5 people=5 personalities

I think that most of us would agree that if you have a group of five people, there are going to be five different and distinct personalities in that group. No two people are the same, and so if you gathered a few people together, you may have some who have some similar tendencies, but they would still be very different people. For some reason, this logic goes out the window when I think of my family.

Part of this is because we're family. We live together, I gave birth to three of the people in my home, and so we share at least a lot of genetic material. The other part of this, I'll admit, is because three of the people in this house are children. I know that kids have different personalities, but I realized tonight that I have been forgetting some of the depth of those personalities and the needs that come with them.

On the personality scale, I'm an extrovert. If you want to get all Meyers-Briggs on me, I'm an ESTJ. Even extroverts need their alone time, but I should mention that I'm not an extreme extrovert. I'm really just a little margin over the dividing line between extrovert and introvert. I have always been ok with being alone for periods of time, and I like doing my own thing. I love being with friends and family, but I also really need time away from that togetherness and noise. When I get home in the afternoon, I really want to go into my room and be alone for a bit. Then when my husband comes home, I'd really like some time alone with him. With our schedules, this is hard to achieve and doesn't often happen.

In talking with my 11 year old daughter this evening, I can tell that she isn't getting her needs met. She is probably as extreme an extrovert as there has ever been. She really doesn't seem to ever want to be not talking to someone, much less alone. She was upset because she felt that my husband and I don't spend much time with her (and her siblings) because this evening he and I decided to watch a movie together in our bedroom without the kids. I'll be honest; part of me wanted to scream. When I think about the time that I spend driving the kids to and from school, helping with homework, getting them ready in the morning, hanging out with them in the afternoons, driving them to soccer practice, talking to one while the other one is at soccer practice, taking them to music lessons, and then listening to and watching them practice their instruments...then today we hung out in the morning, took them to the country club to swim, had lunch together, and then I drove the girls all over kingdom come to get supplies for her ASB presidential campaign...I seriously want to look her in the eye and ask "Are you kidding me?" Then I hear the voice of the mom deep in my heart. The one who wants to be a better parent than she had, the one who wants to have an awesome and close relationship with her kids. The one who also drives my guilt and clouds my judgment. She reminds me that my child is telling me that her needs are not being met, and in a way, she's not feeling loved. It's up to me to fix that, right? The problem is, I don't know how.

How do you parent an incredibly extroverted child when you desperately need your alone time? How do you balance those needs so that you don't go crazy and your child feels loved and fulfilled? This is something I have yet to figure out, and I hope that I do so before our relationship is permanently damaged.

Identity Crisis

I realize that everyone goes through periods of life when they are struggling to discover who they really are. There are times that we all find ourselves striving to be who other people expect us to be, and times that we feel that we really are being true to ourselves. What I think is sadly too common is the feeling that we need to somehow apologize or feel embarrassed of who we really are. I have no doubt that everyone goes through this, regardless of gender or age, but it bothers me that this is something that I still struggle with at my wise old age of 35.

I grew up as the youngest of three children, with two older brothers. Because of this, there was never a lack of boys in my home. I understood how they talk, some of how they think, and all of that jazz. Being around boys has always been comfortable to me; it has also gotten me labeled as a big flirt. Of course, I kind of am, but that's a different issue entirely. Being the youngest, I always wanted to be involved and included. I didn't want to be the annoying little sister, it was a role that birth order and genetics had given to me. I wanted to be part of the group and accepted, just as pretty much everyone does.

If my brothers had been different people, this might have meant that I was really into sports, or mechanics, or getting dirty or something. However, my brothers are delightfully geeky, theatrical, imaginative, and intellectual. I'm not saying jocks can't be intellectual, don't read more into this than is intended! So in my house, this meant that I got into role playing games, drama (the kind on stage, not the type you try to avoid), fantasy books, and science fiction. Now, most of this feels completely natural. I genuinely like all of these things, perhaps not quite to the extent my brothers do, but they do feel organic to who I am. It's just not all of who I am.

Take that beginning, then add in the fact that I'm a real-live girl. Much to my mother's dismay, I never cared about my clothes, hair, or make-up in high school. Sweats, scrunchies, socks, and Birkenstocks were common school attire. That being said, I would not really describe myself as a true tomboy. I liked make-up and nice hair, but I didn't feel I knew how to look good with it. I always felt that if I tried to wear popular clothes or do my hair or my make-up, I was an imposter. Like I was trying to be something or someone that I wasn't, and that others would call me out for being a phony. It took me until about the last two years or so to get over that, no joke. I love cute clothes, I love feminine shoes, I adore make-up, and I want to have gorgeous hair. My heart has always longed to be that girl. You know the one I mean. The one who walks into a room, and everyone turns and looks. The one that guys all try to talk to and want to be with. For some reason I was always so confident in parts of myself, except for my appearance. But, I digress.

Now fast forward to my current life. I have a professional job, I'm a mom, and all of that feminine jazz. I can wear heels and make-up and cute clothes everyday if I want. I also have days that I can wear sweats and go make-up-less...sure, that's a word. Now I have my husband who is wonderful and sweet and accepts all of my crazy. He's really into off-roading. I mean, it is really his passion. He looks at rocky hills that I don't want to hike up, and drives his truck up them. So, as logic would have it, he has a lot of friends who enjoy doing the same crazy stunts. I really believe the entire sport of rock crawling was born from this group of crazy rednecks saying "Hold my beer, I'm going to try something." The off-roading community has become a big part of our social circle. This pulls me to feel like I need to become yet another person. I need to be hot, because, well, women always have to be hot, right? I need to be ok with being dirty, going days without a shower or clean clothes, spending vast amounts of money and time on a vehicle that breaks every time we use it, be able to hang with "the boys" and all of their crude or stupid conversation, and somehow find the strange combination of being a hot chick who isn't too into feminine things. Hm. So, this is my interpretation of what this would look like: take a model from a typical car shop's calendar, infuse her with the knowledge of how to actually work on the car she's bending over, and give her the coolest, most easy going personality imaginable. I just can't live up to that for so many reasons. What's more, it just isn't who I really am. Why do I feel the need to apologize for that? Why should I feel embarrassed about what I like and don't like? I struggled, wrote, and deleted some kind of ending sentence to this post for almost ten minutes, and I came up with nothing. I am forced to fall back on what all of my students and children love to write at the end of everything: The End.

The trappings of technology

I'm reading a fantastic book, called The Dumbest Generation. It doesn't completely demonize technology, but it does point out a lot of the adverse effects of it on Generation Y and on the Millennial Generation as well. The author talks about things like shortened attention span, inability to focus on one single task at a time, and the people's complete preoccupation with themselves and their social circle. What's more powerful though, are the effects that are being seen with the lack of reading among these generations. The author points out that it is not simply the use of technology and watching of television that causes all of these problems, but it is more that people and kids are spending less and less time reading and enjoying the arts. He highlights the immense potential the internet holds (Library of Congress, Smithsonian Institute, etc.), but that very few actually take advantage of that accessibility.

There is far too much information in the book for me to summarize in a paragraph, but I know that if it interests you, you'll read the book yourself. What it does, however, is make me want to cancel my cable and banish my children from the internet except for when I show them art, music, or current events. It makes me glad that my children are readers, but feel like I should be doing so much more. That I should be reading more and setting that example, that I should stop turning on the television in the evening, that I should be incorporating SAT vocabulary words into daily conversation. Basically, I found another way to feel like I could be a better mom.

I'm well aware of the two sides of this sword. On the one side, I think it is a good thing to feel challenged, convicted, and see that there could be better ways to live. I constantly strive to be a better person, a better parent, a better wife, a better friend, a better employee, and sometimes I try to be a better housekeeper. That last one doesn't often pan out though. Self improvement is a positive thing, and I think it is also a small sign of maturity. The challenge lies in balancing those feelings with the sharper and pointier side of the sword. Those voices in your head that remind you of everything that you aren't. The thoughts of how you're damaging your children permanently and irreparably. Mine continuously tell me how I should be thinner, fitter, smarter, more cultured, better at managing money, more patient, craftier, and an all around better woman. It doesn't help that in my eyes, my own mother was the epitome of SuperMom. She worked full time, was my Girl Scout Troop Leader, cooked square meals every night, helped her three kids with their school projects and homework, and still found time to read novels every night; on top of grading papers and lesson planning (my mother was also a teacher). When I interact with my kids, I still think "What would my mom have said or done in this situation?" I drive my kids to their activities, I'm often short-tempered with them, I help them with their homework, I cook maybe a few nights a week, I make them make their own lunches, and I have the TV on far too much. I have highs of wanting to be with my family all the time and do things together, and lows of just wanting to be alone. I want to sit at the table every night with my family and eat dinner and have stimulating conversation, but most nights we grab a plate and sit on the couch. In so many ways I feel not like a failure, but like I'm mediocre. I have so many aspirations and desires, and yet I spend time sitting on my couch, and usually on my computer. Ironically, research is showing that spending time on the internet, particularly on sites such as Facebook and Pinterest (where I spend most of my online time), makes people feel depressed and inadequate. This doesn't surprise me, by the way, because seriously, who are these moms on Pinterest decorating their houses with pallets and chalkboard paint?

I don't really have any solution to this, aside from trying to make small changes over time. Change is uncomfortable and difficult, but it can be a positive thing, as long as I don't overwhelm myself. Along the way, I'll definitely be praying for help and my children's grace.