Kids Don't Raise Themselves (Duh)
I am increasingly hit with the reality that my time with them as my dependents is quickly coming to an end.
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Kids Don’t Raise Themselves (Duh)
Last week, I was mulling over this idea of intentional parenting. Not just in what we actively teach our children, like how to pick up after themselves, or to be nice to the kids getting picked on by the school bully, but more in how we teach them to be adults through our own actions.
I was at a Christmas party over the weekend with other parents from our girls’ school. I was talking to one of the moms about how quickly our children seem to progress from the teenage years into young adulthood.
She said her oldest daughter is traveling home for Christmas after her first semester in college. It had been a hard transition for the family, as it was their first child leaving home. (This is something I am not looking forward to at all, by the way.) She was giving me a little advice based on her own personal experience and said I needed to make sure my daughters are prepared to do laundry, cook, and clean for themselves when they move out.
She had overreacted a bit as a parent because of her own childhood chore burden. Not wanting the same for them, she had handicapped their ability to independently take care of themselves.
“My daughter had no idea how to use the washing machine or dishwasher,” she said. “I only realized this two weeks before she was moving three states away. I had to put her through boot camp to get her ready to be without me.”
This was great advice, honestly, and if I hadn’t already been teaching my daughters household chores, this story would have put me on the straight and narrow. But it got me thinking about something deeper than just laundry, dishes, and dusting. I, of course, want our girls to be able to do all of these things well. I also want them to be emotionally prepared to handle other situations without me.
As y’all know, this year has felt like one trial after another for our family. I know we aren’t the only ones to feel this way. The most viral memes right now are people praising themselves for getting through 2025. But while driving home that night from the party, I began to wonder (worry) whether I had taught our girls how to get through the hard years. I’d get my answer the next morning.
I woke up to the sweetest little note from our oldest two daughters.
“Dear Mommy and Daddy,
Merry Christmas!!! We love y’all so much. Hope you have a good day! We are so lucky to have y’all as our parents and we wanted you to know that y’all are like the BEST!!! Thank you for making Christmas time so special for us. It means soooo much and we really love this time of year because of y’all. Thank you for everything! Merry Christmas!!!!”
If this wasn’t sweet enough, they had worked like little elves during the night, deep cleaning the upstairs of the house. While their little sisters slept in their beds, they took out all of their dirty laundry, organized their toys, and even cleaned their bathrooms. After the work was done, they hung Christmas lights and decorations all over their rooms, and even wrote their own special notes telling the others how thankful they were to have them as sisters.
This is what it means to see your intentional parenting decisions blossom in real time.
Getting in the Christmas spirit can be tough when your mind is racing in a thousand different directions. Mom guilt begins to set in. I haven’t put their Christmas sheets on their beds yet. I haven’t put up all the Christmas lights on the inside. Am I taking enough time with them to make lasting memories that will help them shake off the negativity that came into our home this year?
Before our girls showed me otherwise, in my mind, the answer was a big fat ‘no.’ Despite my worry, I have seen them get more and more excited every day for Christmas to come. Why is that? The answer is not because I am perfect, which I certainly am not.
We are getting this sweet little grace because we live by a simple but important motto in our family: Do what you say and say what you mean.
If I tell my girls, they have to get along with one another, love each other, and that family is the most important part of their lives, then I have to show I believe these truths in how I treat my husband and them, even when the year has been hard. If I don’t act like our family is a blessing, they won’t listen to me when I say it.
I am increasingly hit with the reality that my time with them as my dependents is quickly coming to an end. So this Christmas, I will be hugging them a little tighter and fitting in as many memory-making days as I can to ensure that they leave their childhood with the ability to live intentionally.
WHAT I SAW THIS WEEK:
Geoff’s State of Monday got right to the point. If you haven’t been able to watch Vice President JD Vance’s AmFest speech, you should take a moment because it was incredible. However, in his newsletter, he broke down Vance’s speech and how (I think) most of us have been feeling in the aftermath of Charlie Kirk’s murder. You can read more about that here: A WHITE PILL NAMED VANCE.
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