This morning I took my coffee outside with some fresh cherries to enjoy in the garden. All of a sudden I had a Forrest Gump moment as I thought: Life is like a bowl of cherries. Sometimes its sweet and sometimes its the pits!
It’s all about perspective. You can’t have one without the other, so which do you focus your attention on? I started to think about cherries, their pits and the choices we make to avoid the pitfalls in life.
How do you eat your cherries and how does that parallel your life perspective?
~Do you use a pitter to remove the pits at the beginning? Getting rid of the problems to enjoy lots of sweetness ahead of time?
~Do you use a knife which takes more time to remove the pit and involves a bit more struggle before getting to the sweet stuff?
~Or do you just pop them in, aware of the pits, deal with them, and spit them out as part of the process?
I realized I am a “pop them in, spit out the pits” kind of girl. I deal with the pits as they come. Maybe I wouldn’t appreciate the sweetness if there wasn’t a heightened awareness to be careful not to chomp down on the hard pit. Yep, I am a Present focused person.
Once I worked my brain around my new cherry pit philosophy on life, I wondered how that transferred over to my parenting. I realized a few things. First, when Mina was young and had not developed an awareness to be careful of the pits, I pitted them for her-with a pitter. There were more important things to use my time on than excavating out pits with a knife. As Mina got older and know how to make her own decisions, I sat back and let her deal with the cherries on her own. First she nibbled around the pit and then she got comfortable popping them in her mouth. She learned one day to be careful of the pits because she bit her cheek. She tried, she learned.
This Cherry Pit Philosophy has enabled her to know that she can make her own choices, but that she has to be aware that choices have consequences. If we don’t take time to think things through, sometimes we might bite our cheek and our decisions may hurt us. Within a safe environment, children can only know cause and effect if we parents allow them the opportunity to make their own choices, even if we feel they may not be happy with it. How will they learn coping mechanisms later in life if they are not allowed to learn from a poor decision?
Our vacation this year back to the East Coast involved a road trip up to Montreal with Alex and his girls. Mina and I have already made 2 trips up to Montreal on our last 2 trips to RI, just the 2 of us. This year, Mina said she did not want to make another road trip and wanted to stay home with my parents in RI while Alex, me and the girls drove up. Over the course of 2 months, we discussed her decision and she remained strong in her decision. “It is a long trip, Mama, and I have already made 2 trips. I really just want to spend alone time with my Nana and Dede.”
The day came, we said good bye-no tears, big hugs and smiles. By Day 2, she began calling me on Skype in the morning. Day 3, I got 5-6 calls on Skype. Day 4: Mama, I wish I had made the decision to come. I miss you, Papa, and the girls and wish I was there too.
Did I see that coming-Absolutely! How would she have learned if I had prevented her from making her own decision and living with the consequences? I see parents all the time de-pitting the problems from their child’s life even as they get old enough to begin making decisions. By doing this, we are not protecting them from problems, we are preventing them from learning how to LIVE. The child only learns that life is sweet and my Mommy and Daddy will take care of the pits for me.
Love you children, support your children, but let them fall flat on their faces every now and them by failing so they learn how to :