Daily Archives: May 7, 2018

When I was a younger mom with my first four children we were always busy with fun things like going to the park, zoo, aviary, and swimming in the summer several days a week.  I did crafts with them, read out loud frequently and sang and danced with them in the living room.  In the winter when it was snowy cold outside I even did picnics on the kitchen floor with them and played games with them.  I also yelled more, demanded more obedience and had ideas of how life should be and how children should act, I was kind of exacting.  I was fun but not very patient.  As we had more children and I was an older mom I tried to do fun things but it seemed that I was frequently running the older kids to music lessons or sport activities, friend’s houses, dance classes and church activities and so the fun mom sort of disappeared.  There was more laundry to do, more shoes to buy and more squabbles to settle. One day it occurred to me that I had never taken my youngest three kids to the zoo, and of course I felt guilty for not being a fun mom for them.  But, at the same time I had learned some things by then that were important and had figured out that some things weren’t so important, and I was a lot more patient.  I didn’t yell or get so upset so easily.  I also figured out that things don’t have to be perfect to be good, sometimes even great.  I was a lot more patient but not nearly as much fun.  As I have thought about it I haven’t figured out which group of kids got the better mom-the older kids with the fun mom or the younger kids with the more patient mom.  Ideally being both fun and patient would have been best and of course I wish I had been both to all of my kids. I can’t undo or change things in the past so now I go forward and be the sometimes fun but patient grandma.