upon the Spirit, the greater your capacity to create.”

That doesn’t sound like the Holy Ghost will dictate to us though, does it? “Heavenly Father wants to help us find the creativity within us. It wouldn’t encourage us to do that if he were to say, “Get a piece of paper and write this down” (Jack Weyland). Remember: “…you must study it out in your mind: then you must ask me if it be right…” (D&C 9:7-9) That little tidbit from church history would certainly bear out the presumption that the answers are within us–if we employ a little perspiration before inspiration, as Elder Maxwell puts it, or in another turn of the phrase: “Inspiration complements our creative efforts” (Crawford Gates).

So where do the creative solutions really come from? Elder Maxwell says that they “spring out of our seeing possibilities we have not seen before, seeing connections between patches of truth and beauty, and responding to them in ways we have not done before.”

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Alright then: back to my homespun warlords. I rolled up my sleeves, took out a piece of paper and wrote down the following:

The problem: Kids clashes.

(The truth) They shouldn’t be doing it.

(The beauty) They don’t have to be doing it. We can learn a better way.

What I needed next was to “see” or “create” the connection between this patch of “truth” and it’s corresponding patch of “beauty”. Hmmmm…. I thought and thought about it for quite a while. I eventually reasoned that the munchkins needed to learn to settle their own spats…and that boiled down to…communication skills! Ah-ha! Now we’re on to something! A crazy idea started to piece itself together in my imagination and a whoosh of light gave me the tingles.

I rearranged the living room so that Grammy’s big, round, rag rug was front and center. Then I called the kids into a “come-to-Jesus” meeting, (as my Christian friends in the South would say).

“Here.”I explained, “is The Rug”. From now on, any parties suffering a disagreement will be immediately referred to “The Rug”. The parties in question will face each other, sitting Indian-style, knees touching (absolute rule). You will have to decide who presents his case first. The other will have to listen without interruption. When Party One is completely aired out, then Party Two speaks his mind – same courtesies applied.”

Now came the clincher: NO ONE WOULD BE ALLOWED TO LEAVE THE RUG UNTIL BOTH PARTIES AGREED ON A RESOLUTION.

I shouldn’t have been surprised that they were intrigued, even enthusiastic. It sounded more like a game than an unhappy consequence. It wasn’t long of course, before the first “players” presented themselves, their whines competing for my attention. “STOP!” I covered my ears. “On The Rug!!!” They marched off and I watched them from a crack in the door. Quietly and with childlike reasoning, they established their defenses. Within ten minutes the two of them ran off together to do something completely different. Wow, I marveled. It worked!

And it continued to work for the next several years. It got to the point that all I had to say was, “On The Rug!” and they settled on the spot, one or the other acquiescing. Sometimes the litigation morphed into more of a contest of who would be the peacemaker first.

After discovering “The Rug”, I became innovative in dealing with other mommy-dilemmas like getting chores done and keeping toys picked up. I testify that as mothers and fathers we can—and ought—to be creative as we mold our ideal family life. Elder Ballard laid down the gauntlet this way:
“People [insert ‘your children’] deserve quality alternatives that YOU, with the influence of the Holy Spirit, are capable of providing.”

I'm having so much fun with your comments and emails! Let me know about one your creative “mommy” or “daddy” ideas, or one your parents used, or even just your thoughts on the subject. This will get you started: Follower Laura’s creative solution for toy clutter: "Making Bread: Toy Catalog".