Chapter Eight of Loving the Little Years

Watch Your Language

Children are linguistic sponges. If you say something, so will they. Obviously coarse or off‑color language is something that Christian parents ought to avoid because it is something that Christians ought to avoid. But what about words like stupid, idiot, dummy, shut up, and all the rest? At some point in your parenting career you will hear one of your kids pop off with one of these. It is certainly not a great idea for them to be freelancing with words like this, so you tell them they may not say it.

Then, usually a little later in the day, you will find yourself saying, “I feel so stupid!” or the neighbor lady is saying, “Oh my word! Shut up! That is so funny!” and you realize that your children are watching with curiosity and already forming questions about your double standard. At the same time, you know it would be a strange legalism to ban these words from your house altogether.

My husband dealt with this problem by talking to the kids about the nature of words. Words are tools, and some of them are like the big kitchen knives—you have to be big enough to use them. If little kids start saying “stupid” or “idiot,” it is like they are playing with the knives. They are not big enough to control what they cut. They will start hurting each other and cutting their own fingers. So these words are just like the knives—they are a “no touch.” But they may watch and listen now so that they can learn how to use them. Of course, if you are using these words to cut down your husband or friends, then you will need to stop doing that—they can be just as destructive to a grown person.

Another way we can do damage to ourselves is through the use of totally innocent words that we use to allow ourselves something. I remember thinking sometimes when the twins were little that I had better stop being overwhelmed.

This was normal now. For a few months in the middle of the wet, gray, rainy part of winter, I had two nursing infants and two toddlers—three out of four in diapers. It was very physically, as well as emotionally, intense. I can remember taking the garbage out and just standing outside the door taking some deep breaths, getting ready to go back in. (When taking the garbage out becomes a “destination,” you know you are really in the trenches!) It was around this time that I realized I had better strike the word overwhelmed from my vocabulary.

God gave me this to do. I may not be overwhelmed about it. I can try as hard as I can, and maybe fail sometimes. I can try as hard as I can and fall asleep at the dinner table. I can try as hard as I can and be completely burned out at the end of the day. But I may not be overwhelmed. Actually, I may be overwhelmed, but I may not say that I am overwhelmed. The words have a real power over us. If you say it, you allow it for yourself. You give yourself that little bit of room to say, “But I can’t!”

When God gives us children, it is work that He is giving us. Work that comes with huge attendant blessings and bonuses, but work nonetheless. So imagine yourself delegating a task to someone (your children come to mind). Imagine you are asking them to clean up a room. You can see the work that you are giving them. You know they need to pick up the dress‑ups, the plastic food, and the books. You also know that what you are asking is well within their abilities.

Now imagine one child looks at it, takes a deep breath, and dives in. But the other picks up one piece of food and then lies down to cry about all the rest of them. You know as a parent that lying down and whimpering about the tasks does not get them done. It makes them harder, slower, and more difficult in every way. The child who is really working faithfully will see progress and see that the task is doable. The child who is feeling sorry for himself will never get past that emotional low without some disciplinary intervention.

Do you see yourself in that? When you get up in the morning and the house is a mess, and the kids are being a little eggy, and you didn’t get to the grocery store, do you like to drape yourself across the work that God gave you and whimper? Or do you just dive in? Do you take a few steps and then go limp? Do you like to dwell on the discouragement? Do you spend time not working but tallying the work that you think is too much for you?

After having the twins, I had to deal with this because it was easy to get overwhelmed. I can remember telling my husband that I was going to try not to say that anymore, not even to myself. It was time for me to adjust to the workload that God had given me. But deciding to be the kid who would dive in and not the kid who would stand around anticipating the work and getting overwhelmed has some real consequences. You have to know that you are giving up those moments that you were allowing yourself. Deciding not to say it is different than never actually being in over your head. But God loves a cheerful worker. I am still frequently in over my head—actually, most of the time! But deciding not to wallow in that fact has removed one of the biggest obstacles to my work: my own calculations of how hard the job is.

If you decide to do this (and I strongly recommend you do), you will need to tell someone. Tell the people you are most likely to complain to—your husband, your mother, your sister, your friend. Tell them you are not going to say “____” anymore. Whatever terminology you use to allow yourself a little self‑pity. It is pretty funny how much this feels like jumping off the high dive, and it can make you realize how much you were using that little excuse. I am sure that I still say “overwhelmed” from time to time, but it is no longer that little crutch for droopiness that it once was to me.

Instead of spending time telling yourself stories in which you are given too much to do, come up with some simple coping tactics. In that same early and intense phase with the twins, I developed the twenty‑minute rule. If things started seeming really out of control, I would look at the clock and note the time. Then I would tell myself that in twenty minutes this would be over.

If I just kept my head down and did the work, twenty minutes was all I needed. And actually, it was true. Twenty minutes is enough time (if you are moving quickly and not moping) to change three diapers and one complete outfit, spank one disobeyer, tuck two people into naps, and sit down to nurse the other two. The storm would have passed in twenty minutes if I was cheerfully getting things done.

But that moment when you first discovered the blowout, and then the two‑year‑old hit the one‑year‑old (who is now having a naptime meltdown with a dirty diaper), and both of the babies were mad because you were in the car when they decided it was lunchtime, and now, thirty minutes later, you still haven’t nursed them, but first you’ve got to change the whole outfit and maybe can’t find the clothes… well, that moment. What was it? A moment. It passes. But when it passes, you will be very glad if all you did was work right through it. No self‑pity, no tears, no getting worked into a dither. Look at the clock, look at the work you need to do, and bear down. That super‑intensity will almost always be over in twenty minutes.

 

End of Excerpt

 

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