A Lenten Devotion by Willie Sordillo
You show love to thousands but bring the punishment for the parents’ sins into the laps of their children after them.
Jeremiah 32:18
When it comes to intergenerational relationships, the sweepstakes winner, the Big Cahuna, the World Series, the jackpot round, the Ten Million Dollar Question, the elephant in the room- is the relationship between parents and their children. No other relationship is so fraught with resentment and gratitude, anguish and joy, shame and pride, and love at once hard won and unconditional.
Most of us who become parents enter into it at an age where we’re able to appreciate a good deal of what our parents did for us, including an understanding of the wisdom behind some parental decisions which felt outrageously wrong at the time. We look eagerly to the start of our turn to be the nurturer and guide, knowing what we want to carry forward from the way we were parented, and armed with a list of things said and done to us that we know we will never do or say to our kids, most of which we will do or say within the first year or two of their lives. We leap into parenting with a charmingly naïve idea of what we’re getting ourselves into, carrying blissful notions of the innocence of children, our ability to protect our children from the ugliest human behavior, and of the reach of our influence.
Lest I sound overly negative, let me say here that despite or perhaps because of this complexity, there is nothing in this life that I value more than my relationship with my daughter. Nothing. Here, on the other side of childhood, my daughter is a college graduate with a good job, living on her own in a town close enough that she drops over with some regularity and phones in with great frequency; I can almost forget how hard it was at times to get to this place, recalling events, but not conjuring up the feelings that went with some of them- except the love that undergirded all of it. A friend once told me that the morning after screaming her way through natural childbirth she couldn’t remember the pain- I don’t know if that’s always the case, but I think it’s a good description of what I’m talking about.
Parenting is difficult for a million reasons, but perhaps most because it challenges us to deal with things we may not like about ourselves. By the time I approached parenthood, I not only thought I had done the work I needed to get my act together, dealing with my demons and defects, but I had years of experience working with kids as a teacher and spending time with the children of friends. And I felt ready, having waited until my forties, giving me time to have other experiences which conflicted with parenting, and to find a partner whom I felt committed to and trusted enough to take this on with.
Of course, thinking one has one’s act together is the surest sign that one doesn’t, and parenting brought home to me the fact that all of those things I thought I had dealt with were still there, dormant, awaiting the stimulus to come out of hiding and make me face them once again. Only this time, the consequences were far greater, as they could have an impact on the young life developing before me. I was not happy about this, but I am grateful for the work it made me do. Like childbirth, a painful gift, but a great one.
When Nina was young, she loved to play school, setting up a classroom, complete with the overhead projector she asked for one Christmas, and acting as the teacher for a group of dolls, or, when possible, willing friends or parents. She was a hard taskmaster. On one occasion, however, I was able to convince her to allow me to be the teacher. I asked her to read a story aloud and then asked what she thought the main message of the story was. Without hesitation, she correctly answered, “Never give up on someone.” I was impressed that she’d seen it so clearly, and I understood it as a message from her to me. It’s a lesson I’ve tried to remember as I continue to try to get my act together. Like childbirth, that’s something I don’t expect I’ll ever experience. It’s worth a try though.
Forgiving God, help us remain humble enough to allow our children to be our teachers, even as we teach them. And help us to forgive ourselves for our imperfections and the mistakes we make along the way, passing our frailties along with our wisdom to those whose growth is entrusted to us. Amen