I Own the Children… Did I Really Just Say That?
The context was: Ben, our one year old, sustained a pretty substantial mouth injury while staying with my parents out of town recently. They took him to a doctor, who felt confident he would be fine without further medical treatment, and we scheduled an appointment with our pediatric dentist on Tuesday after he would return home on Monday.
The plot twist was: Back home Monday evening, Ben started bleeding from his mouth. A lot. This was an extremely concerning development to me three days after the initial injury, and I wanted (very badly) to take him to an after hours clinic.
The catch was: my husband was not as concerned as me and felt convinced we should just wait and have the kids’ dentist check him out the next day as planned.
Now, I would like to tell you that I had the grace to recognize that Paul and I were on the same team and that we were both equally seeking the best for Ben. But I believe my exact words were, “I am in full mama bear mode, and you are standing in my way.” To my credit I did not resort to physical violence or other drastic measures, and to Paul’s credit, it turned out his instincts were on target and the dentist confirmed that Ben was ok. But in a moment of embarrasingly honest confession the next day, I did admit that in situations like that I feel like I own the children. I am fairly confident that I was seeing him as something less than the head of our family.
Am I the only one who finds it hard to be “in charge” all day with the kids and then be challenged to surrender some of that authority- sometimes when you feel the most passionately? For me, this episode brought the realization that I often don’t see my role during the day as Paul’s helper- his completer. Often, for all practical purposes, he has gone to work and I am running my house. It’s a subtle thing, but dismissing from my active awareness his role as the head of our house lets me operate as if our house is my house. This thinking also leads me to belittle him in various areas pertaining to our family life where I make him feel incapable of doing things around the house well enough to meet my standards… as if I am the one setting all the standards that everyone in our house must live up to.
So the question that I have been asking myself that I share with you is: Whatever I might say my understanding of our marital roles is, what do my daily actions say about how I see those roles? In other words, am I respecting my husband in theory or with intentional thought, word and action on a daily basis? The spiritual parallels are clearly ginormous as well… whatever I might say about God’s sovereignty and supremacy, do I live like all the facets of daily life are mine or His? Deep questions that all of us moms have loads of free time to meditate on. But why don’t you ask your husband for a night off this week to go to Starbucks, where you can spend some time with the Lord evaluating your roles as wife and mom and thinking about how you can grow in your respect for him… I bet he says yes.
Sarah
Tags: Marriage