As long as I can remember I have had a soft spot for boys. I feel like they are mis-understood. I see young teenage boys walking down the street, and they almost always are staring at the ground. They look so dejected... my heart breaks for them. I actually want to get out and give them a hug. I don't because in today's world I would not be understood. The idea of affection would probably be shunned as boys are supposed to be tough. Sometimes I see boys who are way to young to be walking alone scuffing along with a backpack bigger than themselves strapped to their backs. It always tears at my heart strings and I wonder what I can do to help them. I always say out loud, "Where is your mother"?
So now to the reason I am on this diatribe, I am in the office today, some may know this means Panera since I retired, and in front of me is a young mother sitting with her young 6 year old son. I am trying not the eavesdrop but she is very close and not quiet. She is waiting for someone. She is totally unaffectionate to her son, when he tries to hug her she pushes him away, and constantly corrects him for behavior I thinks is normal. He is simply trying to engage her in conversation?? I am feeling sad that maybe I did some of the same to my own daughter? I want to tell her to enjoy him while he wants to be around you, and many other old woman insights... but I don't. I realize she is probably doing the best she can, and is overwhelmed. We have all been there. Parenting is a huge responsibility, and children don't come with instructions. It is always easier from the outside to see what needs to be done, so I bite my tongue and pray for them.
When her company arrives it is her sister and her boyfriend, through overheard conversation I realize she is very young and a single mom. Her son tells the aunt how his mother cries a lot, and then he said, "When she cries, I cry back"... his mother is embarrassed and they have a conversation about crying and everyone cries sometimes. There is much more private conversation I hear and am broken hearted by, but the worst point for me is how she tells her son, "I cannot be your entertainment, I will not entertain you, I am in school and have a project due, and I'm going to school so I can earn money because I have none." My heart just dropped... she has no idea how she has just told him that money and school are more important than he is to her... I know earning a living is important but as prophets have stated, "no success in business will ever compensate for failure in the home."
I will not say I have never had a day when I was discouraged or overwhelmed myself, and it is the reason I so wish I could have shared with that young mom what I saw from the outdside looking in, but I wonder if I would have listened myself back when Hill was young and I was doing something in a way that was not in line with gospel principles...
The following quote from President Joseph F. Smith states it pretty clearly, and it is for girls as well.. :)
“We should never be discouraged in those daily tasks which God has ordained to the common lot of man. Each day’s labor should be undertaken in a joyous spirit and with the thought and conviction that our happiness and eternal welfare depend upon doing well that which we ought to do, that which God has made it our duty to do.”
President Smith applied that principle to parenting as follows:
“After all, to do well those things which God ordained to be the common lot of all man-kind, is the truest greatness. To be a successful father or a successful mother is greater than to be a successful general or a successful statesman.”
Success in an occupation—even a lofty one—is only temporary, President Smith concluded, whereas success as a parent is “universal and eternal greatness.” (Gospel Doctrine, 5th ed. Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1939, p. 285.)
