Guest Author - Paula Petrie



Becoming a mom I didn’t expect to trip into the generation gap. I didn’t expect arts like shoe-tying, cursive writing, preparing wholesome meals with wholesome food and normal healthy child activity to die out.

I didn’t expect when I felt my life was most together to be when dust would settle in the corners or when I found myself on the treadmill of perpetual catch-up that I would be most efficient.

I didn’t expect self-awareness, esteem, and life long learning, to be necessary skills for the unflappable directing mom.

I didn’t expect to workout like an athlete to maintain a semblance of body tone. I also didn’t realize weight management, esteem, restful sleep, and a strengthened mind would be fringe benefits.

I didn’t expect daydreams should be vital to home management. Meditating to find at-home ways for family relations to continue healthy growth. Imagining my kids, as I think they are, inspiring new ways to communicate with them.

If like me, you have made a habit of emotional wallowing, (I lament over a great sale I missed, or exercise I didn’t do) then it takes a bit of remembering and redirecting to let your imagination drift constructively. When shrewd enough to let my thoughts drift in a positive way, I always gain in wisdom, renewal or planning.

I didn’t expect the need to schedule my own thoughts time. Preoccupied with my own thinking I miss cues to direct the kids to learn, chances for inspired talks, and even issuing lunch money. Things go better when I take the time to look into their world and get a broader feeling of what is being asked of me. By having my own creative time, (although intruded upon, is still mine) I have become emotionally more generous.

I really didn’t expect the human condition. They call is the age of spiritual enlightenment. The opposite tip of this curve seems, how horribly in your face brutal the average human can be. From my motherly perspective, respectful and respectable seem to be fading. Our children’s generation is less timid, more real, and in huge need of the skills we’ve taken for granted they would develop through osmosis. The time of assuming that kids will ‘know’ how to act, has passed.

I really, really didn’t expect our kids at risk of suffering the consequences of an emotionally out of control society where material gain is above spiritual growth. Revenge is more important than empathy. Rage is a more acceptable response than withstanding indignity. Appalling skills are being strengthened. Our kids may need equipped to manage a calm and stable ground, to remain in touch with themselves. The past has gone, the future is new and we must help clearly define it for our children. We are mothers.