Cake for Breakfast
The last week of August until the first week of November I’ve dubbed “Cake Season”. During this time frame, my family has 11 birthdays in about 10 weeks. If there is anything I’ve learned in the previous 24 years as a parent, it’s this. It’s ok to eat the cake for breakfast.
In 2001, I entered a marriage with three kids already in place, and I had no idea how to parent children aged 8 to 12—or kids at all, for that matter. We’ve all heard it a thousand times: there’s no parenting manual. Yet here I was, a 29-year-old with grand ideals, moving two states away to be near stepchildren I barely knew. Reality came crashing down quickly, revealing just how unprepared I truly was for the challenges ahead.
Since then, I’ve added three more children through adoption. Two through international adoption and one through foster/adoption. If you’re doing the math, that equals six kids. Six kids in nine 125years. Kids were learning to drive at the same time kids were being potty trained. I lived in a world of “please don’t put that in your mouth” which incidentally goes for children of all ages. If nothing else, I can multitask messages. Today, I live in a world of adult children and grandchildren, a child in college, and one starting driver’s ed. I also have one child in heaven.
Grand ideals often come with a set of rules. While there is no manual, there is an internal dialogue about how parenting “should go.” All the “I would never….” statements were staring me in the face. I was not a quick learner in this department. I clung to my ideals and tried to imitate the only parenting style I knew, which was the way I was raised.
As the years progressed, I grew as a parent. The parent my older kids had is not the parent I am now. I try to give the mom I was, then some grace. I was growing with them and, at times, not gracefully.
Through many trials and so many errors, I’ve loosened my grip on my expectations and relaxed. Kids will live with extra screen time here and there. They will be ok if you feed them fast food in the car between activities and they will be ok if they eat cake for breakfast. What they need is a parent who is present, a parent who can apologize and admit when their ideals are not so ideal.
Do I have this down perfectly? Nope. I have one child in particular who is fond of calling me out on this imperfection. Thankfully, over the years I’ve also learned to be less reactive. Even if I don’t change my stance, I can step back, reflect, and reconsider for a longer discussion. Then together we eat cake for breakfast, but with a protein of course because let’s not get too crazy, but also wash that down with an energy drink… because in the grand scheme of things we will survive.