As I mentioned last week, I am going to spend the next few weeks sharing
what my kids said are the most important life-lessons they learned from me. The
reason I decided to do this is because if my kids thought they were important
enough to talk about, then chances are your kids do too. So let’s get started…
LESSON #1: Be Yourself:
Depending on how old you are you probably remember when the scrapbooking
craze hit. You were either part of the craze, as in you were up to your armpits
in stickers, templates, acid-free paper and photographs, or you were a kid
surrounded by the same.
You can do the math on this one: four kids + one camera + lots of
pictures in those dreadful unsafe albums + a friend who was a scrapbooking consultant
= a mom (me) destined to be a scrapbooking whiz/fanatic. Right? Wrong…
I tried. I really did. But it just wasn’t
me!
It was fun at first, but it didn’t take long for me to realize that the
process wasn’t worth it. Not to me, anyway. I kept trudging along, though—going
to scrapping parties now and then and buying stickers and paper to help my
pictures tell stories. I guess I thought if I did it enough I would learn to
love it. I didn’t.
And then one day it happened—I realized that putting all my precious
pictures in plain albums with a basic explanation of who/what/when/where next
to it was enough. I was free! Oh, and get this: I wasn’t banished to the island
of misfit moms for my rebellion. It felt amazing.
My kids noticed. They even asked why I wasn’t covering the table in
paper, stickers, and cut-up pictures in my ‘spare time’ (what was that?). I
told them it just wasn’t me and that I wasn’t going to do something I didn’t
like to do just because everyone else was doing it.
This little lesson in being myself served my two oldest daughters well a
few years later when all their friends started playing basketball. They tried
it but found out it wasn’t for them and quit after one season. Being themselves
meant they didn’t get invited to several events. It even cost them some
friends, but they found new friends who shared the same interests they had and
moved on.
My son and youngest daughter—both of whom had similar experiences—said
being yourself was an important lesson they learned from me.
It warms this momma’s heart to know they really were paying attention to
what I did and all those times I said things like, “God don’t make no junk”, “You
were made to be you and nobody else”, and “I love you just because you’re you”
really did sink in.
Your heart can be all warm and fuzzy, too, when you live and speak the life-lesson that gives your kids the
confidence to be themselves.
Love,
Momma D
Momma D
Copyright 2016 Darla Noble. No part of this can be used or copied without permission from the author.
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