The Forgotten Good

Why is it so much more socially acceptable to bitch and complain about our kids then just take a moment and build them up and acknowledge how good they are. My kids are incredible - amazingly compassionate, generous, forgiving, and kind to others. They are conscientious about completing their chores and homework. They look for ways to be helpful to neighbors and elderly or disabled people when we are out in public. Do I sound like I am bragging? Well I am - I hope you have kids that are as awesome as mine.

If I was with a group of my friends and told them how my two oldest nearly came to blows getting dressed for acolyting yesterday, or that my youngest daughter dissolved into an exorcist tantrum because I had the temerity to ask her to get all her crap out of the living room most moms would laugh in commiseration and tell me their own tales of sibling rivalry woe. Their kids that dump the laundry right outside the laundry basket, the one that does their homework and then doesn't turn it in, or the one that cries if they don't get the "right" seat in the car. It is a type of motherhood solidarity built on complaints.

But we forget or overlook or undervalue the good.

This same weekend that Caitlin and Devin nearly came to blows and Hannah had a head spinning tantrum - Devin filled in as the tooth fairy when we forgot. Hannah woke me up crying on Saturday because the tooth fairy forgot her, Devin heard her and quickly took money out of his piggy bank and stuffed it under her pillow. He came in and asked if she had really looked hard for the money. He made her day.

Caitlin asked a neighbor child to come to church with us and stayed with her the whole time and introduced her to other people to make sure she felt comfortable.

Hannah won a toy at the Fall Fest and immediately turned around and gave it to the little girl who had played the game and was near tears because she couldn't win the big prize.

For every one time my kids lose their ever-loving minds and throw a lunch box in frustration or punch their brother over a chess game or slam a door - there are ten times that they help a neighbor with Halloween decorations or raking leaves, carry groceries for the elderly person at the Kroger, apologize to their sister and ask forgiveness, give a hug, give an encouraging word, pray for an enemy, or just smile and brighten someone's day. I need to forget the bad and not the good.