Suffer the Children

Let's play a game.

I want you to picture yourself in a workplace where no one trusts anyone else.  In fact, certain people hate each other and you spend a lot of your time placating, distracting, and refereeing between them.  

Also, those people are your bosses, so you are always afraid of doing something that will upset one or the other and bring nasty repercussions down on your head.  

As a result, you aren't sure if your position with the company is secure, and you live with that fear at the back of your head.  

And furthermore, you aren't allowed to quit or look for a new job. 

Sound fun?  No?  Well, at least you get to go home to your loving family at the end of the day.   

Let's play again.

Now, imagine you are a small child.  Pretend you are one of the almost 25 MILLION small children in our country who are living in some modern day amalgamation of a family unit that does not include a married mother and father who live under the same roof with you.  (see Statistics on Children of Divorce in America)

So, you have to live and function in Mommy’s house, neighborhood, and circle of friends.

Perhaps you also have to live and function in Daddy’s house, neighborhood, and circle of friends.   

Or you may not have any contact with one of your parents, other than the vague notion that somewhere out there exists a person who helped to create you and then left you.  

Editorial comment:  Please don't tell me that children are just fine with abandonment as long as they have one loving parent--unless you are telling me that the other one is dead.

  That may sound harsh, but a deceased parent had no choice in the matter and would be there if he or she had had the option, and a child knows this instinctively.  

 If, however,  a non-involved parent is alive and kicking on the planet, his or her child FEELS THE REJECTION on some level, even if there has never been a relationship.  

I have parented a number of these children, grown up with others, been related to still others, and also read the research.  If you are interested, there is further discussion on this point in the excellent book The Divorce Culture by Barbara Dafoe Whitehead.

Back to our scenario.

You very likely have either one or two step-parents (either legal or functional), or perhaps an ever-changing cycle of parental love-interests coming and going.  

You may also have the children of these people orbiting into and out of your life, so you never really know who is going to be on the "family" Christmas card from year to year.  

As a result, you learn very early to hold a tiny finger to the changing winds that blow through your home(s) and adapt accordingly.  

“Mommy loves it when I bad-mouth Daddy, so if I want a sure-fire way into her good graces, this is it!”

“But Daddy hates it when I talk about Mom at all, so I need to remember to omit all references to the experiences, conversations, and activities in that half of my life.”

“And Daddy’s girlfriend is always getting mad at me for not playing with her rotten kids, so I need to remember to put on a show when they’re around.”

“And we can’t even make our fingers into toy guns at Mommy’s, but Daddy and I love playing laser tag when I visit there.”

"And Mom feeds me only organic, non-GMO foods, but Dad thinks Cheetos and Red Pop are essential blocks of the food pyramid."

“And Dad gets mad when I talk too much, but when I’m too quiet, Mom thinks I’m hiding things and makes me go to counseling.”

If you are very lucky, you will end up with parents who are cordial and cooperative with one another, but even then, you have to meld into the two separate lives they are creating when you are not around.  

If you are unlucky, you will have parents who can’t even speak each others name without spitting, won’t conceal their disdain for one another, and can’t even attend sporting events, recitals, or birthday parties without making a scene.

This, in addition to twisting your stomach into knots, also has the lovely side-effect of making your own, special, personal accomplishments all about THEM.   

Just like everything else.

You, my friend, are just one of a literal horde of children being shuttled between two (or more) houses—not to live, but essentially to visit.  

You are expected to adhere to different house rules, fit into different schedules, wear different clothes, eat different foods, play with different toys, bond to different pets, talk about or not talk about different topics (often about the absent parent) with appropriate levels of affection or disgust, navigate the dynamics of living with other peoples’ children, and adjust to the flush and fade of sexual dynamics between your parents and their lovers.

 

And you can't punch out at the end of the day.  It is all day, every day until you are grown up.

OK!  Now let's talk about how that is going to help you develop into a confident, secure individual with a cohesive view of self!

I almost had a panic attack just writing about that scenario.  Can you imagine living it?

 

We are creating a generation of Oscar-worthy actors, who can instantly transform themselves into a number of believable characters, but never get to leave the set.  

Is it any wonder they are dazed and confused--hooking up in 6th grade, experimenting with mind-altering substances before they hit puberty, and following every lurid suggestion made to them by pop culture?    

They are lost at sea, without moorings, grasping at every twig that floats by!

Isn’t at least part of a parent’s job to protect their offspring by giving them a sense of where they belong—not every other weekend and three months in the summer, but forever?  

"THIS is your name.  WE are your forever family.  HERE is where you live.  THESE are our beliefs, passions, and expectations, and THERE is the direction our family is going.   TOGETHER."

That sense of rootless insecurity is the thing that I imagine would hurt more than anything else.  

 One of the precious things about being in a family that lives all the time together, is that you get to move through life events, both good and bad, with one, distinct group of people who are committed to each other and to you from the time you enter the world until you leave it.   

For better or worse, at various points during each day you can reach out and touch your origins, feel the strength and weaknesses of the roots that came together to create you, and learn through the warp and woof of daily living what it means to belong to a love that big.

  

It is a powerful picture of the overflow of the eternal, inviolable love between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and when the circle is broken here on earth--let's stop lying to ourselves--it's ugly and it hurts.  

I do not question the love that many of the parents of these children have for them, but I do question the idea that anyone can chop the foundation out from under a house and then use lavish affection and the power of positive thinking to keep it from cracking up.  

Damage is done no matter how lovingly you try to swing the hammer.

I am not trying to make all divorced people and single parents feel like scum here.  

I know there are people who have ended up single parenting through no fault of their own, and others who may have chosen it and now regret it every day.  

I would remind those people that God is merciful and forgiving and powerfully redemptive.  Please believe that!

I am just sad about the flippancy with which increasing numbers of adults destroy the chance of an intact home for the children they create.

No fault divorce is a laughable name for such a destructive force.   Because no matter whose fault it really is, the children always think it is theirs.

And no matter what Hollywood tries to sell us, single (often serial) parenthood is NOT just another wonderful option for grown-ups who find long-term commitments to be boring and constrictive.  

**Helpful Hint--If you can’t get another consenting adult to put up with you for more than a few years at a time, then for goodness sake, don’t make a defenseless child do it. **

Because there are consequences to messing with God's design.

The children get angry.  They can't concentrate in school.  They exhibit anti-social or depressive characteristics.  They engage in self-destructive behaviors.  Or they just cope, and act their parts, and live with a little core of fear and mistrust that doesn't come out until they try to make families of their own one day.

And no amount of drugging up, or counseling, or retail therapy, or distraction, or accommodation (gender neutral bathrooms, anyone?) is going to help them feel safe, happy, secure, loved, valued, and KNOWN if their parents won't bother to do it.  

Sad.  Just another little dirge for what appears to be the funeral of my country.

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And this verse is for all of us.  I preach it to myself every day...

“Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him if a great millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea."

Mark 9:42 

Love While You're Losing

I am treated multiple times a day to miniature reenactments of my own spiritual struggles.  The players are short in stature, short on years, and limited in vocabulary, but they can transform even the most mundane event into an epic melodrama--which then somehow serves to illustrate my own ridiculous propensities.

It's really a gift.

"Why can't those kids manage to brush their teeth in the same room without ending up in a stabbing match?" I ask in exasperation.

And then in the mirror of their petty squabble I get a picture of myself getting my feathers ruffled in the not-so-distant past by some fellow tooth-brusher in the bathroom of life. I have wanted to stick my Plak Smacker in certain people's eyeballs more often than I'd like to admit.  

How is that so different than my hair-trigger youngsters fighting over the Dixie Cups every night of their lives?

And that time that I used subtle flattery, triangulation, and big, dewy eyes to get my own way in a relationship?  I just watched the same technique being used by a five year old to win a coveted cookie away from his little sister.  

He got the cookie with her blessing. 

She didn't notice the bait and switch. 

Everyone is happy, so no harm, no foul--right?
 
No harm except the fact that selfishness became its own reward, and a child learned better how to hurt people and make them thank him for it. Could that be what I have become adept at doing sometimes with the hearts of the people who trust me?

Earlier this week I caught a wronged party audibly laughing over the fact that his sibling had been put in time out for taking his toy.  How cold!  How unloving!

Except that it sort of reminds me of that inner exultation that pops up when I hear of an irritating or destructive individual who has finally gotten his just desserts.

"Hey,"  I say to myself, "it wasn't me that doled out the justice, so pardonnez moi if I throw this tiny party in my heart over his well-deserved misfortune."

How is that any better than snickering as your brother gets hauled off to the woodshed? 

(Disclaimer for any stray social workers who might be reading:  That was strictly a figure of speech.  Per the agreement we signed in blood, sweat, and tears, we strictly adhere to the agency-authorized list of hilariously ineffective and impotent disciplinary techniques allowed to foster parents. Furthermore, we affirm that no unorthodox or unsanctioned methods of discipline involving "hauling" or "wood" or "sheds" were used at any time prior to or during the writing of this post.  Nor will they ever be.)  

Sorry about that.  One can't be too careful.

Somehow when I watch my children giving in to their baser instincts, my own don't seem as suave and innocent as they felt when I was following them.

Which brings me to the point of this post.  Let's just say we had a mini-reenactment here this week that was every bit at loud and sticky as the original Gettysburg, but when the smoke cleared and the reenactors had gone back to playing with squirt guns, I was left with the realization that I had fought in the original battle.  

With live bullets of bitterness and arrows of anger. 

Over the past three years, I have expressed some attitudes toward our foster children's birth mother that were not sanctified.  Some I fear I have shared too publicly.  Some I have nurtured privately.  Some I repented of.  Some I kept like pet skunks.

Now it appears we are going to be able to adopt the little ones who have become so dear to us, and we are amazed!  Thankful!  Full of plans and prayers and praises--as we should be!

And what of their mother?  Well, suddenly I am all compassion.  The anger and resentment are gone.  I have been a wellspring of sympathy and kindness for weeks--and feeling a little proud of it, if I am honest.  

That is, I was.  Until I saw one of my children growing a gigantic weed of bitterness toward a sibling.  It was choking out the light--and then one day, when that child gained the upper hand (caught a little success while the other floundered) the weed was miraculously gone!  Amazing!

Familiar.

Actually, identical.

Funny how I too was transformed into Lady Lovejoy just as I "won the round" with the children's mom.

Has she changed?

No.  She is as needful of love, mercy, and forgiveness as ever, it is just that now I am willing to freely give it.

Like the winner of a race who is suddenly able to list the all the strengths and virtues of her vanquished opponents, I am seeing how easy it is to be magnanimous when you have been given your heart's desire!

It is  natural to dispense grace when your basket is full of every good thing.  How much more a kindness means when it comes from empty hands--like loaves and fishes appearing where there should be none.

Now, I am not saying I was 100% mean over the past three years.  There were moments when I think I let the love of Christ dwell in me.  

But there should have been more, and the next time I am left holding the short straw in a relationship, I hope I will spend less time publicly stewing, and more time allowing God to show me how to really love while I'm losing.

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Luke 6:27-28    "But I say to you who hear, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.…"

Proverbs 19:11
A person's wisdom yields patience; it is to one's glory to overlook an offense.

Proverbs 25:21
If your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat; if he is thirsty, give him water to drink.

John 13:34
"A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.

 2 Corinthians 12:9  "But he said to me,'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me."