TO MEMBERS OF THE CCCC: Clueless Confidence Crusher Club

ARE ALL PARENTS C.C.C.s?(Clueless Confidence Crushers)I have often cringed in judgment as I watched an unloving disciplinary approach with children. I am NOT saying that I don’t believe in discipline, just that a child’s spirit should be protected as a top priority.

A child should always feel loved and special. That being said, just this morning I was reading my oldest daughter’s blog. She said and I quote:

“This boils down to wanting to be recognized as something special. Growing up, I didn't feel special in the eyes of my parents. I think this has led to my looking for that affirmation in others. As a teenager I looked for it in my relationships with guys.”

Well now, I don’t think I get a gold star do I? What’s important to say here though is that I was truly clueless about my daughter’s feelings. Ginny was amazing from the day she was born. My greatest bragging material has come from simply being her mom. She was truly brilliant and funny and inventive. I loved her beyond reason. I still stand amazed in her presence and I adore her.

Ginny preferred reading encyclopedias to children’s’ books at a very early age. She read her whole set of children’s encyclopedias more than once. She was rearranging the furniture in her room before she could see over the top of her bed. Perhaps she was too much my little genius pal and not enough my carefully nurtured daughter. She just seemed to know everything and not need me for much. Where did I go wrong?

I used to dance around the room with Ginny singing “You are my sunshine, my only sunshine.” She went every where with me and I bragged to everyone about her. As she got older, her status quo was almost perfection in school. Maybe I just expected it because she always did it, and I didn’t praise her enough. Maybe I criticized? The point is that I don’t know. What ever it was, the bottom line is that my precious daughter didn't feel special. How did I screw up so royally? It is too bad that we don’t get do-overs in parenting. For me, I would have to go back and get a complete life-over.

I got married when I was 21, three months from college graduation. I got married because I thought I had to get married. I had sinned in God’s eyes and was trying to fix it by marrying the guy I sinned with. God, to me, was the one with the big mallet. I didn’t want to get pounded so I tried hard to toe the line. Well, I didn’t even look my future husband in the eyes when I recited my wedding vows. I was horrified. Before the ceremony, I told a close cousin that I wanted to back out. She said she thought it was probably the wedding jitters and that she had prayed about it and felt good. So, I walked down that aisle, tears in my eyes, and said my vows looking straight into the eyes of my brother in law, the pastor. (Hey, I wonder if that makes me really married to my brother in law??)

Our five year long marriage was difficult. My husband was dealing with the stress of medical school, a wife who didn’t love him, and then came two kids. In the year he was made chief resident in internal medicine, one of his interns caught his eye. Or should I say, caught his heart. I don’t suppose he had felt loved our whole marriage. I’ll never know really. He left me and our two daughters when Ginny was three. I still remember her saying, “Daddy, please don’t leave.” By that time, I really did love my husband, but I was too proud to say it. So I scooped up my little girls in my arms and I watched him walk away. Then I cried for days and weeks and months.

I got into that marriage recklessly and I got out of it the same way. And I appealed to my self-created God to fix everything. I didn't know how to love my husband the way he needed to be loved. My understanding of God did not include the concept of GRACE. I had to work to remain in good standing with Him. People were "good" if they tried real hard. People were "bad" if they screwed up. The only thing I knew how to do was to condemn my former husband for being in the "bad" category.

Unfortunately, even if I had understood grace, there was my pride and my maturity level. Either probably would would have excluded my "fallen husband" from my list of receivers of grace. But I regret that my girls didn't learn about God's grace through observing it in my life. I said a lot of "spiritual" stuff to them and recited a lot of Bible verses. What the girls observed was an injured and angry mom who felt rejected and abandoned to circumstance. They grew up watching their mother try to become acceptable enough to be loved.

Ginny, Abby, and Angela, I am so proud, not only of whom you’ve all come to be, but of whom you’ve always been at heart level. You are all three beautiful, both inside and out. Please forgive my failure to nurture your self esteem the way God intended. I adore each of you, Mom