Tools

one of my sisters called today and her first words were, "i have news!" to which i immediately responded emphatically, "you're pregnant?!"... "yes, how'd you know?!!!" i'm not sure how, but i always know. i'm ecstatic for her and i know that she's going to be the most fantastic mom of SIX ever. yes, this is child numero seis, her oldest will turn 8 in June!

she went on to say she should have called me first since she got mediocre at best replies from everyone else she told so far. not that they're not happy for her but that they all had an air of "don't you know what causes that?" or "uh, where are you going to put them all?" sort of attitudes.

i'm extremely analytical and can process out exactly why i think she's going to do a fantastic job with 6, 8 or 15 kids, where ever they end up, based on what i call the simple principle of 'tool acquisition'. i shared with her a bit and gave her a little of my perspective, for fun, i thought i'd share it with you as well.

parenthood can most easily be described as a job. plain and simple, it is work, constant work, to be a parent. like any job there are tools required. if i walk into my stepdad's wood shop i see all sorts of tools for wood working and carpentry. saws, sanders, screwdrivers, hammers, wrenches and a whole other assortment of tools with really specific purposes for which i don't know the names or meanings since it is not my area of expertise. if you asked my stepdad if he had all those tools from the beginning he'd of course say no. it takes years and years to acquire all the tools he has. he started out tinkering and doing what he could with what he had and as he committed himself to it he acquired more tools so he could do it better, more efficiently and in the end get much more exceptional results from his work. mind you, wood working isn't even his job, but "just a hobby".

an even clearer example would be a mechanic. walk into any auto-mechanic's shop and you'll see a million job specific tools hanging and laying everywhere. i can speak from experience when i say hardly any of those are necessary to change oil in a car, or a tire, or a head light. but if you want to do anything beyond the 'idiot's guide' you're going to have to man up and get some real tools, and educate yourself on how to use them. you can't learn any of it in a day, and in general you can't possibly afford to buy every tool for the first day of class.

as a parent you take on a new job. let's just say everyone starts out with a hammer, most basic of all tools. we all start out loving our kids and if love is a hammer, it's extremely useful and can be used for quite a few do-it-yourself projects when it comes to kids. beyond that you'll need a screwdriver (after all every parent has moments where they feel like they have a few loose screws!) the screwdriver is your logic. between Love and Logic, your Hammer and Screwdriver, you're equipped with the 2 most basic parenting tools, although they are basic they are also completely essential. if you're going to tackle the harder problems, deal with tantrums, illness, attitudes and injuries, you're going to need more than just a hammer and a screwdriver though. after all, you're not just building a bird house, you're trying to raise an individual which will reach adulthood with a firm set of their own tools which will hopefully be honesty, intelligence, compassion, integrity, honor and perseverance to name a few. essentially a tool box with at least a hammer, screwdriver (philips and flat head) few wrenches of their own, maybe some allen wrenches and depending on their experience and interest some awls or carving tools.

so as you continue to parent these kids, finding harder challenges and more complicated tasks, like my stepdad in his acquisition of wood working tools, you're going to have to find better and more specific tools for the job. you cant just pound love into your kids with your hammer everyday and hope to teach them every thing. at a certain point you're going to want to do the work more easily, efficiently and of course, with much better results. depending on whatever metaphor works for you, you're going to end up with a whole tool shed full of the specific tools it requires to raise your particular kids. you may even have a few different sorts. after all, i have one ultra defiant child, and one more emotionally needy and compliant one. they are absolutely not the same job!

if you'd asked me when i was 20 if i was equipped to do the job i have now, of course i'd have wished i was but would have had to admit that i wasn't even close. i had to go through difficult relationships, working through childhood wound-issues, finding out about infertility, dealing with a struggle deciding to adopt, then working toward becoming a foster parent. if you'd asked back then if i'd be able to sit through a visit with a bio-parent who's lost their child due to extremely poor choices and look at them without judgement, of course i'd have said no.(although even then i'd have known to keep my mouth shut at least). going through some of the hardest parts of life was what it took for me to acquire the tools to deal with my emotions, my losses and my miraculous gains. i'm not sure i ever could have imagined that it would turn out this way, that my particular parenting job would be like this. for me it's as if i set out to be a mechanic and ended up building rocket ships. this is far beyond what i could have hoped for myself and to all those who say "it takes a special person to do what you do" i say no, no one starts out with everything they need for the job, sometimes you have to go out and find it.