Before I became a parent, I was an uptight woman who tried to achieve perfection in every single thing I did. If I made a 97 on a test, I would cry because it wasn’t a 98 (I was dramatic in every sense of the word). When I forgot the words to a song during the middle of a set, I would beat myself up for it, because this was imperfection of the worst kind. When I tried anything at all, I had to do it the best that I could possibly do it.
And then I had kids.
There is something about kids that wrestles control right out of your hands. There is something about them that turns us into different, better people. There is something about them that destroys everything we have known and builds it all back up better.
What I didn’t know about children before I became a parent is that
They will destroy a world.
We have this nice little picture of the way we want things to be, and we know the way we want to parent, and we know what will work for us and we have it all planned out—we’ll put them on a schedule immediately and they will eat when we want them to eat and sleep when we want them to sleep and play when we say they can play. We think we’ll be able to take him to all those outings, all those gigs, that he will sit there all nice and happy, and we’ll be able to continue life just as it’s been always.
And then we have a strong-willed child, and we realize that we know nothing about parenting, because here is a heart that still needs to be valued and protected and shaped by hands that are gentle yet firm, and it’s not an easy task, because he takes our definitions and our schedules and all our expectations and tears it all up in our face so those tiny little pieces float out on the wind and don’t have a hope of finding each other again. And then we take that destroyed world that we thought we wanted, and we build another.
They will destroy a home.
Everywhere I look there are holes in the walls and nicks in the furniture and bookshelves with drawings on them and doors with crayon art, and I don’t even know what to think sometimes when I walk into the 3-year-old twins’ room and there’s another cave painting in chalk I didn’t know they had or when one of them walks into a room I’m in with a permanent marker in their hands and I know I’m probably not going to like what I find. They have no idea what they’re doing to this home, and that used to bother me, because they needed to respect our home, and they needed to take care of stuff, and they needed to be different, mostly.
And then the 8-year-old started having problems with anxiety and depression along all the edges, and we had to visit a counselor, and he remembered this time after I’d just had one of his brothers, when we had a glass ball in his hand and thought, as a 3-year-old, that it was just what it looked like—a ball—and he threw it to me as if I would catch it. And I stared at him with an open mouth and probably murderous eyes, and I stood in the kitchen and screamed. Just screamed. Because I was sleep deprived and stressed out and that was it. That was it. I couldn’t do it anymore.
He taught me that things aren’t as important as hearts, and just because a heart thinks it would be a good idea to doodle a name all over a little shelf, doesn’t mean that a heart should be broken, only taught, and so this destroyed home, every time I look around it, reminds me that a home is not made of perfection but imperfection, mostly—memories in unintended murals on the wall and cracks that tell a story, every one of them, and broken lights that shatter expectations.
They will destroy a heart.
It’s when they forget who they are and we are challenged with trying to remind them, even though they have fallen so far from “good” that we don’t know if we’ll ever remember, either, those are the time a heart snaps clean in two. It’s when they’re afraid someone is bullying them, when they have a fight with a friend they really love, when they feel alone because they’re not sure anyone at school really likes them, since no one ever plays with them at recess, because, you know, kids can be cruel just like we can be.
But it happens other times, too. When they smile at me. When they hug me. When they look at me. Every single moment destroys a heart, and we learn that we are worthy of this great and brilliant love that is like a hurricane, rooting up all the parts of us that don’t belong. We learn that they are the best teachers we have in the whole wide world.
We will let them.
I did not know that I could possibly reach a place where I would let my children destroy a life and a house and a heart like they do and be perfectly okay with that destruction. I did not know that I would ever reach this moment in time where I could give up my grip on a life that mattered so much to me but doesn’t any longer. I did not know that I would ever come so far on my own, only to be led by the children into a completely different life, one that is much greater and wilder and truer than the old one.
We will like it.
Who would have thought that one day I would look around my house and see a broken toilet paper holder and think about how that was the time when one of the twins was trying to change the roll out themselves and used a little more force than necessary? Who would have thought I’d see the life before kids and sometimes, in my frustration moments, wonder if it would have been better to just keep it kid-less and then, in my saner, less angry moments, realize that I could never have created a life even close to this one without all these boys tearing everything apart? Who would have thought that I would feel this destroyed heart and think it looks so much better, so much more whole, today than it ever did before?
Kids have a way of changing lives and homes and hearts in ways we might never imagine, and I am so glad I have six of them destroying everything I’ve ever known and building, in their place, a better me.
After all, this is love.
