We’re Raising Kids, Not {Fill in the Blanks}

Several weeks ago, my husband and I were getting things ready for a little road trip we were taking to pick up our girls from grandma's house. We wanted to bring a movie for them to watch in the car, but to our surprise, we could find no DVDs in their cases. We knew the culprit...our almost 2-year-old. We asked her where they were and she led us to the carpet...where we found about 10 of our new DVDs, all face down. After examining them, we found most of them had deep gouges and were ruined. We could hardly get upset with that sweet, adorable, innocent face, but it was very disappointing to realize our entire kids' DVD collection was ruined. (Yes, we have very few DVDs.)

When I related the story to Kerri, she told me of Janae's experience which (correct me if I'm wrong) went a little something like this. Instead of 10 DVDs, it was their case of DVDs...perhaps all of them which would be many more than 10. Instead of hiding them under the carpet to be walked on for 3 days, it was a little child scraping them on the sidewalk. Wow. Yeah, I didn't feel so bad about it after that.

But what was more impactful was when Kerri reminded me of an important cliche I had heard before. She said, "We're raising kids, Cheri, not DVD collections." She told me a story about someone and their truck getting run into a ditch--raising kids, not trucks. I read another story about a kid running the lawn mower straight thru the flowers--raising kids, not flower beds.

It reminded me of a time when I got in a car accident and my dad said, "It's a car, Cheri. It can be replaced. How are YOU doing?" Or the time when three weeks later, Kerri backed dad's new car into the aforementioned car which had just come back from the shop. Or the time when I was just barely 16 and didn't quite get the car out of the garage unscathed. All I got from dad was "When can you help me fix it?"

I'm grateful for the reminder that very little else matters when it comes to our children. Everything material will fade, break, pass, burn out...but the saddest would be if our children's confidence, self-worth, or understanding of our love for them faded, broke, passed, or burned out. Sure, it's expensive to replace a DVD collection, a well-pruned garden, or a farm truck, but it is much more difficult to repair a child.

The next time your child destroys something that CAN be replaced (or even that can't...Grandma's china?), because it is inevitable and part of childhood (and teenager-hood...how many of us sisters crashed our parents' cars?), just remember, we're raising kids, not {fill in the blanks}.