Become As Little Children

Have you ever given your child a balloon and watched their face light up with immeasurable happiness, only to be completely distraught moments later when the balloon pops?

I find myself thinking about my childhood often. Sometimes it’s when I’m tired of adulting and briefly wishing I could return to those days of simplicity. Other times it's when I'm with my own children remembering that their childhood memories are being made right now and these will be the memories they will look back on years later.

Which memories will stick with them? What will they think about their childhood? How will they remember it?

There was a period of time as a very young parent I remember thinking I'm glad they're so little and probably won't remember this horrible parenting mistake I just made! My youngest is now 7 so it's safe to say that time has passed. Their long term memory has come online. They will remember things that happen now, a thought that scares me sometimes. And I don't get to pick and choose what those memories will be.

A lot of my childhood memories are extremely happy ones. Exploring the woods by my house. Building 3-story tree houses in the forrest (and somehow surviving). Riding my bike with friends or by myself around the neighborhood. Playing games in the street at night with other neighborhood kids. Playing sports with my brother or friends. Hiking in the beautiful Alaska mountains around my house. I feel fortunate to have grown up in a time when on Saturdays and summer break, as long as my chores were done, I would pretty much be gone all day and back in time for dinner. I had lots of freedom to play. I was a 90's kid.

Some of that is lost now days, depending on where you live I suppose. It's a different time to be a kid.

My children are young and innocent, I want to preserve that.

My children are impressionable and trusting, I want to protect that.

My children are curious and adventurous, I want to nurture that.

Preserve. Protect. Nurture.

Some quick examples with my children:

I like watching sports with my boys, especially football. We have a rule when we watch sports that when commercials are on, we mute the commercials. Not that there is anything wrong with commercials, I just don't need all of that unnecesary extra noise and information filling up their heads. Instead we chat, or go get a snack, or play around until the game is back on.

Another football example. Right now Jett plays flag football. He loves it, and if I say so myself, he's quite good at it! One of the highlights of my week is watching him play and revel in his passion. Last year after he finished his 2nd season of flag football, he expressed interest in playing tackle football. My wife and I considered it, but ultimately decided against it for the time and put him back in flag football this year. We want to protect him from potential physical injury for just a little bit longer.

My daughter Zoe earlier this year got involved in local musical theater. She had never done a play before, and since both my wife and I have, we took the time to help her with her audition for Matilda the Musical Junior. We assisted her during the audition process. She was very expressive and energetic throughout the audition, and we were blown away when she was cast as Matilda understudy! Zoe never really needed any push from us to memorize lines, learn dance moves, and play a character, she is quite the creative spirit, but we wanted to nurture this passion she had so we took time to run lines, talk to her about acting, and invest financially and physically to make it happen. Having spent a lot of time in theater productions in my youth, I know what kind of challenging environment the theater can be. And for this I was grateful it was a 20 minute drive to and from rehearsals, plenty of time to talk to Zoe about her experiences and discuss new or interesting people or ideas she hadn't been exposed to yet.

The Family Unit

One of the most important documents in my lifetime is The Family: A Proclamation To The World.

Unfortunately in today's world, these ideas are often viewed as old fashioned, out dated, or irrelevent in society. I believe the family unit is more relevent now than ever before. And it's within that family unit, children must be taught, protected, nutured, and prepared for life after childhood. We all come from different backgrounds and ideals, have different families and beliefs, and different individual experiences within those families that will heavily determine the choices we make and the path we will follow in life.

I come from a big family, I'm number 5 of 8 kids. I consider myself lucky to have a mother and father who love and care for me. I know that even now if my life got flipped turned upsidedown (🎵"I'd like to take a minute just sit right there"🎵😁) I could count on them and my siblings to be there for me and help me. I know the importance of preserving, protecting, and nurturing children within a family unit because I lived it as a child and teenager. And because I lived it and saw the value in it, I made choices in my life to do the same with my own family.

These are some of the choices I've made

1. Talk to my children. When I'm home and my children are around, I try to get off my phone and go talk to them. Play with them. Be with them. All the to-do lists will get done, all the tasks will get completed. But those things are not as important as the limited time I have to spend with my children. I'm not great at this myself, but the days I do come home from work and immediately put my phone away upstairs and don't touch it again until my alarm goes off the next morning, those are the days I hope my children remember. I hope that talking to my children will heighten my chances of them still talking to me, trusting me, and listening to me during the teenage years when friends and outside forces start pulling them in other directions. Also I hope it will open up opportunities to have conversations with my children, together as parents, that need to be had to prepare my children for adulthood. I hope we become an impactful voice to guide them to success and happiness for when they're on their own.
2. Listen to my children. They will tell me what's on their mind if I will listen. When they're little, sometimes it's just a bunch of nonsense and gibberish, but every now and then, a gold nugget of profound importance reveals itself. Just the other night I was laying with my 7 year old son in bed at bedtime, just talking about his day, he was telling me about a bunch of random thoughts on his mind, none of which was of any real importance, but all of a sudden he asked me, "Dad, what happens when we die?" I responded, "What do you think happens when we die?" He said, "I know we go to heaven, but... is it scary?" "Is what scary?" I said. "When we die, is it scary? I'm scared to die." We talked a little more about death and fear and happiness and love and family, and it was a great little conversation we had. And it wouldn't have happened if I hadn't been spending time with him, listening to him.
3. Say no. Sometimes my children come up with some weird ideas. I have to remember I'm interacting with someone who's brain is not fully developed and cannot make rational decisions on their own. I'm talking to people who still believe in the tooth fairy and Santa Claus (although I think Zoe has figured it out). My children may not have the ability to distinguish fantasy from reality yet. They will experiment. They'll ask odd questions and have bad ideas. Not long ago, my son threw the cat on the trampoline and bounced it around. The poor cat was terrified and clawed it's way to the opening in the net and scurried off traumatized. When I asked why he did that, he looked at me blankly and simply said "I don't know!" So we had to make a rule: No Cats On The Trampoline. We try to establish rules, structure, and guidelines. Sure they'll break them, they'll rebel, they'll figure out clever ways around them (I'm mainly speaking from my own experience there) but at least they'll have that structure in place and then get to live with the consequences of making bad choices.
4. Love- No Matter What. My daughter Zoe and I have a little phrase we say to each other every night when I go in to say goodnight. I say "I Love You- N-M-Dub," and she repeats it back to me. N-M-Dub or N-M-W which stands for No Matter What. No matter if I got upset at her, no matter if she made a mistake, no matter if we are busy or feeling sad or had a bad day. I will always love her, all my children, No Matter What.

Jesus' Invitation

Mathew 18:1-6

1 At the same time came the disciples unto Jesus, saying, Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?
2 And Jesus called a little child unto him, and set him in the midst of them,
3 And said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.
4 Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven.
5 And whoso shall receive one such little child in my name receiveth me.
6 But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.

Children are humble. Children are charitable. Children are loving, kind, forgiving, and innocent. Jesus invites us to become like little children. Not childish, but childlike- aspiring to have attributes that children naturally possess.

If I could choose to wave a magic wand and return to childhood today, as much as I might be tempted, I wouldn't do it. I'd rather keep those innocent childhood memories with me in my head and my heart for when I need them most. I'd rather accept Jesus' invitation to become like a little child.

And hopefully my own children can hold on to that balloon just a little bit longer before it pops.