Life is Lumpy

My recommendation is that if you have a child you're sure is fantastically superior to other beings, keep quiet about it.  She might grow up to be literally or figuratively 5'2", if you're lucky enough that she grows up.  Don't be so ecstatic now that you can't help but be disappointed in your children for being the people they are. 

Many gifted children grow up to be "normal" or "average."  In terms of the learning, growth and earning curve laid out for them by school and parents, they are failures.  Normal is "failure."  Extreme success isn't extreme success.  It was to be expected, and the parents and teachers take credit for it.

When a once-labeled "average" child grows up to be a great success, some people will look askance, as though he cheated, or maybe they'll praise him in the backhanded insult ways:  "I didn't think you had it in you!" or "None of us would have predicted this!"

It means "Pretty good for a guy who's not so bright."

If your child is having a slow week or month or year, don't worry.  If your child is having a zippy brilliant period of life where everything's coming up roses and the backswell of music seems always to accompany his glorious exploits, don't expect that to last day in and day out for sixty years.  It won't.  It can't.  It shouldn't. People need to recuperate from stunning performances.

Life is lumpy; let it be.

Make each moment the best moment it can be.  Be where you are with your body, mind and soul.  It's the only place you can be, anyway.  The rest is fantasy.  You can be here clearly, or you can live in a fog.   Defog.

From Sandra Dodd's Big Book of Unschooling (by Sandra Dodd ;-)

I love this passage. And although I love and believe every word of it in regards to our children, I especially like it because it also reminds me to be gentle with myself. That *I* am going to be brilliant sometimes and exhausted others. That *I* am going to be the wisest person I've ever known one day, and the next possibly the most immature. That *I* am going to learn and relearn lessons that I thought I had mastered long ago, and have "aha" moments about the most basic, mundane possible things.


I have a tendency to the "up and down". To be higher than high and then slide down into a valley of... low. Today was a low. I miss my sister who was here for a couple of days. I miss my family. I want my tribe. But focusing on things that aren't here and now do not lend themselves to a happy, present person. So that was my lesson today. Again. And that just because I have some bad moments, that doesn't mean the whole day is lost. There are still plenty more moments to be had (Thanks again to Sandra et. al. for that one!) 


And again I am reminded that this path I'm on isn't really "just" about parenting. It's really about me and becoming the person I want to be. As I do that I am also becoming the best possible parent to my children. And I am slowly learning that when I love myself in my lowest of lows, then I am quicker to forgive myself, recover, and move on the next moment. 


Life is Lumpy and that's ok.