God Uses The Internet

First, I have to be totally honest. Today, I almost gave up. I almost hired a nanny, someone who knows how to get a 4 year old and a 2 year old to acknowledge their existence without yelling. I wouldn't leave, I still love them and want to be home with them, I'm just very saddened by the idea that I can't control my children. There's that phrase--control. So, then, I turned to God instead of the nanny service, I confessed that I wasn't really good at this whole mom thing, that I didn't like the idea of being so grumpy, but that I didn't know how to act when I was being disobeyed constantly. I keep being told that it gets better as they get older, but I'm doubting this, I mean, if they don't want to listen now, what gives me any hope that the teenage version of them will do any better? Anyhow, as I prayed, I fell asleep (perhaps I was the one who was tired & cranky?), then I arose and came downstairs to the computer to search the word "obedience" on google. I like google, I can search for things and end up somewhere else completely. Anyhow, I did a search with obedience and toddler in it, and found a story, a story that was making me laugh, until I got to the last section. It had some language in it, so I'll edit it for the sake of my readers, but I'll also post the link. Here goes (note, I'm only posting the last section:

The Purpose of Parents

When I got comments on these journals (which were usually, in general, positive), I occasionally received an angry complaint about people who “can’t control their kids.” This phrase generally comes from a person really in love with the idea of his or her own intelligence.

I still can’t get over this phrase. I dwell on it a lot. So I will write about it only one more time, and then shut the **** about it.

You CANNOT CONTROL your kids. You can influence their behavior. You can shape it, slowly, over a period of years, to make a sensible, bearable human being. But you CANNOT CONTROL your child.

Why? Well, I will answer that reasonable question with another of my own. What would it take for ME to control YOU?

What would it take for me to control you? To jump at the sound of my voice, to obey my whims? Suppose I walk into the room and start barking orders at you. What would it take to make you obey them?

My guess, if you are a sensible human being, is this. For you to utterly submit to my control, I would have to tie you to a chair, and I would have to start torturing you. I would have to make you undergo so much fear and pain that your sense of humanity snaps. That you will do anything, say anything, shrink yourself into a tiny ball of former humanity, to keep my rage from lashing out.

That is what it would take for me to control you. And do not think, for a second, that a small child is any less a human, any less independent at the start of the process, than you.

I sometimes read about people who try to control their children. About the series of increasingly extreme steps they take. After reading these stories in the paper, people usually say, “And where was protective services while that was happening?”

I’m not controlling my child. I’m molding her. It takes time, and it involves going out in public. I never take her to nice restaurants, just pizza places, BBQ joints, and the like. And sometimes, during this process, she will annoy you. God knows she is annoying me. But the way you learn to do something is by trying to do it. Sometimes you fail, but you get better next time.

But she is better with every passing month, and soon she will be a pleasant human. And if you have a problem with it and can’t cut us any slack, then please give me the honor of being the first to invite you t...[edit].

http://www.ironycentral.com/archives/toddler/todvol32.htm

So, as you can see, I was spoken to, almost slapped in the face with this part because I'd asked God, "How can I control my kids?" and then I came and read this. It was perfect, for me. I can now go to bed with the mindset to start again, with a different point of view. And maybe, just maybe, I'll learn to control ME.