Of Mess and Moxie

by Jen Hatmaker

  As you know, we are starting to launch our kids out into the world, and my greatest hope is to begin adult relationships with them that look something like ours. On days when grief overtakes me and I feel profound loss at their departure, I remember that just last Sunday, twenty-four years after I moved to college, I ate pot roast at your house after church and took a nap on your couch. This is not an ending but a new beginning. If we have been to our kids anything at all like the parents you were to us, I can look forward to grown sons and daughters sauntering back through my door constantly, still very much into their parents and perfectly happy to eat my food and nap in my bed, maybe all living within forty-five minutes of each other.

  The best dividend of a happy childhood is healthy adult relationships later. We didn’t need to run from you or overcome you or heal from you. We never had to fix what you broke in us or untangle from what you said to us. You didn’t saddle us with your baggage or set an impossible course in front of us. I don’t have any daddy issues except trying to keep you from verbally assaulting trolls on Facebook. As evidenced by our concentrated geography, we don’t want to put a thousand miles between us now or screen your calls (except when Dad is talking about hay at the ranch; I can only devote around four minutes to alfalfa). Healthy parents and a healthy childhood was a real and rare gift, and I didn’t even know to be grateful until it was over.

  But I am. We all are. We are so very thankful for parents who loved us well. It still brings such security to be your daughter, and I am halfway through my life. I have submitted my proposal to God for the end of your earthly lives, and it involves you dying peacefully in your sleep at the exact same time, holding hands, in forty years. I figured Dad could live to be 109 easily because he still runs four miles a day, and Mom could reach 105 because she cooked with so much oat bran from 1988 to 1991.

  In the meantime, we kids will keep having babies and launching them into the world for a while, and we will still bring them all over to your house to eat baked goods and climb your trees and shoot pool while we drink wine on your porch. The middle place still has a lot of life left, so we’ll store up these years like a treasure, remembering them one day just as fondly as the first phase of our family when we were dirty kids drinking water out of the backyard hose. Of course, in a hundred years, no one will remember any of us and our story will be lost in obscurity, but for us, for all these years when we were kids and then grown-ups, when you were young parents and then grandparents, this is the only story that ever mattered, and it was such a marvelous one. The best story I ever imagined.

  HOW TO (PART FOUR)

  HOW TO GET A TODDLER DRESSED IN THREE EASY STEPS

  1. Pick out perfectly matched outfit the night before. Secure toddler approval before bed.

  2. Show toddler outfit in the morning. Recognize a violent, abrupt change of heart.

  3. Listen to thirty minutes of high-pitched wailing.

  4. Try to make sense of what has happened to your life. How is this what you are doing with your Monday morning?

  5. Ask toddler to pick out clothes for self with some guidance, of course.

  6. Suggest a shirt to match the pants.

  7. Give up and let toddler leave house wearing slippers, sparkly tutu, hair in five pigtails with multiple clips, pajama shirt, and snow pants. You can’t care about everything.

  HOW TO PERPETUATE WELL-INTENTIONED LIES TO YOUR CHILDREN

  Phase 1: When your oldest child loses his first tooth, create a fanciful story of a beautiful tooth fairy who magically retrieves the treasured tooth from the adorable satin tooth bag under his pillow, leaving a shiny silver dollar and a trail of sparkly fairy dust from his bed to the window sill. Take seven pictures. Document in that year’s album. Put on Instagram.

  Phase 2: Fast-forward to the second or third child and about twenty teeth later. The satin bag is long gone. You’ve depleted your supply of silver dollars. You are running a crap operation now. Panic as your child greets you in the morning with sad, forlorn eyes to report that the tooth fairy didn’t come (again). Feign shock at this travesty, grab a couple of dirty dollars from your wallet, and race to their room loudly insisting she must have missed it. Shove the crumpled cash under the pillow. Throw the tooth fairy under the bus to child: “She really needs to be more careful when she leaves her bounty. She is getting sloppy. I think she might be hitting the sauce.”

  Phase 3: Fourth child? No shock. You’ve run out of freak-outs for teeth. The freak-out drawer is empty. You casually tell your kid: “The tooth fairy left your money in my purse because you didn’t pick up your toys last night and she was afraid of getting hurt stepping over them. How much? It’s like $1.67 in change. Just look in the bottom of my wallet.”

  HOW TO GROW AN INSANELY LONG CHIN OR NECK HAIR WHEN YOU’RE THIRTY-SEVEN

  1. Blink. That should do it.

  Programming Note: Attend an important outing or event in broad daylight. This should ensure your medical marvel will be not only record-breaking but easily visible to all onlookers while remaining obscured in your bathroom mirror.

  HOW TO TALK TO YOUR TEENAGER

  1. Slowly enter the beast’s cave, throwing darting glances side to side as you scan the room for living or dead things. The smell suggests a corpse. You hope for just an old glass of milk. It’s hard to know.

  2. Assess teenager on bed or at computer. If thumbs and fingers are moving, texting or typing is happening. Wait for the teenage invitation: “What?!” Ah, he sees you.

  3. Initiate conversation, which is mostly just you asking questions and deciphering which yes, no, I guess, and grunt go with each question. Good talk.

  4. Casually ask teenager if he knows what aforementioned smell is and then retreat slowly as he death-stares you out the door. The smell does not affect him. He cohabitates with the smell. He defends the smell. The smell is only your problem.

  5. Remind yourself he does love you and this is just a phase because everything is weird in his head right now, and rest assured you have the passcode to his phone (that you pay for) should you become concerned and need to read his texts later while eating popcorn.

  6. Spray Febreze liberally on everything after he goes to sleep, including his actual body.

  HOW TO MEET AN IMPENDING DEADLINE

  1. Worry, overthink, and over-emote about the task. Make yourself a nuisance to all listening parties. Get on at least seven people’s last nerve lamenting your deadline.

  2. Get very serious about making a plan. Set up your workspace. Light a candle. Pray to Jesus and also to God. Set mug of steaming coffee next to your laptop. Adjust the lighting. Play gentle and unintrusive Pandora station on level two. Take deep cleansing breaths. Meditate for three to five minutes.

  3. Check Facebook.

  4. Check Instagram.

  5. Check Twitter.

  6. Open inbox. Delete junk mail. Despair at the rest. Close.

  7. Open the impending task, file, program, or project. Look at it with your eyes. Think a couple of thoughts about it with your mind. Put your fingers on your keyboard. Await inspiration.

  8. Organize desk. This is urgent all of a sudden. Throw away six pounds of papers. Find an old photo album. Reminisce for seventeen minutes. Take a snapshot of your high school prom and post to IG. #TBT

  9. Get a snack.

  10.Back to the project. Type two sentences. Abandon hope. The magic is gone. You don’t know anything. You are an empty vessel. The gig is up. You can’t think of one thought. There are no thoughts. It’s over. You’re doomed.

  11.Check out Buzzfeed.

  12.Look up your latest symptoms on WebMD. Feel sad about your obvious onset of kidney failure and/or scoliosis. Might be rectal cancer. A little hazy still. But clearly terminal.

  13.Clean the baseboards in your office. This cannot wait. You cannot work in these conditions. It is unsanitary. All of a sudden, you can just see them. They are offensive and harming your mojo.

  14.Lunchtime.

  15.Short na
p.

  16.Kids are home.

  17.Package up your shame and try again tomorrow.

  HOW TO GET YOUR CHILD TO POOP ON THE POTTY

  1. Be confident. You are a smart, educated woman not to be outwitted by tiny humans.

  2. Use your God-given creativity to carefully construct a sticker chart. Hang chart. You are amazing. You have a system.

  3. Buy bribes (chocolate chips, M&Ms, Skittles). Go ahead and eat some. You deserve it.

  4. Lovingly explain your plan to toddler. Watch him take in your wisdom. See him hearing you. Parenting is a beautiful exchange.

  5. Implement plan. Be strong.

  Day 1—You are Mama Warrior. That chart will be full of stickers in no time. You will be giving lessons on this soon. This is going on Pinterest.

  Day 7—You’re wearing down. Chin up, buttercup. All the screaming is worth your new phase of toddler underwear. This battle surely only has two or three days left in it.

  Day 19—You are singing “I believe I can fly” outside the door of the bathroom, because that makes sense somehow. You are ever so slightly coming unhinged. You refuse to offer another pull-up so he can poop in it in the corner. This is not your life. You went to college. You were president of the Honor Society. How are you getting bested by a three-year-old’s intestines? You are a smart person. People love you. Your days used to make sense. You used to wear pants with a button.

  Day 52—I see you over there crying, eating all the M&Ms. Just throw a pull-up on him and call it a day. Maybe he’ll give it up by middle school. You don’t care.

  HOW TO HAVE FAMILY DEVOTIONAL AT DINNER

  1. Emotionally invest in high hopes. This is key. Envision a sacred family moment. Prepare to feel sentimental. Crushed expectations are an important part of this.

  2. At the onset of dinner, immediately break up several sibling fights while husband plays Candy Crush.

  3. With thinning patience, begin carefully selected family devo. Get interrupted several times, because there’s not enough ketchup, where’s more bread, does this have onions in it, can I have orange juice instead of water, his elbow keeps touching me, no offense but this is kind of boring.

  4. Field questions about a sleepover Friday, an ortho appointment, armpit hair, and a new data plan.

  5. Take deep breaths. Act like you’re teaching Sunday school. You are so interesting. You aren’t having rage issues while talking about Moses.

  6. Imagine that your family is totally into this. They are not, but imagine it.

  7. Finally lose your crap like a raging maniac. Slam devotional book on dinner table, screaming, “Forget it! Just hate God!” while family stares at you like you’re a crazy person because you actually are.

  8. Watch husband roll eyes and pour you Pinot Grigio. Eat your cold dinner in shame.

  Programming Note: Successful family devos are an important event in The Contest (see chapter 3). You may just sit this event out rather than drop in the rankings.

  HOW TO CHOOSE THE CORRECT COLOR PALETTE FOR YOUR PRESCHOOLER

  1. Don’t. You will be wrong.

  HOW TO CHOOSE THE CORRECT PROM DRESS, FRIEND, CLASS, BOYFRIEND, GIRLFRIEND, SWEATPANTS, HAIRCUT, MUSIC, JOB, BEDSPREAD, LIFE PATH FOR YOUR TEENAGER

  1. Don’t. You will be wrong.

  HOW TO DO LAUNDRY

  1. Separate lights and darks. This is the best you can do. I guess the reds and blues go with the black shirts, and the gray stuff goes with the lights. I don’t know, man. Wonder why you bought all these clothes for people.

  2. Put lights in washing machine and start.

  3. Remember this load two days later.

  4. Rewash the lights that now smell like a filthy neighborhood pool lined with mold.

  5. Remember them the next day. Laundry is hard. Don’t feel bad about yourself.

  6. Wash a third time, and add bleach to counter the mildew-soaked fibers that are semipermanent now.

  7. Put lights in the dryer and start the darks.

  8. Remember the darks! Yay you! Despair at the light load in the dryer. This is like discovering the dishes in the dishwasher are clean. Throw the load of lights on your bed to “fold in a few minutes” while you move the darks to the dryer.

  9. Co-sleep with the light load that night. Give them their own bed space, like a person. Bonus: they can double as an extra pillow and blanket!

  10.The next morning, move lights to the floor to “fold later today,” and proceed to step over them until next Tuesday. Make sure to get some of the dirty clothes you take off mixed in with the pile.

  11.Pull dark clothes as necessary out of the dryer for the next five days, one item at a time.

  Programming Note: If this laundry situation causes you to go on a rage bender one day, like an asylum escapee, perhaps your husband could adopt the Brandon Hatmaker Approach and emergency purchase four color-coded baskets per family member correlating with an elaborate laundry system he invented on the dash to Walmart, and if you specialize in math, you realize that a well-timed meltdown might result in your spouse doubling down with twenty-eight laundry baskets. We don’t play in this family.

  Grown don’t mean nothing to a mother. A child is a child. They get bigger, older, but grown? In my heart it don’t mean a thing.1

  — TONI MORRISON

  CHAPTER 22

  STRING EIGHTEEN PARTIES TOGETHER

  Allow me to share last night’s dinner conversation courtesy of the “4th Grade Public School Puberty Talk” starring girls in one room with their teacher and boys in the gym with the coach:

  REMY: Ben, you are going to get the puberties too.

  BEN: I’ve already started!

  REMY: You got your period?

  BEN: Oh my gosh. No. I am getting pit hair, and my muscles are getting awesome.

  REMY: Periods mean we have babies. I think they come out of our butt.

  SYDNEY: No, they don’t, Remy! You don’t poop out babies.

  REMY: Well, girls have three holes, and they come out of one of them.

  BEN: WHAT? Girls have three holes? My friend was right!

  SYDNEY: You have two of them, Ben!

  BEN: I know. We pee out of our eureka.

  SYDNEY: It’s a urethra!

  REMY: Puberties means we get hair on our privates.

  BEN: Our health class video was animated, and it zoomed in on the penis and one by one, hair started popping out. Pop, pop, pop! I heard you get hair on your nipples.

  SYDNEY: Ben, I bet you were born with a lot of hair.

  BEN: On my nipples?

  SYDNEY: Oh my gosh.

  REMY: Do moms have hair on their nipples when they feed their babies?

  BEN: Gross! The babies get hair in their mouths?

  REMY: It’s the puberties.

  LORDT. We are obviously raising children with basic biological competency. (This table talk was sponsored by Cabernet Sauvignon.)

  It is raining teenagers in the Hatmaker house: we have one in college, two in high school, one in middle, and one lone innocent in elementary. We are in a completely different parenting space than we were ten years ago, when my days revolved around preschool, playdates, and the Kids Eat Free website (sincere apologies to Kerbey Lane where kids ate free on Tuesdays and my friends and I brought eleven children; it was less a dining experience and more an invasion).

  Now we are dealing with sex, porn, social media, young adulthood, college, financial solvency, deep questions of faith, the puberties. Good times! It is so real up in here. Our oldest just finished his first year at Texas Tech University and the second leaves next fall, so we are not messing around anymore. The entire thing happened just like the people said it would. Every year on their birthdays, they actually turn a whole year older; string eighteen parties together, and they move into a college dorm. It’s absurd.

  Parenting teens is exactly what I thought it would be and nothing like I thought it would be. I was prepared for parts of it, and may I begin with those, specifically for my young m
amas still in the twilight zone of wishing your children would just go pee-pee on the freaking potty while simultaneously dreading the end of early childhood. It is a strange dichotomy, the trying to “enjoy every moment” while sometimes locking yourself in the bathroom with old Halloween candy and pretending you can’t hear them. Add to that dissociative disorder the older mamas insisting you enjoy toddlerhood because it is all crap from here: “Oh, you think a temper tantrum is hard? Wait until your junior throws a kegger while you are at a sales convention.” Um. Thank you?

  In my experience, parenting teens is easily the best phase of motherhood yet. To be fair, I’m geared toward older kids, and my parents loved having teenagers (which made us love being their teenagers), so I had a precedent to enjoy this stage. But all that withstanding, big kids are fun. They really are. Yours will be too. Text with my oldest:

  ME: Where are you?

  HIM: Doing drugs with gangs.

  ME: Don’t share needles.

  Teens are hilarious and interesting and smart; plus, I was made to nurture independence, which they want so bad they can taste it. I’m not a natural hoverer or worrier, so pushing them toward maturity is not where I struggle. I have no problem letting the chips fall where they may, letting them feel the sting of their own choices or the gut punch of failure, because those are the very best teachers. The flip side is owning their own successes, forging their own path, and let me tell you: when your kid handles every last scrap of paperwork, applications, interviews, and scholarship entries and lands his college acceptance letters singlehandedly, he confidently steps toward adulthood, and you love this for him.

  I planned on adoring the teen years, so I do.

  Watching your kids grow into young adults in front of your eyes is truly breathtaking. Mostly good, sometimes not. They have big-time issues now, some you never saw coming, others you were positively insulated from except that you weren’t, some that will break your heart right alongside theirs. They fall in love, they put their vulnerable souls in the hands of untrustworthy people, they worry more than they let on, they mess up epically, dramatically, shockingly. They lie and then act wounded when you double-check: Hand over that phone, Miss Hurt Feelings. I was sixteen once. My mom thought I was at Stacy’s.