girls taking up space

I've got this girl who is indeed loud and sometimes gross, and she definitely takes up space. At 11, she's too young to use the boyfriend excuse, but I'd like to think that her NOs will continue to be as loud as they are unapologetic. She is sarcastic, in ways I'm only beginning to discover. She's got a band of girl friends whom she guards with fierce love and devotion.

Of course, time changes kids into teenagers, and with those changes come a backing off for many girls. My sincerest hope, though, is that time and hormones won't change my girl too much. She is a force.

Two Christmases ago, she decided to sign up to be one of the two centurions in our church's Christmas pageant. I thought it was interesting, and I was just glad that she finally wanted a speaking role. She explained later that she took the role because no other girl had done it; she really wasn't all that interested in the armour, sword, or even the lines. I frankly had not noticed that no girl had done the role before. This past Christmas, another girl put her hand up for centurion. I'd like to think that Boo had something to do with that.

She's also the kind of girl who reads books geared to boys because she thinks it's ridiculous that they are marketed at only one gender. One of the books on her shelf is For Boys Only, sitting next to Lumberjanes. She explained she needed me to order the book from the Scholastic catalogue because if it was for boys only; she needed to know the things that they were learning, so that it wouldn't be just for boys anymore. I couldn't argue with that, and I forked over my first Scholastic cheque in years.

This girl has grown up in a time where women can make more money than their male partners without it being an issue, where men share in daily chores, where gay marriage is a given, where gender is more fluid than it has ever been. And yet she is able to perceive the continued, ingrained gendered roles that I, as a feminist, have not noticed or stopped noticing.

So as annoying as the loudness can be, as vexing as the clear NOs are, I'm glad she is who she is. She can keep kicking at the walls of the boxes that many of us no longer see.

pieces of me

Tis the season of summer camps and sending kids off. It marks a reprieve for parents from the everyday madness, business, tiredness, and overwhelming responsibility of children. It allows parents to celebrate the kids being away.

Except for the divorced parents. At least, except for me.

I only get to see my kids 50 percent of the time. That gives me tons of me time, tons of time with friends, tons of guilt-free late hours at work, tons of kid-free errands. In a way, it's great. My parent self is well-rested and far more patient than I'd ever been as a 100 percent-of-the-time mom.

Here's the thing, though: I miss my kids like crazy in the summer. I get three straight weeks with them, which is AMAZING. But then, they are off to be with their dad, for three straight weeks. Then away at camp for another week. Then some time with grandparents. I now have long evenings of Netflix, knitting, catching up with friends, reading - whatever I want. It sounds like a dream to most parents, but it isn't always.

Some evenings, like tonight, I ache for my girls. At 11 and 13, they still like to hug and to cuddle. I still tuck them in and snuggle up before bed. We still hold hands - intermittently - when we go for walks or run errands. I miss all of that. And their goofiness. Oh my goodness, the laughs we have.

They are not easy all of the time, and we have our struggles, moodiness, disagreements, and squabbles. But I even miss that.

I'd always wanted to be a mom, but I never imagined what a big part of me my children could be. And what a big part of me they take with them when they are away.

silence

I've been processing the Orlando tragedy/violence/senselessness. Friends post thoughts and prayers and pride photos. Others post articles. Gay friends ask allies to step up.

All I can do is watch in silence, transfixed, trying to figure out why this time I am passed rage, passed words.

The world is so broken.

My biggest goal as a mom is to teach my kids to love. It's that simple: everything else - the kindness, the generosity, the understanding, the acceptance, the good - it all comes from love. And my kids are incredibly loving in so many ways.

Which is why I couldn't bring myself to tell them about what happened in Orlando. I don't want them to be living in a world where a group of people gets massacred because of who they are. I don't want them to live in a world that runs rampant with speculation about Islamic terrorism when the only fact we have is that the murderer was Arab. I don't want them to live in a world where people are hurting so badly that they are driven to hurt others in the most horrific ways imaginable.

I precisely don't want them to be able to even imagine those things. I don't want them to witness the brokenness of this world. But I know they see it, every day, and they ask and wonder about it. Why is it so? And I have no answers, but to say, our job is to love. Our job is to take those pieces - the broken ones - and to love them to wholeness.

I believe in God, and I believe in prayer. I also believe that we are the body of Christ; we are his hands and his feet and his heart. Our acts of love are in fact answers to prayers.

So what can I do, my kids do, to answer the anguished prayers? I'm still working on that. I think part of it is seeing the humanity and brokenness in everyone. And the kernel of wholeness inside each of them, of us. To include the marginalized. To stop and talk to those who have no one. To give that street kid a lunch and a dry place to eat on a rainy day. To say good morning to those I run into every day. To provide a word of encouragement to anyone, because we never know who's struggling.

Maybe the answer is to beat back the silence, the sense of futility. To do. To go on and speak out, to rage, to cry, to hold. Perhaps the silence is what I need to overcome more than anything.

Kids, we should talk.