It started with a little girl, six-feet away from a tall man, talking with an associate at Lowe’s Hardware. “Who are you?” The five-ish looking girl, peers up, interrupting her dad talking.
Stumbling over his words, clearly wanting to impress the worker he is in deep conversation with, looks down at his little girl, smiling sheepishly and shifting ackwardly.
“I am your dad.” The man mumbles emotionless in monotone sound.
“No your not.” She says loudly. “Your Jim.” The little girl captures her father’s eyes, a good three-feet lower from where his body is still facing the man he is in discussion with.
“Uh um….Your mommy calls me Jim…but I am dad to you. I am your daddy.” He reiterates to the little, well-dressed girl. Then, concludes with a nervous sounding laugh.
I see the dad then grab the little girls hand as if claiming ownerships over a child who questions his very claim. He then goes on, resuming his conversation with the stranger as she waiting in the shadows of her pain.
The above dialogue between child and parent would have not been noticed, if it hadn’t been for a bald-headed grandma my husband and I talked with a day earlier.
Headwrap beautifully placed, her face glows as if grace intersected with hardship…Jesus’ light shines brightly from this amazing, eyebrow-less lady….
“She calls me her mom all the time.” This grandpa nods down at her toddler grandchild in confidence…Almost claiming by theft, this heroic title.
My husband and I smile in unisome, understanding the honor, as we continue visit.
The grandmother goes on, “She is with me so much, she just slips up. She sometimes thinks I am her mom.”
As foster parent’s of kids who leave after various seasons, we “get” a child’s desperate need to cling to a “mom” and “dad”. Children innate nature to feel like they posses parents of their own.
Some kids walk into our home and almost instantly, voluntarily, start calling us “mom” and “dad”. We didn’t earn that title or even claimed to be their parents. But…
Kids who have never “attached” are like the little chicks in our barn right now…They follow the hand who feed them.
My husband and I nod in agreement, smiling at the bald grandma who engages with her granddaughter so willingly. Then, we face our children again and play, teach, train and equip them for real life in a world where children often question their identity….
We all long, for people to belong to.
As I weigh the life I want my kids to have with me and their bio parents, the last thing I ever want is for them to forget who we are, where they came from, or what attachment truly feels like.
Often times, as infants, we abandon our children to daycares, leave them in the arms of strangers or pass them around like they are a leather-skinned footballs, never needing or having feelings enough to cling to the people who they will one day call “mom” and “dad”.
No wonder the well-dressed little girl questioned her dad in Lowe’s. Was she put in daycare since she was one week old, forced to do activities, so much so, she’s forgotten who her parents were?
Are we living in a world where nanny’s take care of our children, because the gym, careers or selfish pursuits are more important, hold rank over us really knowing our children…
Or worse yet, our children from ever knowing us?
I wonder if most of parenting has become about fixing broken children in a world where kids don’t know
who they are, where they struggle belong, or who it is they were made by, or made for.
Isn’t it true, we attach to whoever we spend the most time with? So, who or what has the greatest influence over our children?
Have we gone and shifted kids from place to place, let strangers watch our kids, engaged in a career, a life where the littlest are not our priority? As a result, don’t they suffer the painful consequences?
Has the hunt for identity become an aimless pursuit, while imaginations and creativity become stiffled while the next generation is on a dead end road looking for truth?
Isn’t identity formed when children are infants? Doesn’t it come from clinging to one parent, knowing a face that is consistent, feeling safety and secure in the loving arms of someone they can forever trust?
So, why does the world try to convince us that we can toss up our children, like some dinner salad, mix them into a culture of selfishness and yet, somehow they’ll just turn out o.k.?
If we invest and make our children a priority earlier, maybe our youth wouldn’t be grasping for hope, the suicide rate would stop climbing and the internet would give way for healthy, living, breathing relationships.
I hear a little one call me “Mama”. I want her to remain close by my heart and family while she is young, so she never has to wonder if she is loved…
I want our kids to know our name, so strangers don’t substitute us and our children grow up with identity and worth.
I want my children to remember the people that made them, the ones that shaped and look like them, so they will never question their history and will forever stand tall, carrying the full truth of who they are….
Honoring their whole person, recognizing their origins and Creator, trusting a Good Father who they know will never leave or forsake them.
I want my family to have relationship with their Father in Heaven who made them, so they’ll know where to run, when life doesn’t go their way.
I want this entire generation to be known and loved, stand tall and strong, announcing with confidence over who they have become. Because…
Identity is not in what others think. Worth is found primarily in the Faithful Father, a dad who is patient, kind, loving, and eternally trustworthy.
May our children one day, say proudly, “This is my Daddy“. So they never have have to ask, “Who are you?”
“Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. Before you were born, I set you apart.” ~ Jeremiah 1:5
