The Power of Conversation!

 

January 31

 

Today we were driving to our son Jose's basketball game with Jess and Chris in the car.

Somehow the conversation of creation came up and Chris wanted to know how God could have created all the earth in just 6 days.

I thought about this for a moment and I told him that I thought the way God's time ran was a lot different from the way our time ran.

Mel, my hubby told him that maybe for God one day is really more like a thousand years in our time frame.

Of course Chris, the Einstein of the family, pointed out that from the time the earth was created to the time man first appeared here millions of years had passed, not thousands!

True, I said, but remember the Bible said that he did it in 6 days I didn't think they meant six concurrent days. Did they?

Again Einstein, I meant Chris, replied, "Then how come he had to rest after the sixth day? Wouldn't that mean he had been working straight through?"

"Not necessarily," my hubby replied, "I think that symbolized that he was all done with his labors."

The conversation continued a bit more as we discussed theology and how the different books that made up the Bible had been put together by man not God and that the Bible was a collection of different books written by various authors; not chapters of one single book as a lot of people thought. We discussed the fact that a lot of the books that were available at the time were not included in the final Bible version compiled by King James.

Suddenly Jess who had just been listening quietly piped up. "Don't you guys find this weird?" She asked us.

"What?'" I asked her.

"What we're talking about", she replied laughing, "Most families discuss sports, and the weather, if they talk at all, but we are sitting here discussing evolution, creation and the meaning of the Bible! Isn't that funny?" We all laughed a bit and then realized that it was strange to be discussing such deep topics with our young teens. The thing that got me most was that this young man and young woman had such a deep understanding of the subjects being discussed, that they were able to make valid points. As a matter of fact before Jess brought it up I had totally forgotten how young they were because of the maturity of their conversation. The conversation turned to other subjects and continued just as stimulating as before. Suddenly it dawned on me that our children were able to have such in-depth conversations with us because we were treating them as equals while we talked. Had we talked down to them or ridiculed their views, I don't think they would have been as willing to share their views with us. They discussed not only religion but other topics, such as drugs, peer pressure, sex and how they viewed the world in general.

I felt so blessed that out of all the things my hubby and I had messed up raising our children, the lines of communications wasn't one of them. We would have missed so much if we had not let them express themselves freely.

It saddened me to realize that we sometimes pay more attention to people we don't even like than we do to our own family. That's such a shame!

The other thing I learned was that children will do as we expect them to do.

I made the awful mistake of listening to the wrong people when it came to my two older boys Derek and Eric. They were in a lot of emotional pain over the divorce between their dad and me. As a result of this they started acting out. Instead of seeing it as the cry for help it was, I took it personal.

I turned from being their loving mom into a suspicious militant "cop". This was the last thing my boys needed!

All I managed to do was drive them even further away. They got caught up in gangs, in trouble at school and with the police.

Not once did I step back to see the hurt they were going through. I learned a really important lesson with them. Never to listen to people more messed up than I was.

Sadly it took three years of my boys going through hell before I finally realized that they were only doing what I was expecting from them.

Miraculously once I started expecting them to succeed and do well, they did. It killed me when I thought of all the unnecessary pain we all went through because I was taking advice from people that had no clue.

Because of this experience I decided to never put my kids down or expect anything but the best.

If we treated them as mature teens they, for the most part, conducted themselves that way.

Not once, since then, have we ever had to discuss their conduct or attitude toward adults or authority figures with them. As a matter of fact everyone always commented on how polite and smart they are.

No, they aren't perfect! They burp the alphabet and have farting contests! They leave their dirty socks on the floor and try to give each other wedgies! They fail math and have to go to summer school occasionally; the older ones sometimes disagree with the way we do things, but if they didn't, they wouldn't be normal! The point is that because we allowed them to grow intellectually as individuals and respected their knowledge, they have in turn taught us about life from their view.

My husband Mel always tells them that it's their responsibility and right to be smarter, wealthier and happier than us. To have better professions, houses, families and lives. We have given them the go ahead to surpass us.

My adopted mother, when I was growing up and even as an adult, refused to let me grow as an individual. Instead she would do anything in her power to sabotage me! She never rejoiced in my accomplishments or even comprehended my way of thinking. She would put me down to anyone that would listen and totally tried to destroy my spirit and self-esteem. The reality of it was that I had outgrown my mother intellectually, spiritually, emotionally and financially by the time I was in my early twenties. Looking back I always thought it was I who had missed out because she didn't approve of me. But now I knew that it wasn't my loss at all, it was hers.

She would never be able to share in my successes because her own inadequacies wouldn't let her. I had received VIP treatment to a lot of black tie affairs. I was able to shake hands with various U.S. presidents, the Prince of Wales and other dignitaries. I had been keynote speaker and guest of honor at various functions as well. My mother could have shared in that. But because she refused to let her own insecurities go, she choose to miss out.

As a matter of fact because of her negative attitude and her habit of always talking down to our kids, I had to confront her on it; because of this her biological daughter, who I loved like a mother, decided to cut my family out of their lives. It broke my heart to lose my sister and niece out of our lives but there was no way I was going to stand by and let her harm my kids' self-esteem the way she had tried to destroy mine.

As a result they have missed out on my kids' accomplishments as well as mine.

I still love them and I am grateful for what they had done for my children and me.

I have prayed that someday her heart will be soften towards me as much as I missed them I just couldn't allow that type of poison to destroy my children's dreams. I sometimes would get sad that I didn't have a mom I could have a good relationship with. But now that I am a mom, I 'm grateful that I was able to get rid of the things I didn't like about her and build on the great things she did teach me.

I am also grateful that I learned to do the things I wish had been done for me for my own kids. I always tell my kids whatever we, as parents, do right, add to it. Whatever we do wrong throw it out and learn how to do it better.

In life we always get what we expect. So if we expect bad things, why are we so surprised when we get them?

I am so glad that I have learned to only expect the best from my children and from life in general; am I Suzy Sunshine all the time? Not even close! But for the most part I haven't been disappointed so far!

Had I not learned to throw away the lies my mother and others had sold me as a child, I would never had allowed my kids the space they needed to grow into such articulated young teens.

I was snapped out of my thoughts when Chris brought up the crisis in the economy to which Jessie dove into a deep theory of how to improve the situation.

Gee, I think we have a future President and Secretary of Commerce among us!

I could barely get through pre-algebra in middle school! Whose brains do they have anyway?