That Was A Mouthful!

Don’t talk while the flavor lasts. Mom said this to indicate talking with food in your mouth was not polite. There was also sanity in the message for her. Roughly translated, she was letting me know if I talked before the flavor was gone, my lemon drop might fall to the ground and get all full of dirt. The ensuing tantrum would be something she would have to deal with. One of Jenny’s and my favorite laughs together is the time Bett and Belle were very excited about something at the dinner table. They both started talking at once. Both had food in their mouths. Being a mom with manners in view, Jenny insisted, “Don tak wif yu mofful!” all the while maneuvering her hot bite of sausage to get her sentence out. She and I made eye contact and started to laugh!

Mom also always cautioned, “Don’t run or you might fall”. She knew I would fall. My upper body always gained momentum faster than my feet. Running usually meant I broke my fall with my forehead! The ensuing tantrum was something she would have to deal with.

Don’t interrupt your elders! This was a strict rule and was not to be broken! Why the latest scoop on Mrs. Peabody’s husband returning home long past the dinner hour was more important than: “1) the toilet was running over again, 2) the cat just got hit by a boy on a bike, 3) your dress is unbuttoned for three buttons” I’ll never understand. Nevertheless, I perpetrated the same stricture on our children and our grandchildren. Standing at the grocery one day chatting with someone I had not seen for several years, Bett waited patiently for me to get on with life. As I started to walk from the spot we’d been visiting, I noticed a spill on the floor. Joshing Bett who was newly potty trained, I said, “Oh, Bett, did you wet your pants?” She solemnly nodded. My bad! I asked her why she hadn’t told me she had to go to the bathroom. “You were talking,” she whispered. I apologized to her, arranged for someone to wipe the spill, and hurried her home. I later explained that if something was very important, she was to touch me and say, “very important”. You know neither she nor her sister ever abused the privilege. Why could I not have learned that one earlier? My sister, Pat, also waited dutifully while Dot’s fiancé chatted with Dad. When there was a break in the conversation, she said, “Your car is rolling down hill!” By the time she was able to tell him it had quite a head start on him and this was Polk Street Hill we are speaking of. He made a dash out the door and down the hill, flinging himself head first through the open driver’s window and hitting the brake with his hand to keep his car from meeting disaster with a neighbor’s parked car.

Respect your elders. There’s another one. Yes, there is something to acknowledging years add knowledge and some wisdom to a person. They have been where a young person has not. We had a neighbor who yelled at his wife, ignored his children unless they were doing something annoying to him, and insulted my sister and her son. There were other elders in my lifetime that showed little or no reason to be respected. I can think of several supervisors that also fell into that category. Give respect where respect is due but accept the fact that some people will not either deserve nor attain your respect. If you cannot respect them you can ask God to help you stay out of their way.

My Aunt Jo was a resourceful woman. When my dad’s brother Ted died at a young age, Jo was left with a small child and not much to live on. She went to school and learned to be a teacher for children with Down’s Syndrome. Children tended to like her. She would put her purse on the floor, point to two pockets and say, “You may play with my car keys and any happy surprises you find in those pockets are yours to keep; but you will not touch anything else in that purse!” The keys were fun, and the candy and gum she had put there along with a few things like Cracker Jack rings etc. were a delight. She was caustic, harsh, and coldly calculating with adults. I think she had mellowed a bit when I was allowed to dig in the purse pockets, but not much. When Pat had been at that age, however, Jo had caused a fair amount of problems between Dad and Mom and she was a favorite to neither of them. Pat refusing to check out the pockets said to her one day, “My mother doesn’t like you so I don’t like you either and I won’t look in your purse!” I wasn’t born yet so I don’t know the outcome of the exchange. I do know that whenever it came up Mom was embarrassed, but Dad thought it was funny.

I don’t even want to go down the road of: “Stop crying or I’ll give you something to cry about”, or “There! (after a swat) Now! Stop crying!”, or “If you keep scowling your face might freeze that way”, or “Cat got your tongue? (yuk!)”, or “Stop laughing! You’re just being silly!”

Where do we get these sayings? If I was overly giggly, which I often was, Mom would say, “After the laughter come the tears!” I have no idea what she meant. With her German upbringing, I suspect she meant that life is full of laughter and sorrow. For the longest time I thought it meant that when I laughed hard I usually wound up laughing and crying at the same time. That still happens to me now and then. My cousin Frieda was easy to make laugh. Once you had her laughing it was easy to reduce her to helpless hysteria with laughter and tears simultaneous with wetting her pants.

I particularly remember working on an art project. It hadn’t gone well and my teen frustration level had risen to high anger. Pat was trying to get me to see it wasn’t worth the anger. Something she said struck me funny, and the laughter led to tears and then all was going on at the same time. I couldn’t catch my breath, my throat hurt and I was choking. Mom got me a cool wash cloth and told me to hold it to my face until I could calm down. I was finally able to remove the wash cloth, dry my eyes and breathe. Dad came from the bedroom where he had been taking his every-evening nap, and said, “You really shouldn’t do that it isn’t good for you!” Mom, Pat and I exchanged looks and I was in as bad straits as before! If only he hadn’t said anything!

Early in our marriage, having one of my fits of hysteria over something, Dave, stepped close to me and asked in a very worried voice, “Do you want me to slap you?” He looked so stressed at the thought, and sounded so hopeful he wouldn’t have to go to that extreme. Of course, he shortly realized he had made things worse. Dave and our kids learned the best thing to do is let me get it out of my system without helpful comments on their part. We were in a restaurant when Helen was around ten which would have made Marc about six. We were looking at the menus and we were on a vacation so had been driving pretty much all day. Marc looked over his menu with very serious brown eyes intently staring at me asked, “Mom, are you intelligent?” I didn’t even have time to take in a breath. We all laughed, but I couldn’t stop. I was wiping tears out of my eyes and gasping for air. The waitress came and they all gave their orders. She looked at me and Dave said, “She’ll order when she gets it together.” The waitress left our table looking like the men with straightjacket in hand would be a comfort to her. Their food was brought, and I was finally able to ask for something to eat. The whole time my insides were being bounced with laughter, they had continued their conversation and sipped their drinks and waited for me to get a grip. Marc’s question was raised because Dave and I had been discussing Intelligence Quotient and the fact that both my sister, Dot, and brother, Ev, had extremely high IQ’s (as do Dave and his siblings) but no common sense. Marc wanted to know if I am like my siblings. I don’t think my IQ measured as high as Dot’s or Ev’s, but I have my share; I was also blessed with a bit more common sense!

The reason this has come to mind? I’m not sure. I have been reading Scripture in a new way. I have been looking at what God says and incorporating His actual words intentionally into the prayers I pray. I have always included the verses that came to me while praying, but this is actually seeking out His words to apply to specific need for others or for myself. God does not ever tell us not to cry but He does tell us how to look for the reason we are crying. He doesn’t give us silly platitudes nor threaten us with a better reason to cry. He asks us to evaluate our part in our sadness and then confess it, ask forgiveness, and be forgiven. If our tears are not our own cause, He promises He will take care of the issue. He tells us not to be afraid but He knows from time to time we will be very afraid. He doesn’t tell us to turn out the light, close our eyes tight and just ignore the fear. He tells us He is the light, He will never leave us or forsake us, and to keep our eyes focused on Him and all will be well. He does not tell us all will be rosey; He tells us all will be well. For true wonderment of someone experiencing that type of sense of wellness, look up the story and the words for the hymn It Is Well With My Soul. We humans know how to spew forth comments and conditions. God doesn’t comment and He is unconditional. He asks one thing. Believe that Jesus Christ is the answer God promised way back in Genesis to a fallen Adam and Eve. Believe that when we acknowledge our helplessness to save ourselves, tell Him, and ask Him to manage our lives better than we have; He will step into our hearts and show us His amazing ways.

Crossing the Generation Gap

Our church has been discussing “Inter Generational” ministry. When I was a kid (don’t you dare say that was when the earth was brand new!), the few times I was taken to church, kids sat in the pew. Novel thought. We didn’t contemplate messing around because the evil eye didn’t only come from Mom. Any adult nearby and some from 752 miles away could cast a look that settled one down without argument. A friend of ours recalls that whenever she or her four siblings misbehaved in church their thigh became the resting spot of Mom’s index and middle fingers. It may have looked like a mother gently cautioning her child, but I have been assured that those two fingers carried the weight of an elephant in stiletto heels rendering pain to quell the desire to act up. Psalm 22:6 Train a child in the way he should go.

Of course, the occasional baby voice proclaiming need for a potty break, a comment on someone’s hat, or an expressed desire for a drink of water NOW, was not considered acting up and received smiles and chuckles from adults whose kids were beyond that age. While the mother may have been a bit red faced as she ushered the child up the aisle or hushed the commentary on the hat, it was understood kids will be kids. 1 Samuel 1:22 Hannah did not go. She said to her husband, “After the boy is weaned, I will take him and present him before the LORD, and he will live there always.” In Hannah’s case, she was actually giving her very young son into the care of the priest for priestly service to God. But parents and grandparents have God’s blessing to give their children and grandchildren to the Lord and ask in full confidence that they remain with Him always. That’s trust that God will watch over them and give them every opportunity to choose Him when they are making their own decisions.

My family was not even what has been referred to as Christmas and Easter Christians or Lily/Poinsettia Christians. Way back before I was born, there was pain inflicted by the good people of the church that made Dad and Mom decide they would not set foot in any church except when absolutely necessary such as weddings and funerals. Thus it was that I felt a need for “church” when our kids were born and pushed Dave and myself to find a church we could attend regularly. I wasn’t looking for Jesus; I was looking for what church-going people seemed to have when facing a crisis. Hmmmmm, wouldn’t that be . . . Jesus?

Church had changed. It was compartmentalized or departmentalized. The approach to the sermon meant children were ushered out for children’s church. Teens went off to Sunday school or Youth Church. No longer was it imperative that a child learn to sit still and be quiet while the pastor was speaking. Even Sunday school took on a cubical appearance. It became divided into age groups and gender groups. No one shared across the generations. Of course, no one stayed on the family farm any more either. Grandparents lived miles away from their second and third generation progeny and in many cases one generation never really knew the new generation. I grew up without grandparents because mine were all deceased before I was born. I missed what other children talked about for visits and fun.

Our children basically grew up without grandparents as they were all out of town. My parents died in 1966 and 1967. Our children were born in 1966 and 1970. Dave had one full set of grandparents on his father’s side of the family and a grandmother from his mother’s side of the family and had known his great, grandmother. While he was the proud possessor of so many grandparents, they and his parents were all out of town. Dave’s mother died when he was eighteen and his dad remarried. Our kids never really got to know any of them although they did meet them and interact with them. Dave’s dad is still living.

I grew up in an inter generational family. Dad and Mom married in 1920, Dot was born in 1921, Everett in 1924, Betty in 1931, and Pat in 1934. I was born in 1942. Dave’s father was born in 1923. Our children didn’t have a chance to figure out the difference between aunts/uncles and cousins because my nieces and nephews were the same ages as Dave’s siblings. Let me tell you there was plenty of inter generational stuff to learn from – both good and bad!

So, through the changes over the years, the family became disconnected, spread around the world, and technology made it faster though not easier to communicate. The post WWII men and women who wanted to strike out and go farther and get there faster than their parents began moving where the jobs were, where the housing was, where the grass was ever so much greener. Now we can communicate by so many gadgets and electronic devices in the speed of seconds, but we can’t understand each other.

I have been blessed in that I did not work away from home until our youngest child was fourteen. Still that was a difficult age to come home to an empty house. The values Dave and I hold were instilled in our kids. That isn’t to say they are cookie cutter images of us (thank you, Lord Jesus!). They have evaluated our values, kept some, strengthened some, and discarded some. Doubly blessed, I have been in close contact with Bett and Belle since their birth. I treasure the times with our kids and with Bett and Belle the way God treasures our time with Him.

Now families and churches are struggling to find solid footing in holding dear the generations as well as making sure each generation gives something to the other. What once came naturally has become families trying to learn to stay close, help each other out and learn from those who went before. If we don’t do this, there will be gaps in believers attending church. Notice I did not say there will be gaps in believers. We are experiencing churches losing the 19 to 30 age group. This is not to say they are shifting from one church or denomination to another, they are losing interest in what church community has to offer. What my generation saw dwindle away family life is now attacking the church family as well. The connection has been broken, wireless has dropped the connection, the interface has separated, the lines have been cut.

How do we repair all this? We learn to take delight in one another. Once when Bett was age four, we were having a wedding dance on the beach at the lake. She was in her bathing suit with a towel draped over her head for a veil. She was clutching dandelions in her baby hands and walking gracefully toward me from the end of the doc. I was singing the wedding song from Lohengren (not well, but very loud). She reached the end of the dock and stepped onto the sandy beach and we danced. She stopped and smiled up at me and said, “Grammy, do you know why I like you best?” I said I didn’t. “Because you are four like me!” What a compliment. Belle is a bit more prosaic but she too, likes it when I forget I am older than dirt and remember what it was like to be her age.

We have to get back to the time of enjoying to spend time together liking both our likenesses and differences. Typically grandparents have more patience with the younger set, because they may have some health issues but they have time. Besides, the younger set likes to hear about the good ol’ days and the young set’s parents are still finding the old set too slow witted to tie their own shoes. This attitude changes around the time the parents discover their progeny feel the same about them.

Some things to share with youngsters: telephone, telegraph, phonograph, vinyl records, 78, 33 and 45 rpm and the needle that captured the sounds. How about the Dictaphone? Try explaining that one especially if you are old enough to have used wax cylinders to record and play back the sound of your boss’ voice. Where did the ticker tape come from for the ticker-tape parades in the 30’s? What is a ticker anyway and what was it the forerunner of? I recently walked into an AT&T store to purchase a new cell phone. As the young man approached and asked if he could help I said, “I want a new phone with the following apps. I would prefer a little crank on the side which when turned brings to my ear a nice lady who will get me to whomever I wish to speak. I will accept a party-line of three.” He stared at me for a moment and then said, “Wouldn’t it be a blast if we had a model that looked like that?” He at least knew of what I spoke! Dave, as usual was embarrassed to be with me.

Show the youngsters how to make egg noodles from scratch but don’t expect to keep any for soup the next day because they will make them, cook them, salt and pepper them and eat them as fast as you take them out of the boiling water. Teach them to make their favorite pie or cake from fruit from the orchard, and ingredients that do not come as a fine powder from a box. When they come in the door and say, “Hi Gram (or Gramps) what are we going to do?” ask them what they would like to do and then do it.

Listen to them. Sometimes they are quicker to tell the older set the hopes and dreams they have as well as the trials and pain they suffer than they are to tell their parents. Learn to keep a confidence. If it is something Dad and Mom need to know, encourage your youngster to tell all and be willing to be a part of the telling. Be an encourager. If they say something very sage that makes you laugh, remember to be honest with why you are laughing. Could it be because you once thought the same thing and aging and daily living took it away?

Youngsters have to do their part. Take off the headphones and ear buds and hear what your parents and grandparents are saying. Some of it will astound you. No holding hands or kissing until you were engaged (in some cases not until you were married)? Find out why. Find out if it was difficult. Find out why granddad thought grandma was pretty and why she thought he was handsome. Teach the oldies how to text! Teach them to play a game on an I-pad or I-pod. Let them teach you how to play scrabble without electronics.

Start small and build a strong foundation of mutual trust and enjoyment. What could be better than learning sitting around the fire pit in the back yard is more fun than sci-fi, or vampires, on the television? Share each other’s hobbies and find humor in what you cannot do as well as the other generation can do. Try dancing to each other’s music. (In my case you would have to learn to dance to operatic arias!)

When people complimented Dave and me on how well our children were behaving or growing into adults, we would smile, thank them and admit they were who they were in spite of us and our mistakes! We weren’t being flip; we were giving God credit for raising them when we messed up. My mistakes were often in giving too much information before they were ready to receive it. Sometimes it was funny. After Helen did not follow direction carefully given to her, I angrily demanded why, if she hadn’t understood, did she not ask for clarification. She tearfully stood before me (probably all of 7 years old) and said, “You always talk like you are writing a book! If I ask you to explain you get worse!” I burst into laughter and promised to try to do better and to ask for questions. Marc always insisted I talked so long he forgot the beginning by the time I reached the end! I remember these times because I learned from them and they are funny. I am sure they remember times when I didn’t learn and it wasn’t funny! With our grandchildren, I have had the pleasure of enjoying them and the pressure of over-correcting, driving to succeed, and creating up-standing citizens of the community to glorify their parent is not so strong. Ooooops! Who is supposed to be glorified? I overheard our two telling someone what it was like to be corrected by me. Marc referred to my "maniacle murderer's voice" and "the look that turned him to stone". Helen said, "She used to kneel down at our level, hold us by our little shirt fronts, and hiss into our faces until our eyeballs rolled back in our heads! And, she would smile so people passing by thought we were being sweetly talked to by the loving mom!" Rosy little family portrait, what?

The Bible is full of child-rearing hints and direction. Here are two of them. Proverbs 13:24 He who spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is careful to discipline him. And Proverbs 23:13 Do not withhold discipline from a child; if you punish him with the rod, he will not die. In my generation, some of our friends took this literally and smacked their kids for every infraction. One woman I admired in most areas talked of putting her toddlers to bed with repeated spankings because they stood up in their cribs and cried to get up. What a lovely bedtime! She was trying so hard to be biblical, she was forgetting compassion. Another friend of mine startled me when she squished an entire toasted marshmallow into her son’s mouth to “keep his clothes clean”. He cried so she swatted him. I remarked that the treat was hot. She said, “He knows he’s supposed to keep his clothes clean and he wasn’t obeying me!” Whoa, Bubba! That isn’t what God intended at all. For a bit Satan had a field day twisting God’s meaning from the scriptures and parents bought it hook, line and sinker.

Jesus didn’t use the rod on his listeners. He chastised, spoke in anger and strong words to those who were self-righteous and keeping people from seeing the One True God. He downright put the fear of God into the money changers in the temple. But, to those who sought and believed, he was gentle, and meek, and loving. He taught, He set examples, He prayed. That’s a model parent! Why couldn’t I have known that when I was parenting? I did my best with what I had within me at the time and God protected me from doing my worst. With our Bett and Belle, our kids have looked on and marveled at the things we do and wondered how we changed. I smile. I used to tell our kids in the midst of their squabbles over who “mom always liked best”, that they would see how much we loved them when they saw us with their children. “You will see us do things we wish we had known to do with you, the things we couldn’t do because we were busy being responsible parents, and the things we just didn’t have money to do after meeting the bills and feeding and clothing you.”

Recently, a young woman showed an interest in knitting. I’ve taught knitting for years; in fact, I’ve knit longer than she has lived! She said there was a group of women who were interested and would I be willing to have a group. After some initial planning, eight women in a range of ages from (I’m guessing middle 20’s to middle 40’s) gathered round our kitchen table and classes began. Tomorrow night will be the last of four lessons. You know what? We laugh, and talk, and tease each other and sympathize. They accept me at least 30 years their senior and I enjoy them. We will get together to knit off and on through the future. Dave and I open our home on alternate Thursdays for knitters who just want to come knit and I help with problem areas in their projects. Here’s the fun part. I didn’t stop to think until today that we are an inter-generational group. On 15 February 2012, I will begin meeting with two moms and their homeschooled children for four weeks on Wednesday mornings to teach the young teens to knit and one of the moms to teach. Can you believe it? I’ll blog again to let you know how it goes. I think God is smiling. I know I am!

Don’t think because I can see the correct way to do things on paper I get it right in practice. I am a clay vessel with lots of cracks. I haven’t mentioned Dave’s parenting ideas here because in spite of what I sound like sometimes I try not to speak for him. We agreed on many things, some we didn’t. We made our share of mistakes, but we look at our kids and see those things God took out of our hands and turned into something pretty wonderful. We also see our mistakes walking around on their legs! I like our kids (loving them goes without saying). Our granddaughters are the reward for hanging in there and being parents. Someday Marc and Jenny will know that. Helen and Kevin will not have any children of their own, but if they adopt some day, they will have to experience the tightrope walk of raising kids so they may be rewarded with grandchildren. Helen is a teacher in a childcare center. Her earliest charges have graduated college. Many a child has been blessed with her love and care. She is especially good with behavior challenged youngsters.

I guess what I am doing in this blog is thinking out loud about how our world has separated families and generations and how we can bring them back together. First step: Pray. Second step: Pray some more. Third step: Say “Hi” to someone not in your current generation and see where it takes you. Fourth step: Keep stepping!