Have you ever watched the movie Inside Out? If not, I highly recommend it! I've probably watched it 10 times and have learned something new every single time. In the movie, they lightly touch on how core memories are developed. They all start out happy in the innocence of early childhood and as you grow older you evolve to feel things like fear, jealousy and rage. Then it quickly gets more complicated as you begin to feel multiple emotions at once.
Let me give you an example. One of my favorite memories, and one I tell my children about often, is how we would be sent out early in the morning to play and told not to come home until the street lights come on. I remember one day in particular. I was about 10 years old and we had some older boys that had recently moved in across the street. I went to see if they could come out and play and their mom invited me in. We had sweet bread and milk at her kitchen island while playing chess. (Fun Fact: She was actually the reason I ended up joining a chess club later on). The boys got dressed while she asked me about my family then we all took our bikes out. We rode up and down our street probably a thousand times. We picked lemons from my backyard and made lemonade in their mom's kitchen and tried to sell it on the street. We didn't sell any so we drank it all instead. Running on a crazy sugar high, we climbed the street light poles in front of our houses. Up and down, up and down, for hours! We rang our neighbor's doorbells and ran away before they opened the door. I remember hiding in the bushes giggling. We picked dandelions and made crowns. We laid and out and watched the clouds make fun shapes above us and guessed at what animals we were seeing.
It's a happy memory for me. Full of friends, fun, and adventure. As an adult I want my children to have memories like this to recall and tell their own children about.
What I won't tell my children is how at the end of that fun day, my mom came home exhausted after a long day of attending college and working full time to keep a roof over our heads. I won't tell them how the hair on my arms stood on end when I heard her scream as she entered the house. I won't tell them how scared I was to see my dad slumped over in his armchair, with a blue face, not breathing. I won't tell them how helpless I felt when I watched my mom performing CPR, or how scary it was to hear the sirens screaming from a long way away and then stopping seconds before the paramedics rushed into our living room. I don't ever want them to know what it was like to entertain my brothers in a nearby room with a smile on my face so they wouldn't know what was happening.
Just like in the movie Inside Out, my happy memory is tarnished with sadness and fear.
But what we choose to focus on dramatically changes our personality and our future as adults. The sadness and fear will always live inside this core memory for me but I intentionally choose to focus on the happy parts instead. I know as a parent that I cannot protect my children from life to only shape their core personality with happy memories. I know that adversity helps shape us into the complex and amazing humans we are. But Lord knows I try anyway. What parent doesn't do the same?
This all weights heavy on my mind this morning. Yesterday I had had UPUTOHERE with the kids bickering over a videogame called Minecraft. To be fair- they pretty much never get along when they play together. But yesterday afternoon was especially bad. After hearing Ava tell her brother to stop multiple times, and listening to him arguing back with a snarky attitude, I finally called them downstairs and after a lengthy conversation, I took away all their electronics for the evening and the following day. You would think I had beat them with a spoon. Tears and negotiations ensued immediately. Unfortunately for Lance and Ava, when I make a decision it's final.
As I'm sitting here typing this before my workday starts, Ava is coloring and they are both watching Despicable Me in the living room. Ava paused to tell me I am, and I quote, "The best mom ever!" and Lance said, "We should have our electronics taken away more often." There might have been some sarcasm in his voice... but I'm taking this as a win!
I hope when they look back on the memory of staying in this old farmhouse in Alabama over spring break, that they remember this as happy memory. Yes, it might have a little anger or sadness associated (because Mom is so mean), but I'm working hard to make sure those rose colored glasses are firmly planted on their cute little noses.
That is a mighty fine looking old farm house. Nothing like the ones I visited and spent a few weeks in back in Montana when I was a teen, the farm houses of my Aunt Floy and the one of my Uncle Wayne (Wayne's had dirt floors and both homes had a path to the outhouse). Wood stoves, kerosene lamps, and an inside water pump. There were cows to milk before breakfast. No electronics. But I survived.