The Struggle

I am that mean mom that makes her kids do homework over the summer.  My little Lucy has struggled with homework since kindergarten, so as you can imagine, she loves this idea.  It’s such a chore, these math worksheets and spelling lists.  But I am able to see the payoff in sight-when she starts a new school year without the anxiety of playing catch up to the other kids. 

It’s for their own good, I tell myself.  And I often tell myself this in the middle of heavy sighs from the ladies.

It hurts me to see them struggle, and this summer homework is my way of easing the struggle.  That’s the tough bit about this motherhood business.  The struggle is inevitable.

Last year was our first experience with bullying.  It’s not over yet, simply changed a bit.  Kind of hard to get away from a neighborhood kid.  To be perfectly honest, there have been many moments when I wish that this family would move because I want an end to this type of heart hurt.

Once again, this heart hurt is inevitable.

And really, even if this family moved, there is always going to be someone else or something else.  A new struggle.

And I can’t prevent that.  I like to think that I have control over that-teaching kindness and standing up for yourself and others…with a few math worksheets thrown in.

The reality is that I have zero control over what happens.

I often think about my own mom.  Watching me stumble into adulthood, starting a family, going backwards and forwards with my career, the days of survival mode.  I wonder if there were times when she thought, Can’t she catch a break?!  Sheesh, I know I thought that all the time. 

I know that I will be watching my own ladies go through struggles as adults.  I suppose while they are in my house, I can pretend that I have some control. 

There is no control. 

Maybe I just want to be there for the heart hurts.