Parents of Toddlers: It Gets Better

Glennon Doyle Melton at Momastery writes,

“You guys.

I just dropped off all three of my children for their first day of school.”

In this brief, playful blog post, Melton is ecstatic to have reached the phase in her life where all her kids are in school for the day, and she will have some unprecedented freedom and stillness in the house while they’re away.

“Listen, there is JOY TO BE FOUND in snuggle time and there is joy to be found in alone time. There is a time for it all. And the way we survive this parenting roller coaster of emotions is to find the joy in each new phase. EMBRACE THE NOW!

I GOTTA GO! I’m off to stand in my living room NOT WAITING FOR ANYONE TO ASK ME FOR SNACKS!!!!!!”

In a mother’s day tribute from earlier this year, Crosswalk author Debbie McDaniel captures the distinct feeling of lowness which that parenthood rollercoaster can sometimes give.

“Even warriors get weary sometimes. And some days we feel lonely, and we’ve had enough of listening to Dora the Explorer, or countless princess songs, and we find that we need a little more substantial conversation than just hearing the words, “no,” or “mine.” And we’re tired of doing laundry, and vacuuming up little pieces of goldfish all stuck in the carpet. In fact, we’re just tired of goldfish all together. And we’re weary from getting up in the night with the dear child who was sick, and the other who just had a bad dream, and another who was hungry. And we’ve changed more diapers than we could ever count, and picked up more messes, and rocked, and sang, and prayed, all these sweet ones to sleep, night after night, year after year.

And often, it’s a rather thankless job. This motherhood journey. Little ones have big needs, and as much as we know they love us, they may not be the best at always making us feel appreciated for the immensity of services we provide. Every hour. Of every single day.”

She goes on to encourage those weary moms:

“Moms who are reading this today, we need each other. We need to remind each other, that we stand together, that we’re not alone in this mom journey. That what we do is important. So incredibly important. We need to hold our judgments and thoughts that we might know better about things, and just choose to encourage, and inspire one another onward, towards greatness. There’s such power there.”

As Elisabeth Klein so aptly notes in her article, Where Will Your Children Be in 10 Years? – time flies and children grow up quickly.

“My kids will be 27 and 25. I will be 53. I may be a grandmother…

...[I]t made me sad to think about ten years from now. Because ten years from now, my kids will be firmly on their own, out in the world, not living under my roof. Heck, five years from now, my kids will more than likely both be away at college.”

So embrace the lessons you can learn from your toddlers, while they’re still toddlers. Take Theresa Ceniccola’s 5 tips for surviving the back-to-school transition. Know that all hard seasons eventually pass; it gets better. Before you know it, you’ll be sending them off to college!

Are you going through a difficult phase of parenting right now? What advice would you give to young parents who are wading through the rough toddler years?

Debbie Holloway is the Family Life Editor for Crosswalk.com

Publication date: September 3, 2014