A Little Advice - MULTIPLYING - Summary of Carry On, Warrior: The Power of Embracing Your Messy, Beautiful Life - Book Summary

Summary of Carry On, Warrior: The Power of Embracing Your Messy, Beautiful Life - Book Summary (2016)

Part III. MULTIPLYING

Chapter 20. A Little Advice

I don’t believe in advice. Everybody has the answers right inside her, since we’re all made up of the same amount of God. So when a friend says, I need some advice, I switch it to, I need some love, and I try to offer that. Offering love usually looks like being quiet, listening hard, and letting my friend talk until she discovers that she already has the answers. Since I don’t offer advice, Craig and I find it funny that people ask me for it every single day. Craig once asked what I make of that, and I told him that I think friends ask me for advice because they know I won’t offer any. People need a safe place and some time to discover what they already know. So I just try to hold space and time for folks.

Recently, a dear friend called during a very hard day. She had made a parenting mistake. A parenting mistake is doing something opposed to what you believe is best for your children. I have a friend who is very health conscious and would call four frozen pizzas a horrible mistake, while I just call it dinner. Parenting mistakes are different for each mama. So when a friend tells me she made a mistake, I don’t measure it against my beliefs and say: OH PUH-LEASE. THAT’S NOT A MISTAKE. I’LL TELL YOU WHAT A MISTAKE IS, MISSY. Competing about who’s the worst is as much of a drag as competing about who’s the best.

In this particular case, my friend had become tired and hopeless and spanked her child. She considered this a mistake because she doesn’t believe in spanking. Please, baby Jesus, let us not debate the spanking issue. It’s a mistake for some and not for others. This particular friend, who is as precious as water in a desert, was devastated. She asked me for advice. I immediately switched that to a request for love.

I told her what I do when I make a big or little parenting mistake, which is several hundred times a day. I try to remember two things:

#1. Who I am

#2. My most important parenting job

First, I remember that I am a human being, and human beings make mistakes. Almost constantly. We fall short of what we aim for, always. We get impatient. We get angry. We get selfish. We get extremely sick and tired of playing pet store. That’s okay. It’s just the way it is. We’re human. Can’t fight it. Elephants gotta be elephants and people gotta be people.

Then I remember what my most important parenting job is, and that is to teach my children how to deal with being human. Because most likely, that’s where they’re headed. No matter what I do, they’re headed toward being messed-up humans faster than three brakeless railroad cars.

There is really only one way to deal gracefully with being human, and that is this:

Forgive yourself.

It’s not a once-and-for-all thing, self-forgiveness. It’s more like a constant attitude. It’s just being hopeful. It’s refusing to hold your breath. It’s loving yourself enough to offer yourself a million more tries. It’s what we want our kids to do every day for their whole lives, right? We want them to embrace being human instead of fighting against it. We want them to offer themselves grace. Forgiveness and grace are like oxygen: we can’t offer it to others unless we put our masks on first. We have to put our grace masks on and breathe in deep. We have to show them how it’s done. We need to love ourselves if we want our kids to love themselves. We don’t necessarily have to love them more; we have to love ourselves more. We have to be gentle with ourselves. We have to forgive ourselves and then … oh my goodness … find ourselves sort of awesome, actually, considering the freaking circumstances.

A parenting magazine recently asked me to write an advice column for them. About what? I asked. About raising happier kids, they answered. Jeeeeez, I said. I don’t know. I think the kids are all right. I’d rather help make mamashappier.

It’s a good point, they said.

I just want us to remember that when we became parents, we didn’t change species. We’re still humans. I mean, we’re bad-ass humans, for sure, but humans nonetheless. We make mistakes, all day, and that’s good. We want our children to see that. We want them to learn how to handle mistakes because that’s an important thing to learn. We expect to make mistakes, we say we’re sorry, we forgive ourselves, we shrug and smile, and we try again.

Repeat.

Repeat.

Repeat.

Parenthood and God are Forever Tries.