Let's Talk Family

So it is one of the facts of life, the life I dreamt of all my life – my husband, me & my son together forever. Until one day I woke up to the reality that although I’d been fighting for a long time, I could not fight any longer: my husband and I were splitting up.

The year of 2008 was a busy time for us. We married in January, welcomed our precious baby boy in June and bought our first house in October. Things seemed perfect. This is the life every woman could dream of.

Well, on the outside.

Fast forward to July 2009. It is a warm, summer afternoon, I was just home from work. My husband was picking up the baby boy from daycare and I was sitting on the porch excited for them to come home. He sat down next to me on the porch and said, “This isn’t working, I want a divorce.” We had only been married a little over a year and a half. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. So we pretended to be working things out for another month until we couldn’t pretend any longer. He came home one evening and said he was moving out and so began the shuffle of trying to provide some normalcy in our precious boy’s life.

We tried marriage counseling, but both parties have to be willing. Sure I’m a flawed individual, but I sure wasn’t the one who drove this ship into the ground; yet I was the only one fighting. I fasted, I prayed, and one day God spoke. He said:

“Go home.”

So, I’m here in New Mexico. After being on the east coast for the past 7 years, after establishing a life in Baltimore, I’m home in New Mexico. I have no clue what will happen today or tomorrow, let alone 5 years down the line, but I know that when God spoke to me, I listened.

The pieces to a broken heart can be mended. This is all fresh to me. I’ve only been home for 3 weeks. So I’m not sitting on a soapbox saying get over it. I’m still hurting, but I am also healing. My focus shifted from trying to please my husband, who had left our marriage long before he physically left the house, to pleasing God and making sure my son experiences joy everyday. He is so sweet and my life is devoted to making sure he has everything he needs.

I hold no bitterness towards my husband for what he has done. I pray for his healing as well because I want him to be a fantastic father to our son. Why hold on to hurt and anger when we are tied together for the rest of our lives by a blessing from God? I will let my son’s innocence and his love be my daily reminder that God is love, and we should always operate in love.

So, before the divorce papers are filed and the possible custody battle begins, I’m letting go of all hurt and anger, because we have a little boy to raise – although 2,000 miles apart – together.

Ok, so we’ve all at least heard about Jon & Kate Plus 8, right? I’m not going to get too deep into any specifics about this family – mainly because I think it would be rather difficult to be original since every website, magazine, gossip column, and tabloid known to man has covered every possible angle of all the juicy bits of drama surrounding this worn out, over-publicized, privacy-starved, now separated “family” – and I use that term very loosely. I use them as an example simply because they are the best known in the series of family reality TV “stars” – a term which I also use extremely loosely. I know they’ve faced an immense amount of criticism, but being a rational, intelligent, well-meaning parent myself… I have to ask myself if they reeeeeaaallly weighed the pros and cons of this whole thing prior to jumping head first into this circus! I mean, can we honestly think we’re not kidding ourselves to believe sticking a NATIONAL network of cameras into an already chaotic life in the midst of a family with eight children can EVER be a good thing? Let’s look at this briefly just touching the high points.

1. Marriage is hard. Even couples who have NO children have added stress after they get married. There’s figuring out how to effectively blend yourself into this new “oneness” without losing yourself in the process and then of course you find out all these new things about your partner you never were previously aware of which sincerely irritate the CRAP out of you… Just living with another person, sharing all your – well, everything – with them (in my case, even my toothbrush, unbeknownst to me – *gag*) and I mean, face it – it’s definitely got its draw backs. Don’t get me wrong. Marriage is a beautiful thing. I LOVE my husband and wouldn’t dream of changing one thing about my life, but I also wouldn’t dream of adding cameras to it either. Just sayin…
2. Parenting is hard. Parents who have planned out every aspect of their pregnancy from conception to delivery and every idea of how they believe their family is going to operate soon find out that once they actually get into implementing those plans, they wasted a pretty great deal of time. LOL Seriously, there is nothing more UNpredictable and impossible to plan for than parenthood. Actually, it’s rough enough just planning ONE family outing. Planning your entire LIFE? Forget about it. Now, keeping that in mind… let’s try convincing ourselves that it’s not going to complicate things to have like, oh I don’t know 60 MILLION people (?!?!?!) judging and critiquing your every interaction with not only your spouse but also your children and then discussing how they could do it like 10 times better than you – on the NEWS. Yeah, that’s not gonna hurt a THING. Psh.
3. Life is hard. One thing you MUST have to keep things flowing properly in a marriage/family is mutual respect. You cannot attempt to belittle someone especially in the company of others and that end up being okay. Not. Gonna. Happen. When you allow an entire NATION into your home, there are going to be consequences – and the NATION isn’t going to experience them. They’ll just watch while you do.
4. Resources get limited, but hard work pays off. I do realize that in keeping with life being hard, a family this large is obviously going to have financial needs. My husband and I have 5 kids. That’s not quite EIGHT *whoa* but hey, close enough. Is it easy? HECK no. Is it super expensive? Uh, DUH. Do we have hard times? PLENTY! But, we make it… and not only do we get stronger in the process, but we get closer and we develop even more of an appreciation for one another through all the bumps we face. Easy outs to problem situations almost always have high prices to pay. If participating in the show was purely for financial gain, they got it. But at what price? And, let’s just point out here that if you *choose* to have a family this size, then obviously there should be a plan in place that doesn’t lead to its inevitable breakup.

What’s my point? Well, quite simply: family is a very complex, unique, and valuable personal AND social structure. It requires a certain finesse … there are no rule books, instruction manuals, or perfected methods at creating – or maintaining – a successful family. But one thing I can probably bank on is the fact that when you open your family up to the opinions, criticisms, and observation of others, it’s only going to affect you negatively. (Unless of course we’re talking about a marriage counselor; that’s a totally different ballgame.) People don’t have your best interests at heart. People do not care if you stay together or break apart. All they care about is entertainment. You have to consider how decisions you make are going to affect the entirety of your family unit right down to its finest, most fragile fibers not just immediately but how those decisions will impact you years down the road.

While I do enjoy reality TV (because, let’s face it – watching other people is intriguing… we all wanna know how other people function, right?) I will be the first one to say that I can’t see anything helpful about allowing media into your private family life. If money is your only concern and you’re willing to chance – at best – the possibility of some serious confusion in your life, then by all means – go for it. But if you value your marriage and your family, when it comes to benefits of families in the media – not so much. This is of course just my opinion, which doesn’t make it “law” and doesn’t mean it’s right. It is just what *I* think about the way families should respect their OWN privacy enough to not risk inviting problems in by compromising it.

What do YOU think?

When I first became a mom, nervousness set over me. I had no idea what to expect. I didn’t know where to start. I literally poured over every book to try and learn whatever I could.

Four kids later I am here to say that no parenting book can prepare you for raising your children. Especially when you have a house full of boys. (In my case, four to be exact.)

They don’t give you the good, the bad and the ugly. Like how to realistically stop sibling rivalry or how to remove permanent marker from skin. (In my case, I had to wait about three days and several bath soakings later.) They sugar coat how tiring, stressful and depressing parenting can be sometimes. And they fail to highlight how exciting and rejuvenating and energizing parenting can be at the same time.

I love all of my boys equally. They bring me so much joy, and to say that parenting has saved my life would be an understatement.

Follow me on my journey as I blog about the good, the bad, and the ugly of my parenting experiences living in a “house full of blue” parenting all boys (which include my fiance as well).