I am going to go out on a limb (yes, another one) and be totally honest (yet again) because it has been a helluva week and my emotions are on the bloody side of raw and sometimes I just have to shout out what is on the inside so I don't explode and then I hope that maybe my saying what is inside me that I have never ever heard anyone else say might help somebody else who feels alone because they feel the same way but have never ever heard anybody else say it.
When my kids were little, we didn't have the internet. We had books and that tidy Focus on the Family magazine that showed up in our mailbox with the smiling upper middle-class families on the cover. You know, the magazine that told you that it was impossible to successfully raise a family while both parents worked? Yeah, that one.
(For the record, I told them to get me off their mailing list when I got one too many political mailings telling me that the Democratic president was going to send social services to my door to take my children away or something like that. No mom with an anxiety disorder needs to be reading that crap.)
Anyway, my access to information on children was limited. And so when my children began to struggle I had so few resources. I. just. didn't. know. The churches were pushing the Ezzo plan. Others were pushing catechism memorization and family worship. If you opened your mouth about an issue with your baby or child you were flooded with a barrage of advice, all in the form of you just need to do this or that and it pretty much came down the fact that I wasn't strong enough. Tough enough. Firm enough. Consistent enough. I didn't require enough. Have enough rules. I wasn't enough. Period.
Even the teachers interpreted, at times, some of the struggles as willful sin. "She's trying to manipulate you," she said. (No, she had a chronic UTI, by the way along with severe anxiety.)
Nowhere. NOWHERE. Nobody. NOBODY. Ever mentioned that maybe there may be something more going on. And so for years I beat myself up and tried harder. And for years my children suffered. And I never knew how to ask for help. And I was ashamed to because it meant that I had failed as a mother. And I hate that for my children. I hate that, for those who struggled with such severe anxiety, I allowed their childhood to be taken away because I didn't know what to do.
I can only say that I am thankful for the bad grades that forced me to get a couple of my children evaluated for ADHD. That is an easy one. That is one that some people at least recognize as legitimate (though I did have one teacher tell me it is the result of bad parenting). That opened the door to better evaluation. Better understanding.
I am intentionally leaving off details because I have not asked my children for permission to give details of their lives to the masses. But I want to ask their forgiveness. And I want to encourage other parents out there to seek help if something doesn't seem right. Before you let the people out there tell you that that you child is just behaving that way out of willful sin or manipulation and you have to train it out of them, check and see if something else is going on. There just might be. Children struggle with a lot of things besides sin.
God is a kind, gentle, and gracious God who knows our frame and knows we are but dust. Shouldn't we handle our children with the same compassion and kindness?
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