I had a rough parenting moment today. I was trying to get a resistant Lanie out the door so we could go grocery shopping when I remembered that I needed to take her to the bathroom to let her try to go potty. Since this was her first trip to the bathroom after her nap, I figured her pull-up would be wet, so I helped her pull her pants all the way off. Next the pull-up came down, but when it hit the floor I realized it was full of poop. How could there be poop? That didn't make any sense. She'd already pooped in the morning, and she hadn't said anything to me. She always seems to tell us when she poops. Before I could react, Lanie had already put her right sock into the poop. There was also poop on the floor, poop on Lanie's legs, poop on her bottom. With a groan I whisked Lanie over to the toilet and sternly growled at her, "Don't move." My frustration was growing by the second. Leaving the house was already taking too long before we entered the bathroom. Now I had a huge mess to clean up. As I set about the complicated task of disinfecting everything, Lanie, confused and cold and probably a bit scared by my quick and not-so-gentle movements, started crying. Exasperated, I told Lanie she was fine. She kept crying. I felt like I couldn't take it anymore. "Stop crying!" I snapped. Lanie recoiled in shock. "O-o-okay" she stammered through sobs. Immediately I realized how wrong I'd been. My poor daughter was in tears over an accident, but rather than comforting her, I yelled at her. I was a terrible father.
I wish I could say that this was the first time something like this happened, but it isn't. In a lot of ways parenting is like holding a mirror up to yourself. I see a fair amount of myself in Lanie, but even more than that my interactions with her help me see what kind of person I am. Over and over again I'm appalled at the reflections I see. I'm impatient. I'm easily distracted and often not fully present. I'm selfish and insensitive. I become angry or frustrated too quickly and struggle to respond well to those kinds of emotions. Lanie certainly isn't perfect, but she's really not a very difficult child. Yet again and again I fail her by being inattentive or crabby or just too tired or stressed. When I see myself reflected in Lanie, it's hard for me to think anything other than that I'm a poor father. As a parent I see all of my worst characteristics, all of my most terrible shortcomings and misdeeds. It scares me. This poor girl and at least one more child will have to deal with me as their father. Tess has to put with me as her husband. A whole group of people is enduring me as their pastor. Me! I wish I was a better person for the sake of Lanie and Tess and everyone else. But my personal growth never comes as quickly as I'd like. Sometimes I worry that I've stopped progressing altogether. If parenting has taught me anything it's how incredibly imperfect and broken I am. I need to do a lot of apologizing and making up for my wrongs. I need to ask God for a lot of grace, both when it comes to forgiveness for past sins and when it comes to help to keep me from harming others more in the future. The truth is that I'm a mess. I suppose I could be even worse than I am, but I don't find that very comforting. It's so much easier for me to see all the many ways I could be much, much better.
Grace and peace,
BMH
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