How to be strong
There's an ad near my work. It just says "Be strong." I have no idea what it's for, but I find myself looking at it a lot, because I work with parents who are being strong every day in ways that don't always get counted.
Sometimes, yes, strength is that fierce mama advocate, marching 20 feet ahead of our children into schools and systems, fighting for what our kids need. Sometimes it means doing that while also carefully balancing your words and your mood to navigate a room that's primed to see you as "hysterical" or "angry" or "over-involved" or just "that mom" in ways it wouldn't see a parent who looked or sounded or parented differently.
You would fight every dragon for your child. But sometimes strength means stepping back and being patient. Trusting your child to make his way independently through a less than ideal situation, or to self-advocate imperfectly for what he needs. Nobody cheers for that kind of strength (sitting on your hands, biting your tongue), but you do it because you know he needs to learn to manage his own dragons, and you know clearing the path or doing the asking for him sends the message I don't believe you can do this on your own.
Sometimes strength is knowing he’s going to stumble and letting him try anyway, because you know (even though you HATE it) that sometimes our children have to fall, get bruised, and be sad in service of growing and learning and getting warmer the next time.
Sometimes strength means staying firm in your values, your beliefs about your kid, your understanding that they are trying as hard as they can, even when a world full of “experts” is telling you otherwise. Strength means sticking with what you know is best even when progress is taking A LONG TIME, even when from the outside it looks like nothing is happening.
Someone once told me my kids' issues were probably related to my only having followed the normal restrictions with organic whatever DURING pregnancy, and not for THREE FULL YEARS BEFOREHAND, like they did, which is why their kids were, and I quote, "not learning disabled or whatever." And oh holy hell, it takes SO MUCH STRENGTH sometimes not to punch someone, or at least to say "Are your kids self-righteous pricks also? Because my kids might have 'whatever,' but they are KIND and they accept diversity," and instead smile and say, “Mmm.”
You are being strong when you hold the limits even though you know it will result in a tantrum and you already have a migraine and yeah, EVERYONE wishes the kids could watch one more episode, because that's my sit down and scroll time too. But I am heeding the plan and the wishes of future me. Who knows what kinds of horror will ensue if there's too much screen time, so I am getting up off the sofa and offering to play Pokémon and to sit and be present while they beat me at it again, because I will never understand the rules. And that is strength.
It is strength to ask for help when you need it. To be solid enough in your faith in yourself as a parent that you don't have to do everything yourself, and to lean on your community. It's strength to trust that some things can be imperfect, because grandpa is going to play Pokémon today instead of me, and yeah, maybe I wouldn't feed them coffee cake doughnuts and milk ("it's calcium!") after school, but grandpa has the energy to wave the Charmander around and roar even though he definitely doesn’t know the rules. It is strength to give your children the gift of adults who aren't you who love them.
When I think about the parents I work with in Huddles or one-on-one, and the parent I am, and how we are all just humans who have given our whole hearts to these little creatures in a world that is on fire and full of unpredictability, and that sometimes seems to care very little for children, I believe truly we are all being strong, in more ways than we're counting.
Whatever strength looks like in your house today: it counts.