The Kids Are All Right
I am trying to write every day during Lent. It is incredibly cathartic. I waiver back and forth about feeling like it needs to be funny but this one just isn’t. LOL.
February 28, 2023
This is not parenting advice. I’m only speaking from my experience and I don’t know what I am doing. We uprooted our kids and moved to a foreign country. The only new parent advice I will ever give is to “do whatever you need to do to feel sane” or “listen to your instincts.” Clearly, when we moved I threw that advice out of the window.
Margie and I spent some spontaneous alone time this past weekend. I was trying to “do what I needed to do to feel sane” by escaping to the sauna and Margie followed me. My instincts told me she needed me a little more right now. It was less than hour, but it made an immediate positive impact.
It’s a simple idea but complicated in execution. Spend time alone with each of your kids. Sounds simple but… When? Where? Most importantly HOW without the bragging and jealousy that comes with any child getting something that the other doesn’t have.
Margie and I declared Tuesday as a secret “KunstTag” or “Art Day”. I’ll pick her up from school at 1:00 and we will spend 2-3 hours at a museum before the other girls finish school. Her sisters won’t know.
Sidebar: My initial intention was to transition “Art Day” into a rant about the German school system. I’ll write about that bizarre world tomorrow but Margie just sat down next to me to work on her homework and I had a change of heart. I don’t want to rant about the German school system. I want to rave about my kids. Kids, in general, are amazing.
30 minutes in a German grocery store gives me anxiety and Margie attends a fully German public school. I am a grown adult and can barely order a coffee and she sits in a classroom listening and understanding this incredibly difficult foreign language. I sat through a 2-hour German parent meeting and needed a nap from the mental exhaustion.
I was told that Ex-Pat kids have a rough transition when they start German school. I prepared myself for the breakdowns. The first week was terribly difficult. In what feels like the worst parenting moment of my life, I forced her in the building, up the stairs and into the classroom on one particularly rough morning. We were both crying. I could hear her screaming down two flights of stairs as I left to walk home.
I called Quin crying and insisted we transfer her to the International School immediately. I contacted her afterschool program and let them know I would be picking her up directly from school. I spent 4.5 hours worried, anxious and picturing the worst. Who knows what her German teacher whose name I couldn’t pronounce at the time was doing to her. I arrived at school as the bell rang. I outstretched my arms expecting Margie to run and jump in them.
“Why did you pick me up so early?”
I’m sorry? What?
Margie had moved on from her discomfort within the first five minutes of class. I had not. She was genuinely annoyed to be leaving school early. I had activated DEFCON 3 and now needed to retract my desperate plea to the International School admissions office.
I am acutely aware of how uncomfortable I can feel in my day-to-day activities living abroad. Sometimes I unknowingly transfer that discomfort and anxiety to the girls. I know they must be having the same of out-of-body, out-of-box, out-of-comfort-zone situations I am having just relevant to their day. They must be spazzing out too? But…they really…aren’t.
I cannot count the times I have heard or have said “it’s ok, kids are resilient” since we moved. It is so incredibly true for my girls. It can be incredibly hard but they let go and move on.
That moment in the stairwell feels like a lifetime ago. Margie loves school. It’s ok to let go. It’s ok to move on. I’m still working on my resiliency. It’s also ok to tell people you love you need a little more. Margie and I had our first of many “KunstTags” today.
Long story long. Kids are incredible. I’m incredibly proud of mine. Maybe one day they will read this but right now I just hope they feel it.
This is not what I set out to write and it’s all over the place. I’m ready to move on to bed so I’ll leave it here. German public school topic waits for tomorrow.
