"My Mom Forgot to Make Me Do My Homework:" Can we make sentences like this go away forever?

"Hi," (insert student's name). How's it going?"

"Oh, good. It's been a good week." 

"So, I see you're empty-handed today. Did you remember to bring your music books?" 

"Ugh," disdainful eye-roll, "My mom forgot to pack them." 

"So, how was your practice week this week?" 

"Well... It was really busy. I wanted to practice, but my parents forgot to remind me." 

Sometimes (not as much as I'd like) I call students out on this inadvertent attack on their parents' not getting it right by them: "You know it's not your mom's responsibility to pack your books for piano/remind you to practice, right? That's your job." 

But I get it, too. I get that it's hard to keep reminding kids to remember their stuff. Often remembering to wear appropriate clothes (including shoes) can be hard. I get that kids are often fighting their parents on practicing to begin with - they might argue that they didn't choose to go through the drudgeries of daily music practice, so why do they need to be responsible for books they didn't choose, either? 

What fills my heart with fear and dread, though, is that one day "My mom forgot to pack my books," might turn into, "My boss forgot to remind me of that deadline," or, "The University forgot to tell me I was failing," or insert-other-real-world-situation here. We complain about people who do this (usually we call them Millennials, let's be honest). 

But for every person not taking responsibility for themselves and their actions, there is someone not asking them to. One of my greatest fears is being a "sweet" teacher who doesn't have boundaries with students, and this is probably one of the hardest parts of my job. 

I heard a great podcast episode this week called "Consequences," in which parents (who are also Al Anon members) talk about what are good consequences for children and which ones aren't really effective. 

What grabbed my attention was the very common-sensical suggestion on the part of the hosts, that the best consequences for bad behavior are the natural consequences. 

As a case in point, one of the hosts mentions that his daughters would not wake up on time for school. Every day, he'd get more and more frustrated, coming to her room again and again to make sure she was up. If they missed the bus, he'd end up taking them to school late, speaking to the office, etc. 

One day, he decided not to take responsibility for his daughters' waking up on time. Instead, if they woke up late, they had to face the natural consequence (detention). He said that letting this happen was hard, but that once his daughters had gone to detention enough times, they realized they needed to ask for help. He offered to wake them up one time each day, and after that, it was up to them. This was enough to turn around the behavior. 

Being an expectant mom now, I've been hearing a lot lately about the "Mommy wars," those subtle attacks that moms wage on other moms for not being perfect in the millions of ways perfection can be attained in parenthood. Such as, "Oh, you don't make organic baby food for your baby??" etc. 

The Mommy Wars sounds like a very exciting place to be - a place where, if your kid walks out the door without their school lunch, you face the tantalizing possibility of being labeled a "Bad Parent" in other parenting hearts for not racing back to the school to deliver.

But I think there's some correlation between the Mommy Wars and moms feeling (and taking) too much responsibility for their kids. There's a constant guilt and second-guessing of getting it right, and so this whole idea of letting kids face natural consequences for their actions is quite scary... because what is, in fact, your good parenting, may likely be thought of or seen as bad parenting. 

It's hard for me to know exactly what parents face in helping set and maintain healthy boundaries with kids in terms of responsibility, because I am not living it yet. But as a teacher, I do play a role in helping kids know and keep their responsibilities, and I do feel temptations constantly to gloss over those teachable moments in order not to hurt their feelings or to keep the feel of the lesson positive, etc. 

One funny example from several years ago - a student just wasn't listening. She wanted to play! She ignored my several questions. I tried closing the lid, and she just kept playing away. She knew I wasn't going to let the lid fall on her fingers. I was trying hard to work with her as she was, but I finally realized there was no way to get her attention. 

So I stood up and grabbed my coat, and prepared to leave the room. 

She stopped immediately. "Wait. Where are you going?"

"It just seems like you're not looking for a teacher today, so I'm going to go get some coffee," I said. 

"No, I do need a teacher!" she said. 

"Okay, well, show me that you need a teacher." 

And she did. I'd love to say there weren't any difficulties after that point (there were), but things got a lot better. 

What I learned from that situation, and many like it, is that setting boundaries takes so much less emotional energy than when I let people walk all over me. I don't have to get frustrated. I can just say, "You can choose to do X, Y, or Z, and if you choose that, this is what I'll choose." I don't have to control anyone's behavior, but oftentimes the behavioral results end up better. 

I am not writing this today because I've figured out boundaries and because I know how to show students how to take responsibility. Rather, I've learned that, because I have a sort of warped sense of over-responsibility (that everything anyone does that's bad is somehow my fault) I have to keep relearning how to let my students be responsible for themselves and to recognize the real consequences behind their actions. It's hard! 

In that sense, sometimes the one thought that kicks my butt into gear with setting clearer boundaries mirrors that line in scripture, "woe to me if I do not preach it." Sometimes being sweet and nice and boundary-less is the best way to create monsters. 

Early Lessons in Marriage

One of my favorite questions to ask my newly-married friends has always been, “What is something that surprised you about getting married?” I am finding that for most of these friends (and others) turnabout is fair play, and now I’m the one getting asked, “How’s married life?” I find myself more disconcerted by the question than I would have expected… I mean, what do you say?? I’ve been internally disappointed by the lack of deep insights that have come to mind.

The transition from being a single gal to a married gal was something I guess I expected would be harder, or rockier. I thought sharing a bed would be very weird… it’s not, unless you include our 
two sweet but very skinny, bony whippets who insist on sleeping in the same bed, and often on our legs, or in the curves of our backs… But even this - it’s not all that big of an adjustment, really.  

Now that it’s been five months, little things are emerging that are talk-about-worthy, hence this 
post.  Here are some of my early lessons of married life: 

Different Temperaments - Stronger and Better

One of the things I’ve always struggled with is putting off stuff like: oil changes, routine car, tooth, doctor, and eyecare maintenance, taking care of mail and paperwork in a timely manner,  returning emails and phone calls speedily, and having conversations where I have to say “no” to somebody or something. For years, becoming better (more timely, more honest) in these areas has been my goal, and I’ve devised many ways of tackling this procrastinatory edge to my personality. 

I’ve gotten marginally better (if marginally better could mean 2% better) but there’s still room for much improvement. 

Within the last month, our new car started experiencing what sounded to be brake-pad erosion. For three days, each time I’d drive, I heard a concerning sound of metal-against-metal whenever I braked, and kept thinking, “I really need to do something about that,” and then I’d get to where I was going and forget all about it. 

Finally, on Wednesday night, I told John about it, and he listened to the car, and we decided that we needed to take it in. 

Thursday morning, John said, “Do you think you could take the car in today?” I thought about the day’s crazy schedule and couldn’t think of how to possibly fit in a trip to the mechanic. John let me borrow his car, and I fretted about how to fit in this trip to the mechanic for my entire commute into work. 

A few hours later, I checked in with John. He’d already brought the car in! A few hours after that, the problem was diagnosed. It was fixed the same day, and we had the car back that night. 

This little incident was a pretty powerful one for me. Had I been Single Rachel, I can easily imagine how such a problem would have gone (and it’s embarrassing). I would have put off the trip to the mechanic. I would have taken the bus to get around instead, and the car would have sat at home until I was able to get to it (it might be a month before that happened). Part of the putting off would have been fear of finding out what the repair might cost. Part of it would just be having to adjust my schedule to do something out of the ordinary, which is a challenge. Once I finally got the car in, I’d feel like doing a big victory dance for finally overcoming my inertia. 

I realized through this that being married to someone who is temperamentally different from you can be a real blessing. I will hopefully improve another 2% at the procrastination stuff, but being an essentially slow-to-warm-up type of person will probably not change. It takes a lot of energy to work myself up into action - it always has. John, on the other hand, is an action-taker, so it is more his natural bent to take care of a problem right away than to let it sit. I would say there are benefits and costs to being oriented in either of these ways - my slower way does have a positive, in that I look at an issue from several angles before coming to a conclusion, and when that conclusion is reached, it’s generally well-considered. Acting fast can have its detriments too, for the same reason - sometimes things do need more time and more information before we jump towards action. 

If we can learn how to let our spouse shine when their strengths are called for, and learn to step up when it is our own strengths that are needed, we will be a great team.

Deeper insights into selfishness

A favorite married friend’s words to me just after her marriage: “Before marriage, I thought, “You know, I think I’ve got this selfishness thing well under control.” When I got married, I started to see how selfish I really was, and it wasn’t pretty.”  

Something that has become more clear recently is that I love to be generous and giving - when the thing I am giving is also something I want. 

But there have already been plenty of times where I can sense an invitation to be generous when it’s not at all what I want… and that can be hard. 

Take the other day as an example. John struggles with pretty bad seasonal allergies. We were just settling in to sleep when he said, “Could we change the sheets? I am feeling really itchy.” 

I was falling peacefully asleep. I did not feel like getting up and stripping the bed and remaking it with new sheets. “Can we wait until tomorrow morning maybe?” 

“Yeah, that’s fine,” said John. But I could tell that he was really uncomfortable, and I started realizing that I really needed to step it up. 

So we stripped the bed and made it up, and then we were both able to sleep and all was good. 

It’s this kind of selfishness that I’m growing slowly more aware of… when something needs to be done but I really don’t feel like it… at that moment. 

In those days leading up to taking our vows, my heart and mind were strongly aligned to that idea of “dying to self.” It would be hard work, but it would be worth it! The bigger picture was in front of us, and we could see the ins and outs of the whole thing, and how we would need to persevere and do things we didn’t feel like, but all in the service of Love. 

In actual marriage, it can be surprisingly easy to lose sight of the bigger “dying to self,” in the midst of long, cold winter days. Or days when you just need more - sleep, for instance. More encouragement. More Vitamin D. It can be easy to stop marching and to start slacking, and to start telling yourself that you deserve a break, too! I don’t have any answers about how to keep stepping it up when you’re in a period of time when slogging through seems to be the only course of action. 

However, I learned from this instance to keep my eyes open, each day, for these small invitations to love more generously. They can often be small and hard to notice! I want to be more skilled in considering what John needs just as well as what I need, and I know that in doing so, we’ll have a stronger marriage and a deeper bond.

Routine Maintenance - easy to put off, invaluable to marriage

John and I came up with a great plan at our engagement retreat: to have a weekly meeting where we would discuss anything that had come up in the past week. This would be our way of working through the smaller frustrations so that they wouldn’t become bigger, and to help foster regular communication. 

The first weekend back from our honeymoon, we implemented the weekly meeting. It was great. We talked through everything - the upcoming week, things we needed to plan together, things that had come up that had bothered one of us, etc. The second week was similarly good, and the third week. We forgot to do it on the fourth week, and then we didn’t remember to meet again until the sixth week. 

A few weeks ago, I noticed that we had not been meeting weekly for the past month - it had been more like every three weeks. Something had come up the day before that had annoyed me, and I realized that the next time we met, I’d have to bring it up. I didn’t like the idea of framing our meeting around an annoyance, but not having the weekly touch-base had made this more inevitable.

We met, and resolved this thing, which was small, and we talked about how important it was to have the weekly meeting so that these little things wouldn’t build. 

Sometimes it is hard to  stay faithful to those little “maintenance”-like things. The weekly meeting is a good thing to do, like car maintenance. It’s good just to keep a regular check on where things are, before something big is allowed to build. The challenge is, that these maintenance things often aren’t urgent. They’re a good idea - actually, a great idea, and if we make time for them, they’re likely to do a tremendous amount of good. The tricky thing is the lack of urgency. So much of our days have urgent things in them, and it becomes easy to say, “Well, things are pretty good. We can put this off.” 

I hope that we will continue to remember our weekly meetings - they have been really good so far.

No more popcorn suppers - adjusting to thinking for two

As a single woman preparing for dinner, I’d often get home from work, and go right to the fridge. If I had chips and salsa, I ate chips and salsa for dinner. If I had eggs, I’d make an omelette. Or, if I was just tired out, I’d poke a couple of holes in two pieces of toast, and fry a few eggs-in-toast. Occasionally my roommates had cooked good food, and if they had, they’d usually offer some, and I’d usually accept. Sometimes, I’d just pop a bowl of popcorn and eat that. My go-tos are slightly embarrassing to list, but they were comfortable and awesome to me!

Several months into marriage, I’m used to getting a text from John if we didn’t already plan through the week’s meals: “What do you feel like for dinner?” Internally, I groan, because figuring out what to have for dinner (that is actually considered “dinner” by a consensus of people) often feels overwhelming - a meat, a vegetable, maybe a carb. Who goes to the store? Is it something we already have? And, to a not-good-cook, the mental work of figuring out if you can fake your way through it or if you need to dig out a recipe, can be considerable. 

One of the things I’ve regretfully (mostly) given up, is popcorn suppers. And it’s sad to say, but sometimes I miss them. 

The truth is, I think the death of the popcorn supper is worthwhile. I was content feeding myself on mostly insubstantial carbs, but now that I’m thinking of John, too, I realize that what I want for us is something healthier, and more grown-up. It’s’s a mature thing to plan your meals together and consider the other person. It’s valuable to learn to cook and create nourishing foods. 

But there was a night when John was doing a class, where I unashamedly spent the evening at home with my long-abandoned popcorn maker and covered my popcorn with just as much garlic butter and Parmesan cheese and Tabasco sauce as I like. 

Noting the awesomeness of your hubby

I was single for a long time, hoping to be married one day.  One thing that surprised me most about getting married in my mid-thirties, was how much I’d grown into my self-image as a single woman, and how hard to let go it really was. 

One thing that was very true of being single, even with the very best of roommates, was the responsibilities. My dirty dishes were mine to clean. That floor that seemed caked with un-filed paperwork for weeks on end? That, too, was for me to do. As well as the bills. Responsibility for keeping up with friendships, for keeping up with emotional and mental health, having an interesting intellectual life, exercising, lawn care.  Sure, it wasn’t childrearing and it was only me, but that’s just it - it was only me. 

So it surprises me sometimes to leave a sink of dishes and get home later, only to find that John washed them, or ran that load of laundry that needed doing. How we pick up each other’s slack, and how unused to that I am. What is nice about being newly married and unused to this life, is the amount of gratefulness it is possible to feel for John, simply because he notices and takes care of me in these little ways. 

A pastor and his wife that I know well once showed me how beautiful it is to express gratitude. When one cooked, the other said, “Thank you for cooking.” When one did the dishes, the other said thank you. Long before my own marriage began, this habit of theirs impressed me because it was quite modest, but also very grace-giving. Remembering and taking the time to say thank you is a skill that can be so easy to omit, and I hope I’ll be able to continue growing in that gift over time.