Children Aren’t Slowing You Down – They ARE the Journey!
Several years ago, we were at a formal event with Shahin’s job and the evening was winding down. The commander and his wife invited a few of the subordinate leaders and their spouses (including us) to come back to their place for some continued fellowship, so we headed over to their place. And as typically happens, the guys gathered around the commander and quickly got into a conversation of their own, while the wives hung out with the commander’s wife in an adjacent room and enjoyed a discussion of our own. Well, mostly enjoyed…
It was going fine until one wife shared that her 2-year-old was driving her crazy and that she was basically counting down the months until her daughter could go to preschool. I’ll never forget what her next words were: “...and then I can get my life back!”
I was dumbstruck. I was a young(ish) mother myself with four children under the age of six and baby #5 was due any day, so I knew a thing or two about children driving you crazy. But never, not even once, not even on our worst days, had I considered that our children were an unfortunate detour from our life. On the contrary – we always figured they were one of the most important things we would do with our life together, and that they deserved to be treated as pivotal parts of the journey, not unfortunate side roads we wish we hadn’t taken.
In that moment, I felt so incredibly sorry for that mother. I was sorry that she was so sure that whatever life she had to get back to was more important than the daughters she had. I was sorry that she couldn’t see through all the craziness that those years before children start school are so precious and so fleeting. I was sorry she couldn’t imagine a time when she might actually miss the craziness of the baby/toddler/preschool years. I was sorry she didn’t seem to have anyone in her life to challenge her to shift her perspective just a little in an effort to find more lasting joy in her children despite the challenges they brought to her daily life.
Don’t get me wrong – life with little ones can be CRAZY. Like, certifiably 100% insane sometimes. But time does not stand still, and the incessant needs that little ones bring to us each day begin to settle into an ebb and flow. The crazy changes as our children change, and we learn how to juggle it TOGETHER – they and us. But all of that is part of the journey, and some of the most beautiful parts of the journey at that! Our children are not unfortunate detours we have to take to get back to the best part of life; they ARE the best parts of life!