A Confession to Parents of Young Children

It seems that these days, I am
blessed to be the Nana 
or the friend of young parents
with small children.  

A precious friend, Allison,
shared this excellent Blogpost on 
parenting in Facebook.
Because she was kind enough to mention
that I had once encouraged her
when she was a young single mother, 
I thought I owed it to her
and to other young parents
to make a confession.

If you haven't already clicked on
the link above, please click below
and then read on.

I confess, I have said the words
“You should enjoy every moment now! They grow up so fast!”
I now know, and should have
remembered from when my children
were little, that this is a 
terrible thing to say
to parents who are working hard
 to do the very best job possible of raising
children who love and respect
God and their fellowman.  

I also have had some actual experience
knowing that although this
quote is oh, so true, it is also not
productive.  You see, I have the 
honor and responsibility of 
babysitting for my precious
grandchildren quite often.
It is a joy, but also one
of the hardest things I do.
At the end of a day of fixing breakfasts, 
which I must admit consist of Pop Tarts,
which one of my grandsons calls
Breakfast Cookies, cleaning up,
playing hide and seek, playing Super Heroes,
playing with Play Doh, cleaning up,
coloring, watching a video so
that Nana can breathe for a few minutes,
fixing lunch--also not the 
healthiest, cleaning up, getting
one child off to school and then
getting the other one down for a nap,
playing some more, and then 
getting them ready to go home,
I am TIRED!!!!!
And unlike their parents,
I get to send them home and
Nana gets to rest.

Life as a young parent is
a huge responsibility and a
huge labor of love.
I hope all of us who have
been there/done that,
will remember those days,
not with rose colored glasses, but
realistically, so that we can support
these young parents as they prepare
the next generation to live productive lives
of service to God and mankind.  

And as the author of the
blogpost mentions, let's also help them
out in creative and genuinely helpful ways.  

Prayers for them and their
children would also
be most welcome!  









Comments

Allison said…
And you made me cry again! I had (and still do) such a hard time admitting how difficult it was, because I was told by many that I "asked for it", I "wanted it so badly", I "paid for the privilege", and I "chose to be a single parent." YES!! All those things are true, but it didn't make parenting any easier. It is HARD, and you are right about those rose-colored glasses. I think the further away we get from those really HARD days the more we forget just how difficult they really are. I want to be an encouragement to young parents like you were to me. I love you Karen!
My feet are actually propped up right now as I've just tucked in the second child for the night. Enjoyed your reflections tonight!
BR said…
What a blessing!! thanks fir tge post and the link. I just forwarded this to several of my friends and just when I was about to forward it to miss G, I was like, oh. That's her mom.
Miss G said…
I'm really glad you wrote this. Thanks. This is good, really good. love you and so appreciate you and the support you give us! Kelly

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