Category: Parenting

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8 Life Lessons From My Son’s Sensei That I Could Use Myself

I’ve been meaning to write about the benefits of my older boy taking karate lessons for a few months now.  It was going to be a sweet little post about how young kids benefit from the discipline that is encouraged at a dojo.

As a mom in this era of “respectful parenting,” where empathy is seemingly valued above all else, sometimes to the exclusion of discipline and boundaries, I’m not going to lie, there is a certain thrill in watching a sensei (gently) chew out a kid who is acting the fool.

Full disclosure, I was a little kid in the 1970s with an authoritarian father, so discipline is my jam.  When expectations around behavior are clear and understood, even knowing they will not always be achieved, I think the whole parent-child relationship is easier.  Kiddos need boundaries.  Heck, we all need boundaries.

And, lest you respectful parents who are reading this get angry that I am missing the point — that of course there are boundaries at use in respectful parenting, that’s cool, but in so many of the threads I read online, holy moly, the roles and boundaries seem very confused, like allowing a child to refuse shots at the doctor.  Nope.

Anyway.  Ahem.  What were we talking about?  Oh, yes.  The wisdom of my son’s sensei.

In preparation for that post I thought I was going to write, I started recording some of what the sensei says in class.  Sensei Ray is old school.  He requires discipline, respect, and focus in the dojo and believes a room chock full of five to twelve year olds is capable of achieving those things.  It’s quite inspiring, actually, because, for the most part, the kids do.  “Spirit and focus,” is his mantra and I use it often when we get to the drudgery of homework, tooth brushing, and chores.  Trust me when I say that a kid who is brushing his teeth with spirit and focus is bound to get fewer cavities.

Spirit and focus! Thanks for the lessons, Sensei Ray.
Spirit and focus! Thanks for the lessons, Sensei Ray.

Here are eight of the lessons Sensei Ray regularly talks about in karate class that I would be wise to apply to my own middle aged mom life.  Spirit and focus, ladies, spirit and focus.

  1. If you want to learn more, listen more.  This is a universal.  It works everywhere — at home, at work, at school, at your place of worship, in your parenting, in your relationships.  Start exercising those ears!
  2. Strive for perfection knowing it is impossible.  One of the potholes of motherhood is thinking perfection is attainable. Pinterest makes millions off this false belief.  The value is in the trying, not the flawless end product.  And I think our kids realize when we are beating up ourselves or them for not achieving perfection.  Be gentle with yourselves, be gentle with your kiddos. Try hard.  Always try and never stop trying, but know the trying is what is important, not the perfection.  And for my bright boy who gets frustrated with things that don’t come easily, this is key.
  3. The class trains together and gets stronger together.  For me, this one is about family.  I think I don’t always do a good enough job of bringing us together.  Older boy does this, younger boy does that, dad does this, mom does that.  The inspiration I take from this lesson is to engage in more family time.  Oh!  And yes, exercising as a family can only be a good thing.  More this.
  4. Be amazing.  We are all amazing.  The real question is whether or not you believe it.  You should.  You are amazing.  Believe it. Act accordingly.
  5. If you’re comfortable, you’re not doing it right.  This is good stuff.  When I used to mentor social work grad students, I always knew that the tasks that made them the most uncomfortable were the ones we needed to focus on.  They hated me, but it made them better social workers.  A bit like my son, when I deem something too challenging, I tend to avoid it.  At all costs.  That’s not good.  To keep growing and changing and developing, even as a 47 year old gal, I need to endure the challenge.  Welcome it, invite it, get comfortable with it.
  6. Be loud to make your presence known.  I love this.  Writing this blog for the past six plus years is a way that I shout and am heard by hundreds and thousands without even leaving my living room.  Gun violence, social justice, public education, racism, feminism, kindness and empathy, pediatric cancer advocacy, and neck moisturizer — these matters are all so important to me. They influence my life and through my keyboard, I am able to influence others.  Don’t ever be afraid to be loud, ladies. And don’t ever allow yourself to be silenced.
  7. Even in a stance, you should be sweating.  This one is deep.  And deceptively complicated.  And somewhat overwhelming. What I take from it as a mother is to remember to be strong and engaged even in the down times.  Mothering is hard on the bad days, but it’s hard on the good days, too.  Be present, be engaged, focus.  If you’re making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch, if you’re wiping off the pee in front of the kid’s toilet, if you’re turning clothes inside out before they hit the laundry, if you’re taking a walk with your three year old and frustrated that it takes 30 minutes to get to the corner, can you find a space in those moments where you see the beauty in those things?  Refer to lesson number 2 above when you need moral support with this one.
  8. The minute we stop following traditions, they go away.  As someone who was raised in a strong Catholic family of six, with none of us kids practicing the faith as adults, I know this to be true.  As someone who was raised as the granddaughter of four European immigrants who worked so hard to assimilate to their new American home, I know this to be true.  As someone whose parents are both dead and gone, I know this to be true.  When traditions die, it is a loss that can be impossible to reverse. The passing of some traditions is a good thing (slavery being a prime example), but the loss of other traditions puts us at risk for becoming too homogenized.  Think carefully about integrating and celebrating traditions while living your best woke life.

There they are — some of Sensei Ray’s best life lessons that will help you as much as your kids.  And whenever you’re in doubt, just remember, spirit and focus, ladies!

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The Poop That Got Away, A Children’s Story

This morning, our youngest made a poop.  This is significant for reasons you do not want me to detail here.  Suffice it to say, POOP!

The three of us — Mama, Daddy, and boy — were standing over the toilet as it was flushed.  “Bye bye, poop!,” I exclaimed, except, oops, that poop was going nowhere.  Being a stubborn one, it stuck around.  My boy flushed again and that one did the trick.

Daddy and I were smiling and walking away when my boy looked up at me, his face twisted in sadness, his tears flowing as freely as the water in the bowl.  “I want my poop back!  Make it come back!  I want it back!”  Oh my. He was serious.  My boy was bereft that his poop had been flushed. Legitimately sad.

I took him to the next room because, well, poop smells, and sat him on my lap.  “Sweetie, when we flush the toilet, the poop goes away.,” I told him. “We want it to go away.  We can’t live in a house where we keep the poop.  No one would want to live in that house.”  My words were poor solace to a boy grieving his poop.  “Bring it back!  I miss my poop!  I want to see it again!”

Hmmmm.  This one was a new one on me.  I vaguely remembered reading an article somewhere, years ago, about kids who miss their poop.  What did it say?  What?  Did?  It?  Say?  Hell if I know.  I suppose I could Google it, but really, the need was immediate, so I had to act fast.

In the time honored traditions of motherhood, I made up a story.  I seriously think this could be a kid’s book.  No, really.

The Poop That Got Away

Mr. Poop jumped into the toilet.  He was so happy to splash in the water.  “Whee!,” he shouted, “This is fun!”  Already having the time of his life, Mr. Poop started spinning and spinning and spinning.  “WHOOAAAAAaaaaaahhhh!”  And, just like that, he was gone.

The boy who had made Mr. Poop cried and cried and cried.  He missed his poop.  He was sad.  Where had his poop gone?  Why wouldn’t it come back?  His Mama held him and told him all about poop and toilets and sewers.  The boy thought all of that was nonsense.  He simply missed his poop.

Mama wondered what the boy would do if the poop stayed.  “Would you play with it?,” she asked.  “Put it in your pocket?  Give it a name?  Place it on your pillow to keep you company while you slept?”  She gagged a little as she asked these questions, thinking they were rhetorical.  She was wrong.

Drawing courtesy of Daddy.
Drawing courtesy of Daddy.

“I would name him Mr. Poop and he would be my friend and we would go everywhere together and he would keep me company at school and the park and in my bath and the grocery store and we would be very, very happy together!”

Oh my.

The boy was having none of her logical arguments.  Mama needed to up her poop game.

“But, Sweetie, poop would not be very happy with that kind of life.  Poops like to play in the water and be with other poops.  That is where Mr. Poop went — to be with his friends.  He is having a blast at the poop water park.  You’ve never seen anything like it, and you never will, because boys and moms are not welcome there.  The poop water park is only for poops.  They like it better that way.”

“Tell me more,” said the boy.  He liked this story.

“Well, it’s a magical place, full of poop.  Big poops and little poops.  Mama poops and baby poops and daddy poops.  Even big brother poops.  The poops love to play together, splashing around, floating all over.  There are snacks and foam noodles to play with and diving boards.  It’s a little stinky, but the poops don’t mind.  They like it that way.”

“Tell me more,” said the boy.

And that’s just what Mama did.  She told the story of the poop water park and how it is where all the poops go to be together.  She told her boy about how poops get lonely and they really love company.  At the poop water park, there was room enough for every poop. The more the stinkier!

When she finished her story, Mama got serious and looked at her boy.  “You know, Mr. Poop needs you.  Our poops rely on us to keep sending them friends.  They get lonely very easily and always love to welcome new friends.  It is the best part of their day when a new poop gets flushed into the water park.  All the poops celebrate the new arrival.  Do you think you could make Mr. Poop a friend and send him along tomorrow?”

“Yes,” the boy said, equally serious, “I can.”

And he did.  And so did Mama.

The End.

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What a Muddy Backpack and Stuffed Rooster Taught Me About My Mothering

My eight year old son is a child sized version of an absent-minded professor.  I am constantly reminding him to keep track of his things, not to lose his things, and to stay on top of his things.  “Things” being the all inclusive umbrella term for the trappings of boyhood — backpack, handheld game system, stuffed animal du jour, current book, homework, hat, gloves, you know the drill.

This trait in my son is equal parts annoying and endearing.  I love that his little head is so full of such interesting thoughts that he is distracted from the minutiae of life.  Committing to memory the lyrics of all 46 songs on the Hamilton soundtrack is infinitely more rewarding than remembering to empty out and store his backback after school.  I get it.  But damn if we both don’t get frustrated when he’s five minutes late the next morning and he can’t find his mysteriously missing backpack.

And I can’t tell you how often we’re getting ready to leave school and I need to ask him if he remembered to bring home his homework or hoodie or insert necessary thing here.  The sheer volume of stuff on the lost and found table, though, makes me realize that my little fledgling absent-minded academic is merely one of many at his school.  Kids lose their shit all the time, resulting in moms across America losing a different kind of shit all the time, too.

Today as we were leaving, his teacher called out to him, “Don’t forget your backpack!”  I was grateful she was on it, as that damn backpack wasn’t on my radar in that moment.  We had a long afternoon ahead of us and I was thinking about the precision timing involved in getting us from Point A to Point B to Point C in the time frame we needed to keep on schedule.

Knowing we had a few minutes to spare, we went to the school playground to allow my boys to get their afternoon ya-yas out before we headed on to our packed schedule.  Happily, everything worked out.  We were on time for our first adventure, despite bad traffic, and my husband arrived just in time to meet us afterward so that we could share a quick dinner out together before we traded cars and he headed home with the boys and I went on to my evening event.

I was in the middle of that evening event, a guest lecture I was giving about finding meaning after child loss to a room full of social work students when my husband started texting me.  “Do you know where the boy’s backpack is?”  “It’s not in the car.”  “Did you bring it to that focus group?”  “FYI, he is very worried about the stuffies that were in it.”

What a perfectly typical moment of motherhood — impending doom and competing needs.  So there I am trying to convey the reality of what it is like to bury a child when I am thinking about the missing backpack with the stuffed rooster inside it and how sad I know my boy must be, missing his rooster friend.  That, right there, my friends, is my grief in a nutshell.

The texts stopped as soon as they started and I got back to the matter at hand.  Afterwards, I checked in with my husband.  My son didn’t remember having it at our first stop, but I was convinced he must have left it there, as I know he had it leaving school, as his teacher made sure of it.  On this lousy, rainy night, I circled around back to our first stop.  I checked with the lost and found at the security desk, no backpack.  Hmmmm.

I called my husband and said, “Well, we did go to the school playground before we left, maybe he forgot it there and the after school staff found it and took it inside.  You can check in the morning at drop-off.”  I started driving home and thought it might be worthwhile to take a spin to the school myself, just in case the backpack might be on the playground.

BINGO.

backpack

Sure enough, the backpack was there, soaking and filthy, sitting in a pile of mud after hours of rain.  I was elated to find it.  I picked it up with relief and booked it home, feeling like a true hero.  MOM TO THE RESCUE!  How great am I?  Job well done, Mom!  I rock.

As I drove through the rain, I thought about my boy and my love for my boy.  I thought about how happy and relieved he will be in the morning when he learns his rooster stuffie is safe and sound, albeit a bit damp.  I thought about how lucky it was that I went back to the school, especially given that it was out of the way.  I thought about how tender it made me feel that I could do something so simple that will make my boy feel so happy. Isn’t life grand?

Then, out of nowhere, I thought about how I might have reacted if we were halfway to our destination and my son had remembered in that moment that his backpack was missing.  I thought about how angry that would have made me.  I thought about the frustration and resentment I surely would have felt towards my son that no doubt would have snaked its way out of my mouth, lecturing and probably shaming him for being so forgetful.

Ugh.  I’ve said it before and I will keep saying it — motherhood is humbling. I got to feel like a hero tonight and tomorrow morning when my boy finds his favorite stuffed rooster, he will think I am a hero, too.  But, in my gut, I will know the truth, that the flip side of that hero coin is a yelling, overwhelmed, angry and imperfect mom.

I am both those things and my mothering could go either way at any given moment. Tonight it worked out for the best.  On another night, it might not.  The next time I find myself angry and frustrated, resentful towards an eight year old boy for committing the heinous crime of forgetting, I hope I remember that muddy backpack and stuffed rooster.  I hope I remember the tenderness I felt towards a sad boy worried about his missing friend who just happened to be a stuffed rooster.  I hope I remember that how I react is about me and not my son.  I hope I can be a hero more often than not.