When my kids screw up, it’s become a bit of a habit of mine to blame my husband. 

Allow me to explain…

Last Friday morning I slept through my alarm and was running late for a meeting. No big deal, I think to myself, G-Man can bring the littlest squirt to Before Care as he often does on Friday mornings. Hmmm, where’s G? Not home. Crap.

We’re a solid six weeks into the school year at this point. My youngest knows he’s supposed to set his alarm on Before Care days to be ready to go. It might not surprise you to learn that I’m not in the business of underestimating the capabilities of children, so in my opinion, a nine-year-old is more than qualified to master waking up to an alarm in six weeks. For Pete’s sake, my Aunt was grocery shopping for the family at nine-years-old. Obviously, he’s still working out the kinks, which is beside the point. How does the boy not getting out of bed turn into G’s fault? Because I need someone to blame! 

This exact behavior has happened with children not being ready to leave for sports on time, G’s fault. For not eating when they’re supposed to, G’s fault. For not helping around the house, G’s fault. All things the little twerps are completely adept enough to undertake themselves, but somehow become G-Man’s responsibility when I’m overwhelmed. 

We’re huge fans of natural consequence parenting. But, with that style of parenting comes a lot of discomfort for a micromanager. Give a man a fish vs. teach a man to fish kind of discomfort. There are legitimate times when I need to know that I’m not the only fishing coach in the house. But, for the most part, I can look to the boys and girls when no one picks up a fishing pole, not just the oldest person in the room. Strong chance I’m not going to stop blaming (I love it and I’m awesome at it), but I can be aware of blaming the person most responsible rather than blaming the most responsible person.

One of my readers reached out to me and wrote:

Mags, I always read your blogs and love them. If I can give you constructive criticism… People want to hear what made you tick, what made you change, and what makes you tick now. Show how your old self would have reacted differently than the current Mags.”

This feedback has birthed a deeper explanation this week…

Recovering: Person Most Responsible

This October Friday morning would have looked so different in our family a decade ago. While in my head I blamed my husband for a moment, I never said a word to him about not being home. I still went out and simply asked my daughter to write Q a note to take the bus to school. As I was returning from my meeting down Boston Street, there was Q on the corner. He didn’t get to Before Care, but he got himself ready and out the door to the bus on time all by himself. 

It only used to take one teeny, tiny glitch in the plan for this martyr to immediately abandon her own schedule. The old me would have absolutely missed my meeting. And that choice (my choice) would have caused me to be pissy and miserable to my unsuspecting family who would have had no idea what they did wrong to deserve such tension in our home. I also would have stonewalled my husband or, made him feel horribly guilty that he wasn’t more clear with me about his plans, and as a result, I missed out on something that was important to me.  

As you can tell, everything worked out just fine all because I was able to work two of my favorite tools: 

1. Keep my mouth shut
2. Let go and let God

I couldn’t agree more with what my daughter wrote on this cute note, Be ready for anything! The difference is that now I’m able to see ‘anything’ as a challenge rather than a catastrophe.