I am 44 years old. I have grey in my beard and, if you look closely, there is grey in my hair as well. (But don’t look closely, okay?) My wife and I just celebrated seventeen years of marriage and though there have been times our marriage was running on fumes, right now it feels pretty full. As for my kids, only one of them is actually a kid. My oldest will be getting her driver’s permit this month (Lord willing). My twelve-year-old keeps saying with frustration in her voice, “Why aren’t you treating me like a twelve-year-old?” I think she thinks turning twelve has some significance because next year she’ll be a teenager. To me it is just the last year before I have to deal with teenage politics. My youngest is ten. She is still a kid and she’s okay with being treated like a kid.
The other day I picked up my oldest from school. and we had a little time together as we drove home. Now, I have noticed “windows of opportunity” in our relationship that appear for a moment and then disappear quickly. Most of the time she is just not interested in what I have to say or what I am thinking. She usually has AirPods in, or is Face-timing with her friend, or saying some new phrase I don’t know the full meaning of. (I’m pretty sure she doesn’t know the full meaning either, so she is trying it out on me before trying it on her friends.) But on this day, as we were driving, I sensed the “window” opening. I can’t remember what brought it on. I think I said something funny, and then, she actually laughed. Then, I quickly threw in a question about her day or something. Shockingly, she answered without a smirk or a humph.
I knew something strange and precious was happening. Sad to say, I was immediately flooded with a million different things I want her to work on. “You need to work harder on your school work.” “We could use more help with cleaning around the house.” “I need to tell you about the dopamine hits you get from your phone and what they are doing to your brain.” I was amazed at how many of those babies were locked and loaded in my brain as she answered the question I had just asked. But as I was about to fire away, another thought came into my head: Do you really want to squander this open window with all of that? Part of me said “yes,” but the better part of me said “…maybe–?”
Instead of the onslaught, I told her how awesome I thought it was when a friend’s family came to her because they were dealing with something sad. They, the parents included, knew my daughter is good at comfort. When I said this to her, she answered back saying, “Dad, that happens all the time.” She told me about other friends and younger people she knows who come to her with hard things they are dealing with. I wasn’t surprised, but I was delighted. After hearing the different stories, I told her she is just like a pastor. I explained that a pastor is someone who sits with people in their pain and helps them through their struggles. I told her it seems like God has made her good at empathy and being a protector of people, which is a lot like Jesus.
I could see her mind chewing on that a bit, and her heart feeling a little more confident, and identity settling in. I could see her receiving my love and maybe even the love of Jesus. And…I could see the window closing, so I jammed in a whole bunch of things she should be doing. (Just kidding.)
What actually happened was I no longer saw her as someone who doesn’t pull enough weight or work hard enough at school. Yes, we need to train our children and at times bring correction; but it is easy for me to see what needs to be corrected and hard for me to see what is good. On this day, however, our conversation helped me see her as someone who is on her way to becoming an awesome adult. And we could sure use some more of those these days.
God bless you and yours,
David