Opinions

One of the unexpected gifts of motherhood is that I gain a depth of knowledge when I am teaching my children new things. I was an education major in college, so I know there's some truth to this idea.

I had this realization as I was dropping my kids off at AWANA tonight. It's always a tumultuous time. I never start getting them ready early enough, so there's a mad scramble to put on vests, coats, socks, boots, etc. It was no different tonight except that I added a dimension--I wanted Bekah to brush her own hair.

She and I have gone rounds over her hair. My mother would say it's payback, I'm sure, for all of the struggles she and I had about my hair. I even convinced Bekah to cut her hair short so that it wouldn't be so difficult to brush. I have tried every product imaginable to detangle it, with very few appreciable results. In the end, I have chosen to task Bekah with brushing her own hair.

She actually does a decent job at it, if I give her enough space and time to do it. She usually misses a tangle here or there but overall it ends up looking less like a robin's nest than when she started.

The problem tonight was that neither of my kids are good at "hurrying up." They have two speeds--continental drift and glacial drift. Telling them to hurry seems to be counterproductive as they downshift rather than trying to be faster. There's no amount of cajoling, yelling, screaming, threatening, etc., that gets them to move in regular speed. I know, then, that the only real solution is to start getting ready sooner but time management is not my strong suit.

In addition, they choose critical times to add to the toy load in my van. I assure you, to anyone passing by my van it must look like I'm homeless. I have a bag of dog food, two strollers, two booster seats (tried to give them to Savers today but they won't take them), various DVDs, grocery bags (canvas and plastic), food items, sippy cups, etc., strewn all over my van. I try, on a weekly basis, to throw out any miscellaneous papers, food wrappers, cups, etc. It doesn't seem like I do but I really do.

So when we are in a hurry and they insist on bringing random toys with them, I kind of lose it. I gave them a choice tonight-either the stuffed animals they had picked or no AWANA. I was not going to even allow them to bring the animals to the van (because I knew there would be an argument at AWANA about taking the animals with them into the church).

Needless to say I forgot that Bekah had her Fur Real Bunny named Book Book in the van already. When we got to AWANA she did try to bring Book Book with her (that's the bunny's name--Book Book). I told her that she was not allowed to bring Book Book with her, that Book Book needed to stay in the car.

Then the verbal assault started. It's a new weapon in her arsenal lately. She starts saying the meanest things she can think of, which are sometimes funnier than mean. She has frequently told us that she doesn't want to play with us in the morning, that I'm not her mother, that I'm not nice, that I'm not beautiful, etc. She accompanies these statements with crossing her arms, furrowing her brow and turning her back towards me.

She threw a few of those statements at me tonight. When she told me I wasn't beautiful, I had an epiphany. I told her, "just because that's your opinion doesn't mean it's true." What occured to me is that this is true of all opinions from all people, not just from my grumpy 4-year-old.

You see, I have struggled my whole life with other people's opinions. Whether it was Jeremiah and Kevin in grade school, Ivan in middle school or Dustin in high school, I have allowed other people's opinions about me to shape what I thought about myself. For reasons I don't quite understand, I have allowed other people to define me. I am sure that countless adults, guidance counselors and therapists tried to combat this flaw but it wasn't until tonight that it all clicked into place.

There is such freedom in finally realizing that, really, the only opinion about which I should be concerned is God's and then my own (in that order). Most of the time, even my opinion about myself is not great. I have been devestated, even as an adult, by some random person's assessment of either myself or my family. I have literally spent days combatting what they said, picking apart their criticism and having mock fights with them in my head.

I can assure you, the offending party was not reciprocating. While I poorly spent that energy, they were carrying on with life as if nothing had happened. For them, unloading the opinion or criticism on me was the end of it; for me, it was just the start.

When Bekah told me tonight that I wasn't beautiful I didn't feel bad, I didn't flinch, I didn't internalize what she said. I don't believe I'm empirically more or less beautiful, funny, charming, articulate, etc., because of someone else's words. Those are all characteristics that were given to me by God; therefore, they cannot be taken away by man.

I'm going to need to remember this in the coming months, as I get ready to publish my book. Everyone's a critic, but no one will be able to take away from me that I published a book. People will be allowed to say whatever they want--I'll just need to remember to say, "just because that's your opinion doesn't mean it's true."