I’m back at my house and have left my parents’ house after the holidays.  My parents are amazing.  My mom will turn 75 in a few weeks and my dad is 80.  They still believe they are in their forties or maybe their early fifties, but as their child, I realize that is not quite the reality.  We had some difficult conversations during the past three days.  I’m blessed because my brother and sisters and I are all in agreement about how to approach assisting my parents as they age.  Our commitment is to give them as much independence and latitude in making decisions as is possible. . . yet things are changing.

Both Mom and Dad seem to recognize that changes are developing.  Dad is exhausting his patience and his physical strength taking care of Mom.  Mom is having trouble seeing and is frightened by the physical symptoms she is experiencing.  She clings to dad for security while criticizing his actions at times because she wants to feel some sense of control.  The dance of the interactions of a couple who have been married nearly fifty years is much more complicated than I will ever understand as their child.

I do know that I saw Dad shed tears out of concern for Mom and saw confusion and fear in Mom’s eyes.  I don’t know what is to come.

Tonight I pray . . .

God,

Please love my parents more than I can ever love them and more than anyone on the earth can ever love them.  Keep them close to you and surround them with your grace and mercy.  Father, wipe my Dad’s tears when I am not there to see them or wipe them from his cheeks.  Please wrap my mom in your loving arms and calm her fears.  Let her know that you are there with her and that she is safe even when she can’t feel me hugging her and reassuring her.

Please help us all to be wise as we make decisions about how to respond to changes that are occurring and how we will support Mom and Dad, so that they will always feel loved and valued.  Help them to feel honored as parents for as long as they live and help us to always cherish the interactions we have with them.  Help us to find joy in caring for them and in responding to the things that are important in their lives.

Most of all help them to feel closer to you.  As their health diminishes, help their spirits to grow stronger with the knowledge that they are coming home to you . . . that you will welcome them to a place of no sorrow and no pain.

In your precious son’s name,

Amen

I am spending New Year’s Day at my parents’ home.  They still live in the same house I grew up in, so around every corner there is a childhood memory lying in wait.  This morning I got up and stumbled into the bathroom.  I found myself sitting on a bathroom toilet with a story to tell.  When I was four years old, my younger sister, Georgina, was being potty trained.  Georgina had a mind of her own about potty training.  She didn’t ever want to sit on the potty chair.  No.  She wanted to sit on the big potty with no safety net.  I guess she thought she was as big as the rest of us.

One day, she climbed up on the big potty, lost her balance, and fell in (sort of).  She yelled for help.  Being a concerned older sibling, I of course responded immediately.  When I walked in the bathroom door, I saw her with her bottom dropped deep in the toilet, her elbows wedged against the rim of the toilet seat, and her knees gripping the front of the toilet seat.  She was hanging on for dear life.  I do want you to know that I loved my little sister, but at that moment, an overwhelming curiousity overcame me.

I would like to think that other four-year-olds would have responded similarly.  I just wanted to know if Georgina would flush down the toilet like other unmentionable things flushed down the toilet, so I responded to the crisis situation.  I quickly ran over to the toilet and began flushing it as quickly as I could.  The roaring noise of the flushing toilet filled the bathroom.  Georgina’s eyes got big with fear, and I waited expectantly . . . for the results of an early scientific experiment.

Just in case you are wondering, Georgina did not flush down the toilet to my everlasting disappointment.

The story of trying to flush Georgina down the toilet has been told repeatedly in my family.  Often my actions are incorrectly interpreted as aggression against a sibling rather than intellectual curiousity about scientific knowledge.  Much to my dismay.  I learned last night that Georgina’s youngest daughter lives in fear of me flushing her down the toilet.  I have never repented for trying to flush Georgina down the toilet because I have always held to the believe that the scientific knowledge gained from my informal experiment was worth whatever “minor” trauma Georgina experienced.

However, in light of the fact that I am apparently traumatizing another generation in my family because of my misinterpreted actions, I am going to take action.  Although I don’t necessarily make New Year’s Resolutions every year (because I know I won’t keep them),  I am committed to changing my ways.  So here in this public forum, I am going to make a firm commitment to my New Year’s Resolution.

I, being of relatively sound mind, do hereby make this resolution for 2009.

I will not try to flush another family member down the toilet this year.  (However, I reserve the right to re-examine this commitment every year.)

At this time of year, it is easy to focus on the material gifts our children want.  We can get caught up on buying the newest toy or latest video game, but I think what our children want from us is good parenting.  I learned one of the most fundamental lessons about parenting from my first boss.  My first job was as an assistant coach working for Denese Skinner. When I went to work for Denese, she was the head coach of a girl’s basketball program in one of the toughest areas in the state of Texas.  She was hired to develop the girls basketball program because the school was transitioning from being aK-8 school to being a K-12 school.  The first year I worked for Denese, our oldest players were sophomores and many of them didn’t have much experience playing basketball.

From the beginning of pre-season, Denese was precise and demanding in practice.  Every practice was outlined and ran on a timed schedule.  She repeatedly stressed fundamentals.  She was pushing the girls from early morning to late in the evening to try to get them ready for the season.  When the season started, it was gruesome (and that is putting it mildly).  The varsity team was getting beat by large point margins, but while we sat on the bench during the games, Denese’s intensity never let down.  If we were behind 40 points with two minutes to go and one of the girls didn’t execute a fundamental skill, Denese was on her.

Finally after several games where we were getting whipped, I was frustrated and asked Denese why she didn’t back off the girls some during the games.  She turned and shook a finger in my face and said, “Kids want discipline.  They want to know that we expect the same thing every time.  I won’t allow them to learn to do things wrong.  I’m coaching for next year and the year after, not this year.”  Kids want discipline??

When one of our best players on the team cut practice on a Saturday to go shopping with her mom, Denese refused to play her in the next game and required make up conditioning from her.  The young lady was furious.  She refused to do the make up conditioning and didn’t suit up for the game she couldn’t play in.  Denese had established team rules and if the best or the worst player violated the rules, the consequences were the same.  Ultimately, the young lady checked out of school and she enrolled at another high school. We finished the season without her. However, the next year, she came back and asked Denese to rejoin the team, which she did with a clear understanding of the rules and expectations.

Several years later, I saw that young lady at a wedding. She thanked me for expecting a lot from her and making her follow the rules.  She told me that her experience on the basketball team was the first time in her life that she had experienced consequences.   She thanked me for teaching her how to parent her young son.  She said she was using what we had taught her in basketball to raise her son because she wanted to be a good parent.

A basketball coach teaching parenting??  Denese and I never set out to do that, but I do believe that Denese was right.  Kids want discipline.  They want to know that someone will provide rules and consequences because they care.  They want to know that there are boundaries that control our actions.   While we each could make a long list of things our children want from us for Christmas, let’s not forget the most important things they want from us.  They want us to provide Godly guidance through consistent rules and expectations.

All I want for Christmas . . . is parents who care enough to say no.