This is not a tutorial on stretching. Or yoga. This is about emotional, relational flexibility.
Physical flexibility is good, but that’s not what’s on my mind. We’ll tackle Stretching 101 another day, though, because I do actually have some questions about that.
Anyway.
I try hard to roll with things. I fail often, but I think – I hope – that people who know and love me realize that I’m trying to be flexible. Whenever possible, I’m happy to work around other people’s needs and wants.
My willingness to be a flexi-people-pleaser is most likely a combo of nature and nurture. I think I sort of came this way. (Classic oldest child? Me.) My husband? Also an oldest child and ridiculously responsible. (Eagle Scout? Yes.)
Not all of it came naturally. We also learned to be flexible by getting outside of ourselves, participating in work and volunteer environments. You know, that whole having-a-boss and answering-to-authority thing.
Sure, we have been burned before. We have definitely thought about walking up to certain people in our lives and screaming, Stick It! (we’re very eloquent) after one too many irritating encounters. Overall, however, when it comes to working out plans and activities, we make an effort to do what works for the majority, and not just what works for us.
I’m not saying we’ve never had a selfish moment. Please. Mark is really selfish sometimes.
What? Oh, me. Okay, okay. I can slip into me-mode so fast you’ll feel dizzy.
So, yes, we’ve always been this way to some extent, even though for most of our lives we didn’t have to be flexible. For many years we got to be egocentric, spoiled brats.
And then we had kids.
Having kids means you either learn to bend or you end up in 32 pieces, sobbing on the floor. After four and a half short years of parenting, we’re more bendy than ever. Meals, naps, travel, romance… You name it, we’ve adjusted it for the sake our sanity and our children’s well being.
What I cannot figure out, then, is how other people who have – or had at one time – small children can be completely unsympathetic to the needs of families. In the past two weeks I witnessed several acts of selfishness relating to the management of family schedules.
Before I go on, no, I’m not talking about you. If you’re reading this, thinking, what does she mean? I rearranged my life for her! Stop. Just stop. Odds are many, many to very few that I am not referring to you. I said I witnessed these things, so I am probably being intentionally vague on the details because they’re not my stories to tell. Probably.
So. Regarding those selfish acts, that were not committed by you, I am now confused.
Once your children reach an indeterminate age, do you forget what it was like to work around their schedules?
Do you forget that even well-rested, well-fed, well-behaved children can become uncivilized near the end of a busy day?
Are you so concerned with maintaining decorum that you forget the joy of watching a holiday unfold through a child’s eyes?
When does this inflexibility set in, exactly? Am I doomed to be a rigid bore in the future?
My hope, my intention, is that I will never forget what it was like to be in the throes of parenthood. I know I’ll forget the details. I’m sure I’ve already blocked out huge portions of life with a newborn. What I want, though, is to remember the feeling: the feeling of living day-to-day and doing what is best for the family, even when that means messing with The Plan.
I wonder…
:: Do you consider yourself flexible? If so, does it come naturally to you or is it work?
:: Have you ever experienced disappointing inflexibility when making family plans?
:: Do you find the holidays an especially difficult time to “roll with it” or for others around you to be flexible?
Lapsed homemaker. Looking to hire a full-time housekeeper who will work for the sheer joy of a job well done and free coffee. Interested parties, DM please. 
i’ve found that the only way to survive the holidays without earning the title “Christmas Nazi” is to be flexible. so far i’ve managed that… we put the tree up on thanksgiving instead of the day after (our usual tradition) to make my husband happy. he didn’t get the right present for my daughter, but what she has is still cute so i’m satisfied. my husband and i work very well together, and over the years we’ve managed a comfortable flexibility with each other that has us bending one way or the other relatively painlessly. it just makes life SO much easier.
I think because I am not a roll-with-it type of person, I had a hard time adjusting when we had the baby. Oh my! Talk about needing to be flexible and never knowing when you would get to do something, or being able to handle ruined plans, all of it! It is taxing on the “stiff” minded!
I’m actually really surprised by the amnesia people – not all, but some – exhibit when around small kids. Like my FIL who demands the very instant my child makes one unhappy noise in a restaurant that I take him outside.
Which really, is more pleasant for me than being inside. So maybe their inflexibility is good for me.
I’m pretty flexible, and I think it’s more natural than anything. I think it has to do with an overinflated sense of empathy that also makes me incapable of holding a grudge. It’s a trait that sounds good, but when I get burned by it, it sucks!
My in-laws are the picture of inflexibility in the sense that I wonder if maybe my husband was raised by wolves, because they don’t seem to remember AT ALL what it’s like to have little kids!
For us, the holidays are usually pretty easy. This isn’t a good thing, it’s a sad thing. Jason (my husband) lost both of his parents, so holidays are always spent with my family. He does have a sister, and we usually see her too, but for the most part, it’s always with my side of the family.
That being said, I’d consider myself flexible!
Well, I am glad I waited until I got home to really read this blog and enjoy it (and think about it). My kids are 11 and 14, so we are comfortably past some of that toddler constant supervision stuff. My daughter was babysitting a 14 month old Saturday (cutest kid in. the. world.!) and we had him with us at a big family gathering. When I finally sat down to eat, she asked me if I could hold him, and I pouted about the possibility of having to leave my food to help another caretaker out. WHAT?
But I, too, hope to be able to retain that memory of how trying those times can be (despite my slip on Saturday).
We all need to cut each other a break, especially if there are off-schedule kids in the mix!
parents who have forgotten about being parents drive me BATTY!
Speaking from my personal experience, I am forgetting. I have one really well behaved daughter age 5 1/2. I have a window of about 18 months around her age. This is a window of warm feelings toward other people’s children. I can’t stand any longer to be around the dirty diaper crowd and when my kid is nine, I’m sure the kindergarten set will once again be insufferable to me. Becoming a mother gave me this one great love for one child, it did nothing to improve my outlook on minors as a whole.
It’s good to be flexible, but some people are downright selfish and forget the needs of their children. I know someone who complained on FB about being in the ER in the early am of Thanksgiving with a sick child, and then early Black Friday bragged on FB that they had this same sick child out and shopping! What is wrong with some people, I wonder.
I yearn to roll with it, to be perfectly flexible. And, sometimes, I feel it, this coveted flexibility. But more often than not I am aware of a rigidity in me, a resistance. I think this is life, but boy do I try 🙂
Flexibility is not one of my finer traits. However, since having children, I have am uch different approach. I can move around the country on a yearly basis for my husband’s job, change plans when necessary because of a screaming baby, and give up on that “perfect” photo that’s never going to happen.
It may or may not have taken me until baby #2. Ahem.
I hope that I too remember what it was like, because it can be so tough to manage it all! Kids dance to their own tune, and keeping up with it can be exhausting.