Learning to stop overgiving

Sometimes I feel like I’m the only one willing to do the work it takes to raise children, get them fed, get them to bed, get them to camp on time, etc etc. Yet it’s probably also the case that my husband feels that way sometimes too. We feed off of each other. When one contributes more, the other can contribute less. And sometimes we just get so wrapped up in things we don’t really notice how much the other is contributing. Is this how it is in most families?

I find it interesting to compare yesterday with today.

Yesterday – it was the day after I went with my kids on a field trip with their camp. One of my favorite memories of the camp was when I went down the waterslide last in our group and my two kids were waiting for me at the bottom. There was another chaperone in our group and I had to hope that he was with the other three kids in our group that weren’t mine. When all I saw was my two kids, I took their suggestion to go to the pool in the middle of the waterpark. I had an incredible moment with them when we could just swim freely. My youngest took it upon himself to swim underwater, underneath the divider between the shallow end and the deep end. I showed my kids the back float and they were intrigued. How do you do that? I told them to hold their breath and lifted them up so they could feel how it feels. And little by little they got the back float (beginner’s style!). Next one of the other people in our group found me in the pool. He said he wanted us all to go to a big slide. I found out the group had told my kids to go to the pool to meet them there! So all was well!

I helped the group come to consensus about which slide to go on next. And when one of the kids wanted to switch slides before we had gotten to the front of the line, (the one who had originally suggested we go to that slide!), I told him he would have to convince the others in order to switch because we had to stay together. What a waste to wait all day and never go down? The group decided to have patience and stay. It was a win. The slide was very long and fun!

So after that long day I put all three of my kids to bed diligently and in the morning set my alarm to get my kids to camp on time the next morning. Come on kids! Let’s go! One of them was coaxed into the bath by my hubby and was on the slow slide. The other was up very early and certainly could have gotten to camp on time but was waiting for his brother. Come on! Come on! Let’s not be late! I put together their lunches. I put sunscreen dots on their faces for them to rub in. I got very upset when they were sluggish on the way out the door. I worked so hard and didn’t see so much result!

They had a low key day at camp and when they got home, they saw their sister watching TV. Hey how come she gets screen time! I said do you want your two daily hours of screen time to start now? They did. So they watched from 1-3pm. Then I told them screen time was over. Later in the day, they wanted to play soccer! They asked if I could take them to the soccer courts? I was so happy to see all three of my kids playing soccer together and having so much fun. It’s going to be easy to get them to bed tonight, I thought.

When they got home, they played uno and didn’t want to stop. I said ok kids here’s the deal. Instead of starting bedtime now, with each kid getting a half hour of 1:1 time with me, if you can brush your teeth and get your pajamas on within the next 15 minutes you can ALL have 30 minutes of time to watch a movie together (and play uno while watching if you want) and then go straight to bed! One said “but I want a story too.” And the others said “me too!” So I said OK – you’ll go straight to bed and I’ll read a story from the hallway to all of you at once.

It worked pretty well except my husband came home at the end of the movie right when they were supposed to go straight to their beds and introduced the cat! The cat was very cuddly and cute and doesn’t usually sleep in their rooms at night. They said what if he jumps up on my bed while I’m sleeping? I had to remind them but the deal was you go to your bed! Isn’t it great you already brushed your teeth? And you are already in your pajamas? All we have left is story! Ok here’s what I’ll read. Hop into bed please – now let’s go 🙂 They found a way to move the cat to where he was supposed to sleep.. and finally the younger two were in their beds with the oldest on my lap! I read the story. I asked the older to go into my room and wait a minute. I hugged the younger two. They were happy and sleepy in their beds. I explained to the older one what the deal had been. He said I hadn’t heard that! That’s why he was giving me a hard time about not having his own individual story! We read a brief story and he went to sleep. He fell asleep earlier than he had the night before!!

And all three kids got to enjoy the first half hour of Mary Poppins. My youngest said how in the world did the wind blow the kids’ nanny note and how did Mary Poppins get it? Did she make the wind blow? Magic I said! He was so enchanted. Now we get to watch the rest of the movie tonight. I’m excited to see how it lands. And overall instead of pushing my kids one at a time to brush their teeth, get in their pajamas, and read stories for an hour and a half, we relaxed a bit and they managed themselves much more.

Now this morning: I woke up to my alarm but my body said it needed more rest. It’s not good on my system to constantly stay up late and wake up before I’m rested. I said… I wonder what will happen if I don’t push everything forward? How little time do I actually need in the morning? My husband was surprised I wasn’t getting their lunch together. He asked if he should put two pitas for their lunch in the toaster and add zatar? I said sure! My kids woke up naturally with about 20 minutes to get ready. They realized it was almost 8am and said Mom aren’t you going to help us? My harping on them to go out by 8am the days earlier had integrated into their own internal system – win! I thought to myself the thing they need most from me is sunscreen. That they won’t initiate on their own. When they saw me going out to get it they were happy! I was a part of their morning again! They weren’t on their own! I put dots on their faces for them to rub in. They went out the door minutes earlier than the day I had tried to push everyone to hurry up!

My realization is that if you try and take responsibility for other people and nag them it is sometimes a huge waste of energy because when you don’t do that they have a chance to grow into the role of taking responsibility for themselves or pulling some weight for the team (if they’re a grownup) because there’s room. It helps get everything back in balance.

I’m glad that I trusted this morning that things would be OK and let go of my attachment that it be perfect – (I said to myself, if they are late… will it be the end of the world?) And in the end they weren’t! (At least, I don’t think… maybe only by a couple of minutes…) but they were excited to have a soccer tournament and told me that they won the last one! I’m glad they are excited for their camp.

This isn’t to say that I won’t ever have 1:1 time with all three of my kids at bedtime again. Maybe someday my husband will also want 1:1 time with all three of our kids at bedtime. It’s just to say that sometimes things need to happen a little bit differently. And we need to trust our intuition about when that is so that we leave room for our kids (and ourselves!) to grow. So that everyone gets what they need. So that the being and the doing is balanced for all of us.

As a mother it’s such a tough call when to help and when to let go. How much to do for your children and how much to empower. But if we find ourselves depleated of energy sometimes we have to do things a little bit differently. And trust that it will turn out ok! Because when we are depleated we’re less effective anyway. Everyone needs the chance to play their part and we need to let them. We need to allow it to happen. We are often tempted to do everything. And sometimes, we do. With pleasure. Out of love. But all the time? That’s not good for us or for our families.