Making Adjustments

Back in high school, I spent many hours enjoying handwork. I loved sewing and cross-stitching. Much of my needlework was of bible verses, proverbs, and maxims. I found this one cross-stitch design that had this hilarious saying. I made it and gave it to my mom. It was a joke and an antithesis to her way of moving in the world. My sweet mother hung that framed piece over the doorway in the kitchen.

Whenever I came home from college, I would see it and read that saying hanging over the doorway in its frame. Every time I returned home on leave in the Navy, it was there. And then when I was married and came home with my family, it was there. 

Many years ago, my husband and I bought the house from my parents. We moved in, and guess what was hanging in a frame over the kitchen doorway? My funny cross-stitch gift, and there it stayed. 

Years later, as my oldest kids grew into their teens, I experienced conversations that were not working despite my attempts to stay connected with my older crew. Conflicts and misunderstandings grew.

One day, as I walked through the kitchen doorway,  I saw that funny saying.

I stopped in my tracks. I was riveted to the floor, staring at what had become part of my landscape. I stared at that cross-stitch with full attention. I noticed with a new understanding that the funny saying wasn’t funny anymore. I realized it was such a lie I had to take it off the wall.

In his book, Necessary Endings, Dr. Henry Cloud, author, and clinical psychologist, says this.

“When truth presents itself, the wise person sees the light, takes it in, and makes adjustments.”

Dr. Henry Cloud

What did my cross-stitch say? Well, here it is.

Rules of the House. 

Rule #1 – Mom is always right. 

Rule #2 –  If Mom is wrong, see rule #1. 

My oldest child was standing in the kitchen with me when I got the step stool out to take down that framed picture. She asked why I was taking it down.  I told her,  “You of all the people on the planet know that I am NOT always right. I can be very wrong many times, and I need you to know that I know that too. “

I thought I was optimistic and caring. I worked on listening and focusing on others. Underneath it all, I did think that I was right because I was the mom. And that was as wrong as I could be for any other human on the other side of me. Being open to being wrong and hearing where I was wrong was the start of learning and growing. Something I was trying to model for my children. What was hanging on my wall loomed more prominent than my words for all to see. Taking down that frame was more for me than for my children. I committed that day to the truth that I can and will be wrong. That day my conversations started to adjust.

While Mother’s Day can be a beautiful day to celebrate motherly love and support for me personally, it is a day to reflect on the adjustments I have learned to make in my mothering. I am learning to change to better support and love the people who are very different from me. Learning to see that wisdom comes in all ages, shapes, and sizes. Learning to celebrate when I am wrong is growing me to places I can never arrive on my own. I am learning to think again.

Mother’s Day is looking around the table and celebrating the children God has used to change me.

P.S. An excellent book that combines story and science on the power of unlearning and relearning is Adam Grant’s Think Again.