The Dichotomies

Sometimes I think that one of the most exhausting parts of parenting a moderate number of hurt children (come on, 10 is not a lot compared to 39) is the emotional dichotomy and attempting to integrate everything into a whole.

Parents of one children, I suppose, are the only ones who don't have this challenges, to some extent, in any family. But even in families with 2 or 3 children, the children often evoke the same emotion. For example, we know several familes with 2 or three children who are very proud of their children. They have excelled in what they do, are for the most part respectful, try to obey the rules of the home, and truly love their parents. This feeling, pride, is one that the parents sense most of the time.

However, we on a daily basis, have very strong feelings that are at polar opposites of the emotional spectrum. To have a son calling from jail on what was supposed to be his graduation night evokes a much different emotion that the other son who, beating all the odds, does graduate. The overwhelming sense of pride exists inside at the same time as the crushing disappointment.

Or, with our kids, the same child can often cause completely different emotions. Our oldest, heading towards his senior year in college, provides us with a great deal of pride in his accomplishments. He has managed college very well, working hard, getting good enough grades, and doing most of what we ask. But at the same time he has chosen friends we would not have chosen, is not demonstrating that he has aquired our values, and demonstrates a lack of attachment that make us wonder if we have made much of a difference at all.

And I could list almost every one of our children as having different parts of their troubled psychies that cause us unbridled joy and others that cause frustration, sometimes anger, and at times dispondency.

I am coming to believe that this juggling of dichotomous emotions is what wears us down and keeps our stress level at an unsually high point. It exhausts us. We need a constant diet, as Cindy reminds us, of positive thinking and spending time with positive people. A sense of humor helps as well.

So I will head towards another day where the extreme ends of emotion will undoubtedly pour over me multiple times. And my vow for today is to fully live and experience them. Because though it is a life that not all would choose, it is a life that is full. And I like it full.