Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it. Proverbs 22:6
I love being a mom. It is challenging, fun, frightening, always changing, and never boring. I learn something new everyday. Some days, I feel like a failure. I go to bed wishing for a do-over, but I always wake up the next morning to happy smiles that let me know the let-downs of yesterday have already been forgotten.
I’m pretty sure that my kids love me too. I know this, because I am NEVER alone. If I walk into the breezeway to get something out of the freezer, I hear my name being SCREAMED, because I have dared to leave the room. If I go to the bathroom, I know that I have approximately 90 seconds of privacy before someone figures out where I am and comes to find me. Walking to the mailbox I have “friends.” Making dinner, I have “helpers”…I think you get the point.
Let me say it again…I LOVE being a mom; and I truly love spending time with my children. I joke about their smothering love at times, but I am blessed that they want to be around me. This week, my eyes were opened to how truly important our time together is; and the influence my seemingly mundane actions have on them.
I enjoy exercising. Like every other part of my day, when I head downstairs to workout, I’m often follow by one or two shadows. On this day, my daughter wanted to join me. I ran a mile or so on the treadmill; after I was finished, she asked to get on- in her sparkly dress boots, I should add. Next, I decided to do some abdominal exercises, and she was right there with me. Every part of my workout, she was there. Right. THERE. After a while, it became a bit of a frustration, because I felt that she was slowing me down. Then she said something that stopped me in my tracks. As I was finishing a set, Lydia picked up the resistance bands I just laid down and said to me, “Mom, I’ll do the same thing you do”, and began to mimic the exercise she just watched me perform. I felt, simultaneous guilt and determination. I was trying to focus on my workout, praying that she would get bored and go find something else to do. I was getting irritated with her persistence to stay with me. She was watching me. She was wanting to be like me. She was patterning her performance after me.
As parents, how often do we take for granted the influence we have over our children? I was reminded this week that they are always watching, and their heart’s desire is to be like us. A desire, matched only by their want to please us with their efforts. My desire, is that everything I do, matches the words that I say to them. That my actions reinforce the character traits that I strive to instill in them. That I begin to see, even the mundane activities as an opportunity to teach them.
God, help me to be ever mindful of the fact, that when my children see what I am doing their response will often be, “Mom, I’ll do the same thing you do.”
Backseat Conversations 