In Honor of Labor Day, a Thank You to Parents

Labor Day falls within a week of my daughter’s birthday, sometimes on the day itself. This year, on September first, my daughter turned 16, and just like that, I have become the mother of a sixteen-year-old teenager.

But as much as it feels like this milestone has snuck up on me, I guess it wasn’t “just like that” after all. Sixteen years of motherhood have come between that day I first held my baby in my arms and today … when I find myself the mother of two teens (16 and 14) and the youngest, 11, who it seems is catching up fast with his siblings.

Sixteen years, or 192 months, or roughly 5,840 days as a mother … meaning, days of labor. Because let’s face it, parenting is work. It’s hard work. It’s time-consuming work. At the same time, it is fulfilling work.

It is labor that parents generally would not trade for anything else.

Yet on this day, Labor Day, when we honor the labor of the working force of past and present, let’s also honor the unseen and unpaid labor of mothers and fathers. The years and months, the seasons and days, of so many activities that go into raising a child.

Waking up to a crying baby and walking, shushing, singing her back to sleep, night after night.

Holding two little hands that grasp tightly to yours while those first steps are taken.

The honor, the labor, of raising a child.

Kissing foreheads goodbye when you have to go to work, even though you would rather stay home with your little one.

Or making a life out of making a home, out of laundry and dishes and cooking and homework, of listening to your child’s stories when they return from school.

The honor, the labor, of raising a child.

Chasing down the “I’m not tired” and “I don’t want to go to sleep” for brushing teeth and taking baths and turning down the covers and climbing into bed.

Singing the lullabies or telling the stories (or, if you’re like me, cheating by reading stories because you just can’t think them up off the top of your head) tucking them in and kissing them goodnight one last time.

Day after day after day.

And this year, due to COVID-19, many parents are facing up close more than ever before the labor of day-to-day motherhood and fatherhood. I saw a meme that perfectly encapsulates parenting during this time (photo by Laurika Claasen, posted to the Facebook group “Parents in Quarantine”).

In addition to personally dealing with the physical and financial and mental/emotional challenges during the coronavirus pandemic, parents have the double task of helping their kids and teens deal with the same.

Hopefully, for the most part, we’ve tried to do so positively and with some imagination. However, we’ve likely all had days (and perhaps weeks) when the thing we most look forward to when we wake up in the morning is crawling into bed at night or for a quick nap midday.

Today is Labor Day

… a day to honor laborers of all kinds … the cashiers and mail carriers, the stockers, the baristas, the janitors, the firefighters and teachers and construction workers.

And the parents, whose unseen and unsung labor is day by day raising the workers and the world-changers of tomorrow.

I came across this quote about parenting by one of my favorite authors, Frederick Buechner. I love the quote because it rings true about not just the joy of parenting but the shadows of it as well … the shadows of one’s own childhood that all to often turn into the shadows we carry into our own parenting.

And yet, regardless of the mistakes and the shadows, this place where we stand—as mothers, as fathers—is a place where we might want to take off our shoes from time to time … to understand that these children and teens—their hearts and souls—are holy ground.

And sometimes, what we might need to do is understand the same of our own heart and soul—to honor the role and the burden, to tread lightly, and not to feel guilty if we need a nap every once in a while (or every day, as the case may be).

“HONOR YOUR FATHER and your mother,” says the Fifth Commandment (Exodus 20:12). Honor them for having taken care of you before you were old enough to take care of yourself. Honor them for the sacrifices they made on your behalf, including the ones you would have kept them from making if you’d had the chance. Honor them for having loved you.

But how do you honor them when, well-intentioned as they may have been, they made terrible mistakes with you that have shadowed your life ever since? How do you honor them when, far from loving you or taking care of you, they literally or otherwise abandoned you?

The answer seems to be that you are to honor them even so. Honor them for the pain that made them what they were and kept them from being what they might otherwise have become. Honor them because there were times when, even at their worst, they were doing the best they knew how to do.

Honor them for the roles they were appointed to play—father and mother—because even when they played them abominably or didn’t play them at all, the roles themselves are holy.  Honor them because, however unthinkingly or irresponsibly, they gave you your life.

-Originally published in Wishful Thinking: A Theological Lexicon and later in Beyond Words: Daily Readings in the ABC’s of Faith.

Parents, may you find rest and joy this Labor Day.

 

[Image by © LWA-Dann Tardif/zefa/Corbis]

Free Educational Websites for Your Kids to Keep Learning During the Coronavirus Pandemic

Teenage Girl Using Laptop in Library — Image by © Royalty-Free/Corbis

A few days ago, I posted some suggestions for activities you can do with your children, given that schools across the United States and Europe are closed, and many communities have been given the mandate to “shelter at home” to stop the spread of the coronavirus.

This blog post provides a list of educational websites offering free content for children. The list is loosely divided into grade levels so you can scroll down to your child’s or children’s age level. Many articles have a list of websites, but no additional information as far as which ones work well, which ones have hidden fees, what ages they are best for, etc. So, in addition to links, you’ll find at least a short description for each of the sites.

I hope this article proves helpful as you navigate the world of homeschooling, at least for the short time, while we’re waiting and praying for the COVID-19 pandemic to blow over without too much long-term damage.

Our thoughts and prayers are with those who are on the front lines offering healthcare assistance, maintaining order, and serving the community during this time.

All School Ages

1. 123 Home School 4 Me

123homeschool4me.com has free printable worksheets for all ages. Their website states, “We have over 300,000+ FREE worksheets for toddler, preschool, and K-12. Our free educational printables cover alphabet letters, math, language arts, history, geography, and more.”

2. Google Arts and Culture Partners

I mentioned this in a previous post, but Google Arts and Culture has collections from hundreds of partners worldwide, including museums, national collections, and galleries. You can “visit” one museum each day and still not be done by the time the coronavirus pandemic passes. With Google’s street-view feature, your kids can tour New York’s Guggenheim Museum or Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum while waiting for the COVID-19 danger to pass.

3. Khan Academy

Khan Academy is pretty amazing. Each of my kids has a profile, which I encourage them to use during the summer when they’re not in school. They also have an app for younger children (ages 2 – 7) and recently published an article on how to use Khan Academy for remote learning, including a daily schedule with links to all kinds of resources.

An especially helpful aspect of Khan Academy is the fact that they have an almost endless supply of math material – for every grade and on into high school and beyond. For someone like me (not especially strong in the math arena), it’s great to have a resource to fall back on when I can’t explain a math concept to my teenager.

Preschool – 2nd Grade

4. Starfall

Starfall.com has a lot of fun, education material that you can access without an account. Most of their free, interactive material is geared for the kindergarten level. If you choose to get an account, it’s $30 for a year of full access.

This was one of the main educational websites I used with my kids when they were in the early-learning stage. It has activities that teach phonics.

5. Education.com

Education.com offers printable worksheets, lesson plans, guided lessons, and online games. You can create a free account as a parent, and your child will be able to access a few things before a window pops up that says you’ve reached your basic membership limit for the month. However, the pricing for this website is quite economical; it costs $3.49 a month for access to worksheets, $5.00 a month for printables and digital, and $6.00 a month for full access to all the material.

2nd – 5th Grade

6. Typing Club

Typing Club is the new Mavis Beacon. This website doesn’t require you to create an account, although if you do so, you can track your stats and progress. It teaches touch typing for free. Your child can also take a placement test to gauge how much they know and determine where they belong in learning to touch type.

While touch typing might not seem as important as in eras past, there is still a lot to be said for kids learning to become familiar with the letters and numbers on a keyboard. And it is a lot easier to learn with a website and app than with an old typewriter and sheets of paper.

7. Scholastic Learn at Home

Scholastic Learn at Home provides “day-by-day projects to keep kids reading, thinking, and growing” during the coronavirus pandemic. You can choose a grade level and access the material for your kids/students. You’ll find links to all kinds of interesting information for a variety of ages. This single website can keep your kids occupied and learning for a good, long while.

4th – 6th Grade

8. TED-Ed

TED-Ed offers hundreds of educational videos, most around 5 minutes in length. Each video also has a “think” section that asks a series of multiple-choice questions, a “dig deeper” section that has links to other sources, and a “discuss” section where folks can join the conversation.

Video categories include Health, Literature and Language, The Arts, Thinking and Learning, Social Studies, Science and Technology, and much more. This website is ideal for children who enjoy learning random facts and information about a lot of different things. You don’t need to create an account to access the videos and material.

Junior High / High School

9. Coursera

Coursera collaborates with nearly 200 universities and companies to provide lessons in skills, including business analytics and graphic design. They offer career preparation and students can even earn a degree or certificate from various universities. You can create an account and access the courses for free, but if you want grades or certificates, this requires payment.

10. EdX

EdX is a pretty awesome online learning medium. You can choose from over 2,500 verified online courses on topics such as Computer Science, Language, Data Science, Engineering, History, Literature, Physics, Math, and Humanities. You’ll need to create an account to access the courses, but they are all free and many of them are self-paced. You can also earn verified certificates in the courses, which usually cost $60.00 to $90.00 per course.

11. DuoLingo

DuoLingo is a language-learning website (also a free app) that offers free lessons in numerous languages, including Spanish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Arabic, Welsh, Hindi, Latin, and many more. Users can also simultaneously learn more than one language. Last year, my daughter was learning Spanish while I took lessons in Hindi and tried my hand at Irish Gaelic.

Closing Thoughts

I plan to be updating this blog post regularly as I and my kids try out other online educational resources during our time learning from home due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Hope these are helpful, and feel free to leave a comment if you’ve found a great website you’d like to share, or if you have tried out any of the above websites and enjoyed using them with your kids (or didn’t).

Be blessed and stay safe and healthy as a family.

The Bits and Pieces

Meaning in the Little Things

It’s the bits and pieces put together year after year that count. Sometimes we don’t see meaning in the little things and we are not conscious of how it all works together to create a powerful image.

The little things we do at home … putting wildflowers in a vase … an old photograph tucked into a frame, a lullaby each evening by the bedside … are the putty that holds the mosaic together.

– Ingrid Trobisch

 

Photo Credit: © John-Francis Bourke/zefa/Corbis

Two Messages on a Mirror

In the summer, as my birthday approaches, I often begin to take special notice of my figure. Or my lack of it. The belly that used to be flat … a long time ago. The backside and thighs that seem to collect far more fat cells than any other part of my body.

If I could choose where I want those extra pounds distributed, I would have the perfect hourglass figure. But I can’t. So I don’t.

During the school year, with classes and teaching, it’s a challenge to focus on my diet. So in the month leading up to my last birthday, I decided to cut out junk food. It’s not that I eat inordinate servings of chips and donuts on a daily basis or anything. I simply hoped to re-calibrate my appetite. Losing a pound or two, or ten, wouldn’t be unappreciated.

Okay, so I wanted to get down to 150 pounds. A nice, even number. My pre-mommy weight, which I dropped down to within six months after each pregnancy, was below 140. My last pregnancy had been nearly eight years ago, and I was hovering dangerously close to 160 pounds (read: 159.8).

I wrote my weight in a blue dry-erase marker on my bathroom mirror, along with the date: July 18. A month to lose ten pounds.

For the first two weeks, I avoided chips and sweet drinks, processed foods and starchy meals. I drank homemade smoothies for breakfast / lunch. (Okay, so I also drank chai every morning, but homemade chai, with ginger … that’s good for you, right?) I tried to embrace that hungry feeling in the evenings, when I usually succumb to cravings of salty or sweet foods.

At the end of July, I took my weight and marked it on the bathroom mirror: 154.6 pounds. Halfway there.

A day or two later, something else appeared on my mirror. Lyrics to a few different songs:

He loves you more than the sun and the stars that he taught how to shine.

He lives in you.

He made you flawless

Lyrics covered the mirror, except for a space in the center where a huge smiley-face was. And of course the top right corner where I had marked my weight: my slow progress toward a better figure.

A better me.

One of my greatest prayers for my children, especially my daughter, is that she will see herself as a beautiful creation of God. Flawless. A beautiful young woman made in His image and created for a unique purpose. I know how much the world and our own minds fights against this concept.

But sometimes, instead of encouraging that attitude, I focus on the opposite. Making myself better. Focusing on the externals. Sometimes, instead of teaching my kids, I need them to teach me. And that is what my daughter did with the song lyrics she wrote on my mirror.

I didn’t reach my weight-loss goal by my birthday. In fact, I gained back a couple of the pounds I thought I had said goodbye to. I look in the mirror, and I don’t see flawless. But if I focus on the words my daughter wrote, my perspective changes. Because I’m no longer looking at me. I’m looking at words that convey a different message. I’m looking at a truth I hope my children will always embrace. A truth they will use to bless others throughout their lives:

He loves you.

He lives in you.

He made you flawless.

Are All the Children In?

I think oft times as night draws nigh
Of the old farmhouse on the hill,
Of a yard all wide and blossom-starred
Where the children played at will.
And when the night at last came down
Hushing the merry din,
Mother would look around and ask,
“Are all the children in?”

Oh, it’s many, many a year since then,
And the house on the hill
No longer echoes to childish feet
And the yard is still, so still.

But I see it all, as the shadows creep,
And though many the years since then
I can still hear my mother ask,
“Are all the children in?”

I wonder if when the shadows fall
On the last short, earthly day,
When we say good-by to the world outside
All tired with our childish play,
When we step out into the other Land
Where mother so long has been,
Will we hear her ask, just as of old,
“Are all the children in?”

– Florence Jones Hadley