And then came Sharon....

Helen, Floyd, and Baby Sharon

Now it is time to tell off on my own mother a bit.  When she was little, my mom liked to eat dirt.  When Mema took her to the doctor, she told him about little Sharon's affinity for mud pies, and the doctor told Mema she was keeping her daughter too clean.  Can you imagine a doctor telling you that you keep your kid too clean?  Apparently there was mineral or something in the dirt that mom's body was craving, and so she ate the dirt.  The doctor's prescription:  Let her play in the dirt.  It won't hurt her, and she'll be stronger for it in the long run.  

So what lesson could I have possibly learned from this embarrassing little tale?  Don't worry, I have one.  I guess you can imagine that after Johnny was taken from her, Mema was pretty protective of my mother.  She probably already was a "hoverer" before, but loose one child, it will make you very sensitive to anything that may harm your second one.  But always protecting a child from anything "bad" isn't really protecting them at all.  It doesn't teach them to cope in the real world.  Just like keeping all the dirt and germs away from my mother wasn't letting her body build up antibodies to fight infection.  Because she was kept so clean, she was missing some key elements.  

Floyd, Helen, and Sharon

Don't get me wrong, Mema stayed protective.  She just learned to give her children (and grandchildren) room to grow.  She gave us boundaries and let us learn to make our own choices, and yes even mistakes, within those boundaries.  I think this made us stronger.  And it is how I know that we can go on without her now that she's gone.  She empowered us with all of the life lessons we need, and she gave us practice in using them.  That is what a good mother does! 

It was this philosophy that I adopted when it was time to enroll my own daughter in school.  Part of me wanted to find a nice, safe, private Christian school for her.  The other part of me knew that she needed to go to public school.  She needed to learn to function in a diverse world and still be able to make the right choices--what the Bible calls being "in the world, and not of the world."  Now, I will give you that I enrolled her in the school where I was working.  I was even her kindergarten teacher, but that was just one of the boundaries that I set for her.  The older she got, I backed off from watching over her day-to-day life at school.  And now, she is ready to head off to middle school.  I'm pretty sure I'm prepared--I know she is!

As parents, we have to find a balance between protecting our children from pitfalls of life and teaching them to make their own mistakes.  Some people go the other extreme from what Mema tried to do with Mom.  They give their children too much freedom and not enough boundaries.  They think they are doing their children a favor, making them happy by giving them everything they want.  It turns out these kids aren't happy at all, and they often find themselves in messes with no skills to get out.  Similarly, children that are over-protected never learn how to deal with difficulties of life.  When the inevitable freedom comes, they go wild and wind up in big messes just like their overindulged counterparts.  Man, this parenthood stuff is hard!  Handle with PRAYER!!!

Helen and Sharon--My Mema and my Mommy!!