Is Kindness a buzz word?

Today, this mama held her baby girl as she spoke through her tears, sharing with me the meanness someone threw at her. If I gave into my initial reaction, I'd tell her to fight back, to say the next mean thing. And then I'd start playing in my head what I would complain about to the appropriate adults-in-charge.

Let's just thank God that I demanded the mama bear back in the cave before taking hold of THAT mentality.

What I told my girl, though, was to stand up for herself in a different way. What I told her was to stand firm in kindness. Show the mean kid something different. Be kind, even to them. Kindness is the only way.

Doubt always creeps in at these moments while mama bear is forced away, and I wondered what was the downfall of teaching my daughter to be completely counter human-instinctual? Maybe not in this situation, but what about bigger situations? Am I teaching her to be passive to a fault? Would her being kind come at the risk of ignoring strength? Do I run the chance of making her soft, sensitive, easily broken by meanness? Am I teaching her to forgo being tough and resilient?

Is kindness really the holy space I've come to learn as a Christ follower, or is it a cowering, a cop out?

Even after tears and heartbreak, the daughter smiled and readied for school knowing she is loved, she is kind, and who she IS, counts more than what people tell her.

I see the daughter whose favorite word is "LOVE", who craves friendship and people and love. Who is ever happy to be beside her old friends, and who is always willing to make a new friend. I see her kindness as her greatest strength, and I know her spirit is strong in love.

No, kindness is not a buzzword. Kindness IS tough. Kindness is bold. It's passing up the fleshy garbage of broken people, and pouring out love regardless. It's a fine shield for a strong spirit.

Kindness is Love.

And I guess, after all my struggles and fails as a mom, I will once again, cast off the mama-bear instinct and step into a surprising posture of victory. Because, whatever the world says, whatever the hatred shows, I know one thing I'll get right as a mother--my kids will know that kindness wins. Can't wait to see the paths they'll pave ahead.

For the Back to School Mamas

"Courage is contagious. When a brave man takes a stand, the spines of others are often stiffened." 

Same with mamas.

I see you mamas out there, sending your babies off to school...to classrooms...to playgrounds... with tears, with hesitation, or even leaps of joy at the re-established routine. I see you letting go of their hands and sending them off to a place without you. 

You are just a week ahead of me. I will walk in your shoes in less than seven days.

Besides the excitement of new schedules after a long summer of sleeping in and chaos, my breath hitches on remembering the hovering fear of school days while I go about my child-free hours. So many fearful thoughts: Who will influence them? What person will stand up for them? Who might walk into their school at any moment...???

You might read my blog posts of a heart tormented by some possible answers to these questions. You, as a mama, might have the very same thoughts swirling about your conflicted heart. Conflicted. That's how it feels, isn't it? You know what supple ground awaits them, yet you also know the risk of letting go.

But, in my core, I know the truth.

And there is nothing in my spirit, in my heart--from my God--telling me that fear is bigger than the truth.

The truth is, I am willing to let go of the reigns of my children's daily encounters and pressures and opportunities, knowing that life lessons are to be learned, that I am to trust something bigger--not the system, or the administration, or the security officers, but I am to trust God with my children when they are apart from me.

It's something I've struggled with all my motherhood life--Trusting God with my babies whom I love more than any other living thing. Perhaps my nurture instinct is overdriven more than others...but I doubt it. I see the love on the faces of other mamas. Just as I see the courage. Just as I am infected by their courageous contagion. And while not every mom I know or see is trusting their kids to my God, I realize that, for me, their actions are challenging me to step away from my over-nurturing tendency, and to look to the One who is molding me and shaping me...and caring for my children even more than me.

The truth is, that I am bolstered by the courage of those mamas around me, the ones who trust their kids to others, who still believe in a system grounded in good, who make my spine stiffen with bravery that just as they are, I am willing to let go even amidst fear and anxiety.

So, when you see a mama slipping their fingers from their babe at the door of a school, know that they are walking a fine trust tightrope. Their spines are stiffened, their courage abounds. And I am a keen observer, watching and praying and hoping. Their courage abounds and I gather it up, pocket it, and pray that I'll find my confident stride next week when I let my own children go.

My Take on "The Future is Female"

I never grew up thinking of myself as less than a man. My parents never told me, "You need to be submissive to your husband and stay home." Actually, they encouraged me to reach for the stars...to go to college...to attain that dream career path. I received a Bachelors for a five year program, and now have two books published. I have two sisters--one has a PHD, and one has a Masters and a new, second career path that is blossoming. And we all have families, too. We got the cake and ate it...and are enjoying life without the hogwash of "I am just a girl".

When I became a young adult, I heard mention of the glass ceiling, but I didn't really pay much attention. After I graduated from college, I got five job offers with reputable firms. I worked with men and women alike. Sometimes, I heard negative comments about women, and maybe I wasn't making as much as the guy in the next cubicle...I can't really be sure because I never asked. But, I never felt "less".

I will admit, the first time I found myself exploring the gender-superiority battle was in Bible studies. Other women and I would wade in and out of passages about submission, women as leaders in church, and the examples of Biblical characters. One cannot go very far into these ideas without finding out that there really is a deeper level of truth--there really is this amazing God who created us EQUAL. Different, but equal. I'll not get into that right now...it deals with original language, and history, and interpretation. If you want, explore it. You'll be surprised at the beauty of equality in mankind.

When I stepped into motherhood, and became a mama of three small boys, I never thought of them as being superior to my friends' little girls. I assumed they were on the same track of opportunities and successes as every other little boy AND girl. But then...I had my daughter. And, my eyes, and ears, and heart were tripped up by the gender-sided comments about "that's for girls", and "pink is a girl color," and, "stop being a girl". As my daughter grows, and my sons become young men, the comments have evolved to, "girls rule, boys drool," and "girls are better than boys," and "girl power".

I have three sons with amazing potential to do great things. I have a daughter with amazing potential to do great things. And they are being raised against a backdrop of culture that shouts, "GENDER EQUALITY"...which I totally agree with. I raise my sons to know their sister can achieve just as much, can work just as hard, and is to be respected and honored just like anyone else.

Every once in a while, though...the scales tip, and my sons begin to slide down, my heart begins to quicken, and my language gets muddled on my tongue and I wonder whose identity I need to protect most?

The other day, I walked into Target and there was an end cap with a sign doting,

"The Future is Female."

Huh?

How is that for Gender Equality?

Um...yeah, it's not. And, my eyes are being opened more and more each day to this growing idea. I have a son who tells me that girls at his school respond to his comment, "Ladies first," with, "Don't assume my gender" (no joke), and I have a son who comes to me perplexed because girls are saying that they are "better than me because I am a boy."

Of course, these are just kids being kids. OR are they?

Have we overcorrected as a culture striving for equality? 

I get it. I get the invigorating ability to finally feel unbound by old sentiments and break free of some stifling cultural norms. Women have so much to offer. We've always had so much to offer, and the gender has been ignored and abused and oppressed century after century...it is about time we stood up and said:

NO MORE.

We need to level the playing field. But, I don't feel like it's level.

Who are we marginalizing in our wake? Why does it have to be girls vs. boys? I promise you, my
sons aren't the chauvinists who suppressed women in all the centuries before. I promise you that because my husband is male and my sons are male, and my father is male, they don't expect girls to "run like a girl," to "dress in pink," to "waste a career on homemaking"...or whatever old sentiments are being slashed to shreds by "girl power" (even though I align with all three of those sentiments without hesitation, and without thinking I am "less" LOL. But my little girl...she runs fast, and hard, dresses in pink, red, blue, and yellow...and LOVES playing house, and school, and spies, and whatever else her heart desires in the moment.)

My boys try to understand the world just as much as the girl...and all the kids who are misunderstanding what gender equality means. And because of this false interpretation, my boys are being told they are less...that the "future is female"...that because of centuries of chauvinists it's "about time that girls are dominant." Huh? That is not okay. That is two wrongs not equaling a right. It is messed up and broken and infuriating to this EQUAL RIGHTS advocate--this EDUCATED mama who has researched and understands the sickness of oppression and discrimination--this 21st century parent who understands the BEAUTY OF GENDER differences, and views the boy and the girl as two creations making a whole unifying society. Different, equal, and purposefully made alongside each other...to pave a glorious future together. NOT to edge each other out.

Equality will never happen if one side is trying to prove itself more than the other. Raising boys and a girl, I could never justify the worth of one child over the other. I would never assign value to a human being based on stature, skin color, or culture. Why would I expect the value of my child to be considered worth more based on gender? Especially after all we've fought for to prove EQUALITY RULES.

So...just...why?