Note from Janel: I’m trying this new series on for size–on raising emotionally-healthy kids. We’ll start with something that would make our nation look markedly different if it defined us, our leaders: Humility.
No, this is not because I actually think I have arrived or have everything you need to know. This site is about having the conversations we need to have.
I still recall with vividness my son’s drawing, proclaiming my anger issues to the world.
It was in red marker (his favorite color). Chunky hands rested on wonderfully slim, stick-figure hips. “I made you look mad, but you’re not mad in this picture,” he explained.
The English teacher of my junior year could have, at varying points in the year, landed squarely in both “Wisest Writing Mentor” and “She Needs a Pat on the Back…Off a Cliff” categories.
She scrawled Blah over my paper titles. Castigated my writing publicly. Scoffed at my conclusions.
The first time I met her, I entered my friend Kristen’s shop jittery as a triple espresso. She’s a multi-published author who didn’t know me from scrambled eggs. A mutual friend simply knew my resume, knew I was beginning a blog.
I was on “home” assignment from our post in Uganda (“home” while living overseas = weirdness. Every dang time). Perhaps I was most embarrassed that stress sweat tumbled off me in waves; I remember thinking I smelled like a packed African minibus. (Despite my insistence, my mom says I can either have 1) natural deodorant or 2) friends.)
So yeah. That happened.
I won’t tell you which one. It doesn’t matter. And I have this phobia my kids will need to be in therapy because their mother is a writer.
A couple of weeks ago, my son and I attempted homemade ravioli. I say attempted not because they didn’t taste good. (They tasted great!) I say this because in the midst of chaos–some foreseen, some not-so-much–we didn’t really seal the little ravioli pillows correctly. So ricotta leaked out into the water. Never fear: Every single one of the little guys was still eaten up, and since perfect ravioli wasn’t the goal, I’d consider it a smashing (smashed?) success.
I’ve been pulling kids up on the counter next to me (and sometimes sitting them in the bowl of the sink) for a little over a decade now. Initially, it was a strategy of containment. If I am cooking, I know where you and your fast little feet are, and what those little hands are dumping. But cooking has been a way that my kids and I create rich quality time together.
Near the end of the day, we are creating something nourishing together, learning a life skill, chatting about whatever, laughing, and sealing the memories with taste and sound and sight and smell and touch. Somehow the mundane, to me, seems to take on a little magic.
This week, I’ve been thinking a lot about humility, as you can see in this post on staying humble when you shine.
I’ve gleaned a ton of great practical thoughts on this from Jeremy Taylor, a guy born over 400 years ago. This guy (1613-1667) was a chaplain to Charles I and a prolific, vivid author with keen insight into human behavior.
I’ve paraphrased some of his practical tips for all of us. (Believe it or not, you can read him on your Kindle for .99--but I like the abbreviated version in this devotional I love.) Check out his wisdom–and print it out if you want!
PRINT IT HERE!
Author’s note: This post veers a bit to a niche audience. But my posts on what I’m learning from my son’s learning disorders—ADHD and dysgraphia—and this one on helping our kids turn suffering into praise have been perennially visited by whom I can only assume are parents hoping to adjust to similarly harrowing and frustrating diagnoses.
I’m not a doctor or an expert—just a parent who has found some gratitude in all this.
Six years ago, my heart wasn’t just gripped by preparations to heave our family of six over to Africa. It took only till September of my son’s kindergarten year to piece together that something wasn’t right.
![Now You're Speaking My [Love] Language](https://www.janelbreitenstein.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/love-languages-text-1.jpg "Now You're Speaking My [Love] Language")
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