what I want my daughter to know about relationships with men What I want my children to know about relationships with a partner
Originally posted January 16, 2011
The right guy person at the wrong time is still the wrong guy person. You need to be “me” before you can be “we”. You become like the people you are around the most; ask, “do I want to become more like him this person?” If s/he loves you, s/he’ll never say “If you love me…” People can change. Not all of them do. Never use sex as a weapon or a tool. It’s better to be alone and content than with someone and miserable. If you have to lie to your family and friends about him a person, he’s the person is probably not a great catch. It’s never okay to [be] hit. There’s NOTHING wrong with you. Sometimes, “like the other girls” shouldn’t be the goal. Don’t look at his the resume, look at his the heart. Just because s/he meets “minimum qualifications” or “seems perfect for you” doesn’t mean you have to date. Yes, sometimes “good guys” are boring. And keeping up with a rebel can be exhausting. Most divorces result from arguments about money and sex. Watch carefully how s/he talks about, uses or values these things. There’s a difference between “perfect” and “healthy”. Learn how to fight fair. Stand up for yourself. And learn to say “I’m sorry.” If s/he doesn’t encourage (which can include challenging) your faith, you’ll probably end up bored or frustrated.
Edited to add: You will change. So will they. A person will never solve your problems. You are your own hero. It’s always okay to ask for help.
If you’re a person that pays attention to the stars and planets, you’ll know that when I say I’m a Libra (both sun and moon), it’s an indicator that fairness is a value to me. The sign of the libra is literally a scale.
I’m a 4 on the enneagram. And as we 4s tend to do, when I’m in a healthy place, I exhibit the best of the 1 in a search for justice and equality. When under stress and more reactive, I take on the worst of the 2: angry martyr.
As I move about in the world, this sense of what is right and just is like that classic angel/devil on my shoulder. I’m critical of when people don’t uphold their responsibility. I would say with disgust in my work life, How can that phone interviewer just dish their slots to their CRM? They were scheduled! Or, in public, How can that person just jump to the open cashier when clearly the next person in line should be the one to go first? Even though I teach my kids both verbally and with action that fair does not mean same I still tend to have a lot of sameness in my parenting approach.
Also, I’m an oldest child.
The parable of Luke 15 is a tough one for me. If you’re not fresh on your Biblical addresses, it’s the one where the younger son asks for an early inheritance and frolics about the cities until he runs out of money. He decides to come home and his dad celebrates his return.
The typical teaching on this story is about how much grace God will show us when we’re stupid. And it’s true. I’m down with this teaching, I find it compelling. Also, the idea of spending any money without conscious forethought and practical consideration puts me into a panic attack, let alone when it’s spent on things of only enjoyment rather than utility. So it’s not the “application point” I’m looking for.
So, no. I don’t identify with that part of the story. I like that part of God, but I’m not the classical screw-up who finds peace in such extreme forgiveness.
I’m much more the type who likes to earn her grace.
So when I read about the older son sulking in the barn while the party music is playing much too loud, thank you, I get it. He did the right thing. He took care of the family farm. He met and likely even exceeded expectations.
And he was brutally unhappy.
“…he answered his father, ‘Look, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command, yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him!”
Luke 15:29-30
For a certain number of us people in the population, this attitude feels righteous. This story about doing the selfish thing and doing the right thing ends on its head. It makes you ask the question: why would I ever want to do the right thing?
And then I catch myself saying it out loud, and it reveals the problem. Why would I ever want to do the right thing? Gee, I don’t know Michele. Because it’s right? It’s good. It adds beauty and structure and it moves the world in the direction of wholeness.
Even when it’s hard. Even when others don’t. Even when it feels unfair, doing the right thing for the sake of goodness is still a good thing. Nearly all spiritual traditions agree that living a life focused on little efforts but big rewards is a shallow existence. I have a hunch that those of us with Effort and Reward ScorecardsTM are living the shallowest, even when we’re putting in more than “our share” of the efforts.
In the story, the father has a graceful response to the eldest, too.
“‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours.”
Luke 15:31
First: you are always with me.
The older son was so wrapped up in his sense of duty that he missed the delight of spending his life alongside his treasured father. He was caught up in the reward of doing good being more than the goodness itself.
Perhaps we miss joy because we’re bogged down by the duty and it suffocates the delight. We say that we “have to” and not that we “get to.” We begin to believe that other endeavors would be better because they seem easier, when really all endeavors require effort and energy and work. Wouldn’t it be best to put forth those efforts in the company of the ones you love most?
Then: all that is mine is yours.
Baked into this passage is a shift in perspective from scarcity to abundance. It begins with dividing an inheritance, but what it’s really about is favor and love. If you love him this much to forgive such ignorance, will there be enough for me? You already gave him his half, are you going to give him mine? How can we both fit into your heart?
As a mother of many, I know that your heart doesn’t divide with more children, it multiplies. Loving one child doesn’t decrease the love for another. Love isn’t a fresh peach pie which needs divided into slivers and doled out based upon who gets there first or who worked the hardest.
But in a world that asks you to produce, perform and perfect, hustling for worthiness, that simply doesn’t make sense. As an oldest child with a master’s in practicality, such an abundant existence isn’t my nature. It’s a perspective I have to stencil into my skin and recite every day.
You are always with me and all that I have is yours.
If you watch marketing, especially that which is promoting something you would enjoy – something that would incite pleasure – the appeal comes in the form of reward: You Deserve This.
The weekends away without work, the delights of delicious foods, a good night’s sleep under an expensive but beautiful velvet bedspread: they all arrive to us packaged as rewards. You deserve this.
Because I’m firmly placed at the intersection of the health/wellness and spirituality industries, I have some concerns.
To imply that because of *this* (whatever *this* is), we deserve something, also implies that there are moments, people, and situations that do not deserve that something. A reward means that goodness is attached to behavior. Your worthiness becomes something that is earned.
Such a line of reasoning, based on the notion that there’s an authority deciding on your worthiness, also leaves you, the earner, constantly wondering: is this enough? Is this enough to get the prize? If I just… X, will I finally be enough to get… Y?
It’s that wondering, that constant, pervasive concern that you aren’t enough that will keep you on the treadmill of earning, earning, earning. But here’s the real punch in the gut: everything you earn won’t be enjoyed in the same way. Its flavor will be tinged with entitlement.
As long as we operate in a scarcity mentality, that the world is a big pie and we have to elbow our way to the biggest piece, our striving will be met with rewards that will never feel enough to satisfy.
The business will never be successful enough. The house will never be big, clean, and full enough. The marriage will never be fulfilling enough. The kids…. (oh, goodness, let’s not talk about what happens when there are kids involved.)
This is the awakening that turns the poison of entitlement into banquet of thanks.
Jedidiah Jenkins, Like streams to the Ocean
I think this is why Paul wrote to the Ephesians that it is “by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that on one can boast.”
I won’t dispute that actions have consequences and each decision we make will take us in a particular direction, potentially closer or further away from something we ultimately want for our lives. Our own volition is a gift.
And that’s the thing: it’s all a gift. All of it. Not just the “prize” at the end, the thing you think you earned because you happen to find pleasure in it. The path leading you there is also the gift. Each step toward it: gift. gift. gift.
That cookie you eat after a 5-miler may taste extra sweet, but it’s not because you paid the 5-mile price. Those miles were their own gift. The cookie is grace upon grace.
When you free yourself from living as if it all has to be earned, you’ll find the grace in the 5 miles. Just because you don’t enjoy it as much doesn’t mean it’s not a grace. It’s like I tell my kids when I make a dinner that’s anything other than pizza: just because this isn’t your favorite dinner doesn’t mean it’s not a good one.
We’re not living amid a big balance sheet of life, computing debits and credits and hoping to end our lifetime in the black. Each experience in this world is a credit. We enjoy some credits more than others, and that’s ok.
Pleasure – enjoying something for what it is – isn’t a reward. Rest isn’t a reward. Renewal isn’t a reward. These gifts were given before you set out to give efforts. These are grace, upon grace, upon grace.
