“I thought I raised you better than this,” my mother said before walking out of the living room. I cried and still couldn’t believe this was happening. Was I the same girl the doctor told two years prior that I would never have kids on my own? Was I the same girl who was on the varsity cheer-leading team and the big sis to her siblings? I was. But now I would become a mother in high school. That was 13 years ago, I am now a mom to three, married to my high school sweetheart with a college degree under my …
Wearing White In The Everyday
I never got to wear a real wedding dress. Instead, three weeks after my 18th birthday, I walked down the aisle resembling a big piece of pink cotton candy with a rain coat. I was seven months pregnant with the groom’s child. Each step was supposed to be joyful. Instead, I remember vividly how ashamed I was. As I looked at my friends and family dressed in T-shirts and jeans, I remember the wedding of my childhood dreams. I wanted to be wearing a big stark white, ball gown princess dress. My hair up in a knot with ringlets of …
Packing a Young Person’s Heart
Last Friday we took our daughter on a college visit. Serene lawns and still hallways echoed the time year: Spring Break. As we toured the campus, thoughts about our sweet girl’s future exploded in my mind like kernels in an air popper. I longed to see some students as evidence that when kids grow up they’re okay. But they were on Spring Break. Inside the dorms, our guide was kind (bold? crazy?) enough to show us several rooms where it looked like the Rapture had taken place. Books, guitars, clothes, pizza pans, and shoes littered the floors and beds. There …
Parenting Teens thru Spring Break
What will your teen do over Spring Break? Maybe you’re in the sippy cup years, looking ahead with fear and trembling to the Facebook years. How can we watch out for our teens in today’s world? Last night I feel asleep to the sound of laughter drifting upstairs from young women in our basement. Two are on the threshold of college; two others are are signed up for the ACT. All are counting the days ’til spring break. If the teen years are such a vibrant time of life, why do we dread parenting through it? You can prepare yourself …