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SALT LAKE CITY — In honor of the upcoming Mother’s Day, I’m celebrating motherhood by a three-part series of posts from my book, "The Life is Too Short Collection," sharing life lessons learned in the raising of seven children, ages 19 years down to 11 months.
Our family is pretty much like the next one — we love each other (most days), try to teach and practice sound life principles (iffy on the practice), and do good in the world (attempting to keep a clean yard counts).
Although I am not an expert mother, I’ve learned a few things over the past 20 years of mothering with various challenges, including raising children with Asperger’s syndrome, ADHD and a caboose with a split of eight years between the next child.
Lesson 1: At some point you will feel humiliated
This is a parenting truth best embraced early on. I remember learning this lesson the weekend our 18-month-old learned how to open doors, unbeknown to us. Early one Sunday morning, I awoke and went downstairs for some quiet time while my children slept — or so I thought. I noticed the front door slightly open and experienced a clear thought of “Ethan.”
Wearing my unflattering nightgown and slipping on chunky clogs, I ran out to the front lawn on our suburban street. Not a soul.
In fear, I turned left toward the busy main street and ran as fast as my middle-aged body in chunky clogs could run. Reaching the road, I saw a lone truck and an elderly man reaching for my son. “He’s mine, he’s mine,” I screamed while flailing my hands and running toward him.
As I reached for my son, the man gave me the dirtiest, most disgusted look, as if to say, “Can’t you watch your son?” In tears of relief — and humiliation — I made it back to the sidewalk and turned to see an oncoming car, only this time it was a grandma-looking woman. In one glance she took in my half-dressed form and my young diapered son, and threw her head back and laughed.
With that gesture, I knew she knew. Suddenly, I felt validated, understood and a little less humiliated.
Since then, I’ve better learned what to do in those kind of humiliating moments: laugh. That’s what I should have done. Instead of tearing up in front of that non-understanding gentleman, I should have laughed and said, “Thanks for helping me out.” I could have cuddled my son, kissed him with joy and went on my merry way, all the time thinking, “This will make a great column.”
So when life hands you humiliation — whether in front of one person or an entire community event — laugh — joyfully and heartily.
And then write a column about it.
Connie Sokol is an author, speaker, TV contributor and mother of seven. For more, visit www.conniesokol.com.
