You Didn't Miss It!
May 13, 2018
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“I wish I had spent more time with you kids."
I cannot tell you how many times I heard that throughout my lifetime. As my mom would say, “If I had a nickel for every time I’ve heard that, I’d be rich.”
When I was a little girl, my mom would also say things like, “I wish I could put a brick on your head to stop you from growing.”
As a child I certainly didn’t understand why, because the goal of every kid is to grow up, right?
As I grew into my adult years, my mom continued to say, “I wish I had spent more time with you kids.”
A little bit of background information about Mom…
My mom worked hard. She came from a family of eight children, and she was expected to do her part, cooking, cleaning, and doing laundry (and I do not mean throwing it into a washing machine…I mean a tub of soapy water and a washboard). She also helped out with the younger children when needed. Mom was a worker and knew how to get things done.
After getting married, my mom became an elementary school teacher in Tennessee. She LOVED teaching. However, my mom became pregnant with Clark about five months after she was married. Back in 1964 in Nashville, Tennessee, if you started ‘showing’ you had to leave the classroom.
Yes. If you started showing as a married pregnant woman in 1964, you had to leave the classroom. Oh my!
Since my mom couldn’t work as a teacher for the remainder of her pregnancy, my dad decided that they should move back to Indiana. He was going to open his own restaurant business there. My mom was going to take some classes to work on her Master’s Degree and get her certification to teach in Indiana.
But the Educational Testing Service (ETS) lost her scores. They had no record that my mom had ever taken the Graduate Record Exam (GRE). She was devastated.
My dad had wanted my mom to join him and help run the business anyway, so he asked her to give up her educational pursuits and work with him.
Broken-hearted at the loss of her scores and feeling like she should support her husband, she jumped in and spent the next 20+ years working by my dad’s side.
Mom was not your typical employee. She was a worker, and she worked day and night. In fact, when my brother was born, she took a very short amount of time off and came back to work.
And, she wasn’t paid. Dad was not very interested in thinking about the future, so he did not worry about Social Security or retirement. If the business did well, then they did well.
I want to pause here to say that I love my dad. He taught me a lot, and I will write more about that on Father’s Day. But even though I love him dearly, planning for the future was not his strong suit, at least not in the early years.
While my mom ‘worked like a dog’ (a phrase she often used), my brother and I would play together, possibly help out around the restaurant, or do things independently such as read. I never remember feeling resentful or not being with Mom, I just remember having fun or getting to hang out with my big brother who was my hero growing up.
However, my mom longed to spend more time with us. And, when a 12 - 14 hour workday was over, she would be so tired. And now, we know that she did all of this with a faulty heart valve. Her heart was working so much harder than the average person’s. She was drained at the end of every day.
And, of course, Clark and I grew at the very rapid rate that most children do, so it makes perfect sense that she always said, “I wish I had spent more time with you kids.”
In my adult years, the phrase really started to bother me. I sometimes didn’t have the compassion I should have had. For some reason the phrase really struck me in the wrong way.
Why? I’m not sure.
Maybe it was the fact that I enjoyed a lot of my childhood and it put a negative tone on it.
Maybe I just wondered why my mom didn’t just tell Dad, “Leo, I’m going to spend more time with the kids.”
As an extremely independent child who was also the baby of the family, I tended to think that you could choose any path that you want. I didn’t realize the hard realities that my mom and my brother endured while growing up. My brother was 5 years older than me and had, what, I think, was a very different childhood than me.
The bottom line, I grew to resent the statement, “I wish I had spent more time with you kids.” In fact, I remember one day thinking; “I will never say that to my kids.”
It became a mission for me. I was bent on spending as much time with my kids as I possibly could and living with no regrets.
When we moved to Korea, I was able to spend every other morning with them (I taught part-time as a dorm mom), and I spent every afternoon with them. We went ‘on duty’ in the evening as dorm parents, but I still spent time on-and-off throughout the evenings with the kids, and we made them part of our dorm life, including our kids in the dorm devotion time, special outings, and dorm dinner (a meal that we and our wonderful Resident Assistants took turns preparing each week).
I went to every school event and celebrated every birthday in a huge way. We had a theme party for the twins’ birthdays, and Larry and I made sure it was extra special with theme-related games and/or props. I baked every cake from scratch and decorated them according to the theme.
We even had an indoor pool party in our upstairs bedroom in Kindergarten…their birthday is in late November, and it is pretty cold in Korea at that time of year, but we invited the entire class over for the party. It was awesome, but I don’t think we ever invited the entire class again!
When the kids entered fourth grade, Larry and I made a decision to move school-side, because, at night, when I would get ready to put the kids to bed and read to them and pray with them, something would come up in the dorm that needed my attention. I had started having to make choice between my kids and my dorm girls.
I loved both, and I will always treasure my time in the dorm, but it became difficult to decide between putting my own children to bed or rushing to the aid of a crying girl at my door.
And, God was doing some other really cool stuff in our lives that nudged us to move ‘school-side’. That’s a long story for another time, but it became clear that we were supposed to move out of the dorm and back into full-time teaching for me and dorm administration for Larry.
So, in my quest to spend time with my own children and to follow God’s plan, we moved school-side, but…I also promised to complete a dorm program self-study.
For anyone in the education world, the term ‘self-study’ conjures up crazy number of hours, huge reports, and countless rewrites. It’s a huge task.
Oh, and I would be going school-side to pick up a maternity leave role that included five International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma Programme (DP) classes, three of which were at the higher level.
At that time, four IB DP classes were considered a full-time load. Not only would I be adjusting to returning to full-time teaching (and a missed a LOT of what was going on in the education world while I was in the dorm), I would also be learning the higher level course and what it included, chairing the self-study for the dorm program, and take on an extra class. Why not?
That year was beyond what I imagined. I would rush to school, teach throughout the day, help students after school, race home with the kids, eat dinner, and then say, “Okay, Twins, go do your homework and Mommy will do her homework.” It was one year that I can say I did not do well with my ‘No Regrets’ mantra that I had coined for myself.
That year caused me to pause and reflect.
“I wish I had spent more time with you kids.”
That phrase came back to me. I realized that I was headed down a path that would I would one day regret.
The next year, I took on a much lighter load, and my kids’ last year of elementary was awesome! We actually talk about many memories from our rides home together and the fun moments we shared that year.
Middle school came, and I committed to being there for my kids. I was given a lot of Godly advice throughout my time as a parent, and I will be sharing some of those things in some posts after Christian and Mackenzie graduate.
Throughout Middle School and High School, I had so many great moments with my kids because there were so many moments. Not only did we do the ‘quality time’ that became popular during my kid’s childhood, but we spent a great ‘quantity’ of time together, as well. I had a teacher tell me one time that the statement about quality time being more important than quantity of time is a myth, and I’ve read similar statements elsewhere. I’m glad that myth got busted!
It is important to intentionally plan quality time/experiences, but I find that some of the best moments come from ‘regular moments’. In fact, a few weeks ago, I took a picture of Christian and Mackenzie standing in the hallway in between classes, because I wanted to capture a ‘regular moment’. Being with Christian and Mackenzie is such a joy, and, as I’ve said before, I will treasure every minute with them.
As the kids continued to grow, I began to look at my mom’s phrase a little differently. I realized that while she was regretting the past, she was also teaching me. She did not want me to make the same mistakes she did.
It’s hard for me to express here without going into a lot of detail, but I realized in my later adult life, that by my mom talking to me about many things that she regretted, she was helping me understand what not to do. I learned so much from her this way.
I also realized that I needed to tell her that and that I needed to tell her what I remembered from my childhood.
So, in her final years, I told her quite often:
Mom, I remember having a really good childhood. While my other friends might have been playing outside, I remember going to work at the pizza shop with you. I remember doing dishes and getting a half-dollar for my hard work. I remember getting to help make our family pizza and thinking it was really cool that my parents owned a pizza shop.
And, when friends of our family came in to pick up their pizzas, you would let me ring it up on the cash register and make the change (which I LOVED…I thought it was so fun to count money).
I learned things from watching you and Dad run a business. I learned how to play pool from my big brother and occasionally beat him at pinball or air hockey. I could NEVER beat him at foosball…that’s his game. Oh, and I think I beat him at pool once.
I remember learning to roller skate outside the pizza shop and riding my bike around the neighborhood.
I remember you bringing us home after a very long day at work, making us hot cocoa, and cuddling with us on a cold winter’s night.
I remember you taking me to church and Sunday school even though you were tired from working late on Saturday nights.
I also remember you baking me a cake until I was old enough to learn how to bake…which you spent time teaching me how to do. And then I wanted to make my own cake, because I thought it was fun.
I remember you hugging me often and telling me you loved me. In fact, I think I’m a hugger, because you were so affectionate with me.
I remember being with you, Mom. So even though we would all want more time, you didn’t miss it!
And, thanks to you, I can say one week and two days before my own children’s graduation, I didn’t miss their childhood! I soaked up every moment, and I loved them the way that you loved me. And, the moments we were together were so precious and special.
Mom, even though you worked so hard and were so busy, Clark said to me after you passed away, “We are so blessed that we got to have her as our mom.”
So, Mom, on this first Mother’s Day without you here on Earth, we hope you know that we are so grateful for you, and we would not have wanted any other mom in the universe. You are the mom God had for us, and you didn’t miss it. You were there for us, and we are so thankful.
We love you forever, Mom!
Heavenly Father, thank you for the gift of moms. They are so precious. They are a tangible form of your love here on Earth. May we always remember those amazing moments with our moms, and may we, as moms, cherish our children and the moments we get to spend with them. And, if we didn’t have the childhood we would have wanted, help us to learn from that and to make our own children’s lives filled with happy memories, and most importantly, with Your truth and Your love, God.
Happy Mother’s Day to all moms and those who have been mother-like figures in mine and other’s lives!
I cannot tell you how many times I heard that throughout my lifetime. As my mom would say, “If I had a nickel for every time I’ve heard that, I’d be rich.”
When I was a little girl, my mom would also say things like, “I wish I could put a brick on your head to stop you from growing.”
As a child I certainly didn’t understand why, because the goal of every kid is to grow up, right?
As I grew into my adult years, my mom continued to say, “I wish I had spent more time with you kids.”
A little bit of background information about Mom…
My mom worked hard. She came from a family of eight children, and she was expected to do her part, cooking, cleaning, and doing laundry (and I do not mean throwing it into a washing machine…I mean a tub of soapy water and a washboard). She also helped out with the younger children when needed. Mom was a worker and knew how to get things done.
After getting married, my mom became an elementary school teacher in Tennessee. She LOVED teaching. However, my mom became pregnant with Clark about five months after she was married. Back in 1964 in Nashville, Tennessee, if you started ‘showing’ you had to leave the classroom.
Yes. If you started showing as a married pregnant woman in 1964, you had to leave the classroom. Oh my!
Since my mom couldn’t work as a teacher for the remainder of her pregnancy, my dad decided that they should move back to Indiana. He was going to open his own restaurant business there. My mom was going to take some classes to work on her Master’s Degree and get her certification to teach in Indiana.
But the Educational Testing Service (ETS) lost her scores. They had no record that my mom had ever taken the Graduate Record Exam (GRE). She was devastated.
My dad had wanted my mom to join him and help run the business anyway, so he asked her to give up her educational pursuits and work with him.
Broken-hearted at the loss of her scores and feeling like she should support her husband, she jumped in and spent the next 20+ years working by my dad’s side.
Mom was not your typical employee. She was a worker, and she worked day and night. In fact, when my brother was born, she took a very short amount of time off and came back to work.
And, she wasn’t paid. Dad was not very interested in thinking about the future, so he did not worry about Social Security or retirement. If the business did well, then they did well.
I want to pause here to say that I love my dad. He taught me a lot, and I will write more about that on Father’s Day. But even though I love him dearly, planning for the future was not his strong suit, at least not in the early years.
While my mom ‘worked like a dog’ (a phrase she often used), my brother and I would play together, possibly help out around the restaurant, or do things independently such as read. I never remember feeling resentful or not being with Mom, I just remember having fun or getting to hang out with my big brother who was my hero growing up.
However, my mom longed to spend more time with us. And, when a 12 - 14 hour workday was over, she would be so tired. And now, we know that she did all of this with a faulty heart valve. Her heart was working so much harder than the average person’s. She was drained at the end of every day.
And, of course, Clark and I grew at the very rapid rate that most children do, so it makes perfect sense that she always said, “I wish I had spent more time with you kids.”
In my adult years, the phrase really started to bother me. I sometimes didn’t have the compassion I should have had. For some reason the phrase really struck me in the wrong way.
Why? I’m not sure.
Maybe it was the fact that I enjoyed a lot of my childhood and it put a negative tone on it.
Maybe I just wondered why my mom didn’t just tell Dad, “Leo, I’m going to spend more time with the kids.”
As an extremely independent child who was also the baby of the family, I tended to think that you could choose any path that you want. I didn’t realize the hard realities that my mom and my brother endured while growing up. My brother was 5 years older than me and had, what, I think, was a very different childhood than me.
The bottom line, I grew to resent the statement, “I wish I had spent more time with you kids.” In fact, I remember one day thinking; “I will never say that to my kids.”
It became a mission for me. I was bent on spending as much time with my kids as I possibly could and living with no regrets.
When we moved to Korea, I was able to spend every other morning with them (I taught part-time as a dorm mom), and I spent every afternoon with them. We went ‘on duty’ in the evening as dorm parents, but I still spent time on-and-off throughout the evenings with the kids, and we made them part of our dorm life, including our kids in the dorm devotion time, special outings, and dorm dinner (a meal that we and our wonderful Resident Assistants took turns preparing each week).
I went to every school event and celebrated every birthday in a huge way. We had a theme party for the twins’ birthdays, and Larry and I made sure it was extra special with theme-related games and/or props. I baked every cake from scratch and decorated them according to the theme.
We even had an indoor pool party in our upstairs bedroom in Kindergarten…their birthday is in late November, and it is pretty cold in Korea at that time of year, but we invited the entire class over for the party. It was awesome, but I don’t think we ever invited the entire class again!
When the kids entered fourth grade, Larry and I made a decision to move school-side, because, at night, when I would get ready to put the kids to bed and read to them and pray with them, something would come up in the dorm that needed my attention. I had started having to make choice between my kids and my dorm girls.
I loved both, and I will always treasure my time in the dorm, but it became difficult to decide between putting my own children to bed or rushing to the aid of a crying girl at my door.
And, God was doing some other really cool stuff in our lives that nudged us to move ‘school-side’. That’s a long story for another time, but it became clear that we were supposed to move out of the dorm and back into full-time teaching for me and dorm administration for Larry.
So, in my quest to spend time with my own children and to follow God’s plan, we moved school-side, but…I also promised to complete a dorm program self-study.
For anyone in the education world, the term ‘self-study’ conjures up crazy number of hours, huge reports, and countless rewrites. It’s a huge task.
Oh, and I would be going school-side to pick up a maternity leave role that included five International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma Programme (DP) classes, three of which were at the higher level.
At that time, four IB DP classes were considered a full-time load. Not only would I be adjusting to returning to full-time teaching (and a missed a LOT of what was going on in the education world while I was in the dorm), I would also be learning the higher level course and what it included, chairing the self-study for the dorm program, and take on an extra class. Why not?
That year was beyond what I imagined. I would rush to school, teach throughout the day, help students after school, race home with the kids, eat dinner, and then say, “Okay, Twins, go do your homework and Mommy will do her homework.” It was one year that I can say I did not do well with my ‘No Regrets’ mantra that I had coined for myself.
That year caused me to pause and reflect.
“I wish I had spent more time with you kids.”
That phrase came back to me. I realized that I was headed down a path that would I would one day regret.
The next year, I took on a much lighter load, and my kids’ last year of elementary was awesome! We actually talk about many memories from our rides home together and the fun moments we shared that year.
Middle school came, and I committed to being there for my kids. I was given a lot of Godly advice throughout my time as a parent, and I will be sharing some of those things in some posts after Christian and Mackenzie graduate.
Throughout Middle School and High School, I had so many great moments with my kids because there were so many moments. Not only did we do the ‘quality time’ that became popular during my kid’s childhood, but we spent a great ‘quantity’ of time together, as well. I had a teacher tell me one time that the statement about quality time being more important than quantity of time is a myth, and I’ve read similar statements elsewhere. I’m glad that myth got busted!
It is important to intentionally plan quality time/experiences, but I find that some of the best moments come from ‘regular moments’. In fact, a few weeks ago, I took a picture of Christian and Mackenzie standing in the hallway in between classes, because I wanted to capture a ‘regular moment’. Being with Christian and Mackenzie is such a joy, and, as I’ve said before, I will treasure every minute with them.
As the kids continued to grow, I began to look at my mom’s phrase a little differently. I realized that while she was regretting the past, she was also teaching me. She did not want me to make the same mistakes she did.
It’s hard for me to express here without going into a lot of detail, but I realized in my later adult life, that by my mom talking to me about many things that she regretted, she was helping me understand what not to do. I learned so much from her this way.
I also realized that I needed to tell her that and that I needed to tell her what I remembered from my childhood.
So, in her final years, I told her quite often:
Mom, I remember having a really good childhood. While my other friends might have been playing outside, I remember going to work at the pizza shop with you. I remember doing dishes and getting a half-dollar for my hard work. I remember getting to help make our family pizza and thinking it was really cool that my parents owned a pizza shop.
And, when friends of our family came in to pick up their pizzas, you would let me ring it up on the cash register and make the change (which I LOVED…I thought it was so fun to count money).
I learned things from watching you and Dad run a business. I learned how to play pool from my big brother and occasionally beat him at pinball or air hockey. I could NEVER beat him at foosball…that’s his game. Oh, and I think I beat him at pool once.
I remember learning to roller skate outside the pizza shop and riding my bike around the neighborhood.
I remember you bringing us home after a very long day at work, making us hot cocoa, and cuddling with us on a cold winter’s night.
I remember you taking me to church and Sunday school even though you were tired from working late on Saturday nights.
I also remember you baking me a cake until I was old enough to learn how to bake…which you spent time teaching me how to do. And then I wanted to make my own cake, because I thought it was fun.
I remember you hugging me often and telling me you loved me. In fact, I think I’m a hugger, because you were so affectionate with me.
I remember being with you, Mom. So even though we would all want more time, you didn’t miss it!
And, thanks to you, I can say one week and two days before my own children’s graduation, I didn’t miss their childhood! I soaked up every moment, and I loved them the way that you loved me. And, the moments we were together were so precious and special.
Mom, even though you worked so hard and were so busy, Clark said to me after you passed away, “We are so blessed that we got to have her as our mom.”
So, Mom, on this first Mother’s Day without you here on Earth, we hope you know that we are so grateful for you, and we would not have wanted any other mom in the universe. You are the mom God had for us, and you didn’t miss it. You were there for us, and we are so thankful.
We love you forever, Mom!
Heavenly Father, thank you for the gift of moms. They are so precious. They are a tangible form of your love here on Earth. May we always remember those amazing moments with our moms, and may we, as moms, cherish our children and the moments we get to spend with them. And, if we didn’t have the childhood we would have wanted, help us to learn from that and to make our own children’s lives filled with happy memories, and most importantly, with Your truth and Your love, God.
Happy Mother’s Day to all moms and those who have been mother-like figures in mine and other’s lives!