Bloom where you’re planted

How do we teach our children to love in a world where our hearts are breaking?

We don’t choose our children, our parents, or how we are brought into this world. Nature vs. Nurture. An easy baby, a difficult baby, a healthy child, a child whose life will be more difficult than anyone’s should be, a growing child, an aging child, a child on this earth, a child who only briefly made an appearance in the womb, a surprise child, a planned child, an unwanted child, a joyfully discovered and welcomed child. Are they easy or do we just get along with them? Do they blindly trust us, or do they see us beyond our role to them? Do they look like us, or has time simply taught them to make our same expressions? An eyebrow that raises, a far-away gaze, a mouth that only smiles on one side.

And also our children do not choose us. Do they wish for a more comfortable life? A mother who chases her dreams, a mother who sacrifices her dreams for the family, a mother who stays silent, a mother who fights for worth, a mother who leaves, a mother who stays. The possibilities and combinations for miscommunications, harmony, joy, incompatibility, laughter, disappointments, bonds; it’s all seemingly endless. And as we work through it, lamenting a lack of instruction manual, we call it love.

As mothers, we do the best we can. Each child needs different things, but we want to make sure each feels loved the same amount. Love is not pie, but time is. Who will get enough? Who will go to bed hungry? We don’t have answers, but we try to balance speaking with authority and wisdom with openness and learning. We worry every day. And in this world, it never seems to be enough. I wonder, did my mother feel hopeless? How many times did her words to me contradict her feelings? What little lies do we tell our children to keep hope alive?

“Bloom where you’re planted.” That’s what they say. But we know a lush garden with sunshine and rain and people to tend to the weeds and to hoe the dirt will produce a softer bud, a sweeter fruit. To produce any greenery at all in cracked cement is a marvel.

I think of my own children and the cards they made for me today. The reasons listed why they are grateful for me as their mother make me weep. I wish their reasons were lighter.

I encourage them to be thoughtful, to consider always that we don’t know how someone’s life has shaped them. Cruelty must be a misguided reaction from some root cause. But as the world beats down, I double down on acts of service to show them how our lives are actually good. But the cup is getting low.

I teach them and stay on them to do their best at school, but I don’t know why. They watched me work through my last two degrees, blazing through with a nearly flawless record, but I haven’t been able to find steady work, and the older they get, the more aware of it they become.

When they are lonely, I tell them that to have friends, they must be willing to make the first move; to be outgoing even when they are scared or feel awkward and to be intentionally kind. But I know that reciprocity is never guaranteed in this world. People build their units, their pods, and it has far more to do with convenience, networking advantage, and social appearance than with how you treat them.

And I try to keep these life secrets from my children; I think so many of us do.

Bloom where you’re planted. In the next few weeks we prepare for what will be our fifth home in five years. Another great unknown. They put their faith in me. I tend and nurture as best I can. Oh, how I wish I was a garden.