This topic contains 38 replies, has 23 voices, and was last updated by 
David Hayward 1 year, 9 months ago.
-
Posts
-
Anonymous(I don’t have kids…but…this topic has been perking with me this past month…I am a child of evangelicals, all my siblings are evangelical and I am not. Family gatherings are stressful in that there are many topics I simply don’t have the energy to weigh in on since my worldview is so different. This last gathering I took my “new boyfriend” (8months) with me to a weekend with my siblings and their spouses. He is a recovering alcoholic and a Vietnam Vet. I am in absolute wonder by the mystery of God presence in his life. He has literally been “saved” over and over in his life. He is on intimate terms with his “higher power” and we have much we share in how we see God at worked in daily life. I call that God, the Spirit of the Resurrected Christ, he call it his higher power. My family wants to hear him say, “he knows Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior,” for them to feel that he is okay for their little sister. I love my family and they love me and want the best for me. My family in some sense is my church and I most definitely see life with God/Jesus differently. I am grateful to my parents and what they gave me (religious heritage). Disagreeing with church is one thing, disagreeing with family is another. So for those of you with kids, what advice would you give your kids if they don’t believe as you do and how would you help them stay in relationship you and their siblings when they have different ideas about God too?
This thread is really neat….I have three kids and a stepson.
My stepson Ethan is 18 and struggling right now. We think he might be using drugs. He does not live with us. I have never been close to him as we married when he was 12 and his mother was difficult to say the least.
Celeste is 14. She is amazing. She is a wonderful artist and really interested in the physical sciences. She is a great student, an introvert, and wise beyond her years. She taught herself to draw manga (Japanese comics) and she is quite good. She is experimenting with mixed media right now, watercolors and colored pencil.
Ben is almost 6 and he is my little professor. He is timid, inquisitive, and amazing. Our puppy is the joy of his life. And Star Wars. And Legos.
Moses is my little 3 year old firecracker. He does not know how to take no for an answer and will likely be a little ladies man
He is very, very cute and he knows how to use it. He just started preschool this week, and it is really neat (and bittersweet) to watch how he is growing and how he experiences the world around him. He is our last kid.I wrote a post recently about rethinking parenting and religion with my kids. I think it applies to some of the discussion here. Hopefully you don’t mind David when I post a link to my blog, I am just too lazy to try to rewrite my thoughts here
http://sheshakesthedust.blogspot.com/2012/09/on-my-kids-and-religion.html
Yesterday was my daughter’s first day of high school. She is slow to make friends and has struggled since we moved to find her “people”. We had a long talk about how we are open to whatever friends she makes (LGBT, etc), and that we will welcome anyone into our home (unless of course they are a bad influence on her). I encouraged her to be observant and try to really see that almost all kids are insecure and just want to be accepted for who they are. I want my kids to BE LOVE. I don’t care that much about the theological/denominational stuff anymore. I figure if we teach them the ways of Jesus none of the rest of it matters.
We have three young kids.
Marcus, 5 – Starts Kindergarten tomorrow. He loves racing cars, Spiderman, Cars and Thomas and Friends.
Morgan, 3 – Is our energetic and imaginative daughter. She is emotionally-charged and quite a firecracker when she wants to be. She has had continuing struggles with allergies and asthma.
Macey, 7 months – Was born under stressful circumstances, having gastroschisis (her intestines were born outside her body due to a defect). She was delivered at 33 weeks due to fetal distress; doctors feared that she was dying. Following surgery to reinsert her bowels, she spent the first two months in the NICU until her bowels were functioning again. She’s bright, curious and doing fine now.
All of your kids sound wonderful
Verittus I’m so glad little Macey is doing fine. I don’t have any kids, but I co-run a DV shelter and we take mom’s with kids. They can stay with us for up to 6 months and they all work their way into my heart. One of the things I truly miss from about the church is teaching in the children’s ministry and running the youth group.
AnonymousHey jumping in a little late. I’ve got two children. Zachary turned 16 this past summer and is in Grade 11. He is in a very exciting program along with his sister at a local high school. They are basically a school withing the high school. And have to apply to get in. They focus on community involvement and leadership development. They have a less structered learning environment, open classroom setting and more student participation in everything from tutoring to running seminars etc. He’s in his element with all the nerdy boys who love discussing the pro’s and cons of StarTrek vs Star Wars and please lets not forget Stargate. How many Grade 11 students know who colonel maybourne is when they run into the actor who played him at a local football game. He’s also done some sailing with a local sailing group out of Victoria called SALTS, is working pt on the weekends at a Kennel and has his ‘L’ shudder.
Aniela our girl is 14. She is all things artsie and creative. Loves to sing and has some amazing pipes. Loves musical theatre, though will be taking a break, and keeps us all guessing as to what she’ll be up to next. All in all they are amazing kids.
So here’s a little interesting story about my oldest daughter Kristin who I mentioned above is struggling in her faith and going to Wellesley. Her roomate seems to be quite an experienced partier. Just this week her she kept saying, “why are you so nice? Why are you so great?” and she started asking Kristin questions about God and her faith. She held the bible in her hands and asked Kristin if she could go to church with her. Kristin is kind of amazed at the God-moment that she never organized or even imagined. She feels closer to God now than she has in years…. life is strange and wonderful some times….
I just found this thread — what a great one! It’s wonderful to get to know a little about all of you!
We have one daughter, Jen, who turns 25 this week and is gay. She came along after I had given up on Judaism, but we did take her to a local minyan (diy synagogue) and sent her to a summer camp run by the Israeli Zionist Labor party. She never showed any interest in either Zionism or political activism, which is probably a good thing, lol.
We homeschooled her for several years because she had some problems in jr. high school. She did very well in college, so I have no regrets about pulling her out.
She’s works as a nanny right now, and manages to support herself pretty handily. Her partner, Jaime, who I think might really be “the one” for her, has moderate Asperger’s, so there are some difficulties for them to overcome, both financially and regarding living arrangements. But I’m encouraged by the way I see them working problems out. (They’re pretty cute together, lol.)
beautiful story Shira C.
AnonymousYou have many children servantgirl! Heart children!
I have 4 kids…loves of my life and all amazing in their own ways. My oldest is 28. He struggles emotionally but managed to graduate from college is holding down a full time job. Courageous! He is always on our hearts. Kaitlyn is 26 and will be a doctor in May. She plans to return to a developing country to practice and train. Lovely lady! Conor is a senior at university and plays soccer. He is studying economic development and plans to work overseas in a developing country with an NGO. My lovely youngest is in her first year of college. She took a gap year last year and volunteered at a local school. She is studying education and plans to return overseas to teach. All have the rich heritage of growing up overseas and their hearts haven’t left. With an ocean between us, I miss them terribly.
AnonymousI don’t have any children. I’m thinking about applying to become a foster parent though. I was a chaplain for a week this summer at the Camp at which I used to be a counsellor. There were so many foster kids there. At one point the kids were comparing foster parents. I had been considering it before that, but it really strengthened the desire.
Well, I have no children. I had wanted six and life had other plans. But my husband and I had two dogs that were our kids. When they died, I told myself that I wouldn’t get any more, but I couldn’t handle it. And now, I have two more dogs and they think they are people. At least they let me live with them….
My husband and I have three kids:
My lovely stepdaughter with four “kids” of her own, who is 37 years old and living in Tennessee. She was my “practice” daughter when she visited (and sometimes lived with us) from the time I was a 20 year old new “parent” until my current 54 year old “somewhat more experienced parent” self. I am so proud of her courage and resilience on her difficult journey as a used-to-be-married and now single parent of our grandchildren (10 year old twin girls, 12 year old boy, 18 year old boy).
My 26 year old daughter. Vivacious, charismatic, warm, friendly, “people person”. She just moved out of our house and is living in her first apartment. She used to wear her heart on her sleeve but is now more cautious in her approach to her world. It is so fun to see her “grow into herself”. She works at an Arts Council planning out great entertainment for the folks in our community and loves it.
My 25 year old son. Academic, number loving, quiet, deep-thinking. Not a “people person”. He still lives at home. He LOVES numbers. He LOVES excel spread sheets! He loves his job as a Budget Analyst at the Air Force Base near our home. He loves to save money, and he gives us great advice about all things related to computers, budgets, etc. He stretches my mind in so many ways – so much fun to talk to!
So those are my kids!
I have two sons. My oldest 26 year old son Greg is a classical composer, pianist, sound engineer, and just graduated from San Francisco State. He is working and saving up to go to Berlin and take his Masters and Doctorate in composition.
My youngest son Keith is 23 and just got his dream job programming iPhone games and doing conversions to Facebook at a really fun company in the Bay area. He is still taking classes at San Francisco state trying to finish up his computer science degree and working full time at his new job. He has been programming games since he was 16 and has had his own business writing flash games and selling ad space on them.
They have both been atheists since they were teens and came to that point of view even before I did. They are both full of life and creativity. What is interesting is that neither of them is materialistic and both are actively involved in projects to help those in third world countries. They are both self sufficient and really work hard. I am very proud of them both. We have so much fun when we get together as a family. We have really interesting conversations and lots of laughter.
Thanks everyone for sharing about your kids. That sounds wonderful Richard! So I’m going to go into more detail.
Joshua is 25 and he is a motivational speaker. He loves helping people discover their passions and going for them. He’s an amazingly inspirational guy who wants to be the next Tony Robbins. I often wonder where the hell he came from because we are different in so many ways. I went to one of his conference weekends and it changed my life. It was something else.
Jesse is 23, and he is hands-on mechanically minded. He went and got his heavy-equipment machinery operators course, including hydraulics, etc… and operates heavy machinery for a company all over Canada and the USA making a shit-load of money. He is as wild as they come. Always uncontrollable but hilarious.
Casile is 20 and is in her third year at Mount Allison University, a great school, taking philosophy and religion. She’s also an artist. She is extremely creative and smart. When she realized she was taking so many religion courses I asked her if she was thinking of ministry one day and her immediate response was, “Fuck that!”
When we all get together it is like a continual party. There have been hard times that scared us to death, and sure, we still have concerns, but they are wonderful people that adorn the world. IMO
Is it too late to get in on this great thread? I loved reading about everyone’s kids (even your heart children, servantgirl!)
I’ve got 3 girls! Every time I got pregnant, I thought I was having a boy. (fun fact)
~Cassidy May is my firstborn. She’s 11 (going on 16). She is a lot like me and so we inevitably butt heads at times. She sometimes contributes the most to my craziness. (See, it’s not ALL my fault, David!)
She’s an incredibly creative girl and she’s a NATURAL at drawing. She wants to be an artist. I told her she already is and that she will only get better! I am very proud of her. She’s my mini-me!~Alyssa Skye came to join us only 11 months after Cassidy did. The first thing Cassidy did when we introduced her to Alyssa was sit on her..(You can get the gist of their entire relationship from that one example.) Night and day, the two of them! Alyssa is naturally sensitive and incredibly imaginative, with a propensity to keep to herself. (I don’t necessarily blame her) She’s more interested in creating imaginary creatures with powers and varying species. She and Cassidy and their cousin together have notebooks FILLED with creatures they have all come up with. I love to watch them in action. They have drawings, stories, and games based on these creatures and if I had the money and means to, I’d trademark and market the whole thing for them and their future! Alyssa herself is the first origin of the whole thing…she’s my little dreamer!
~Bella Rose surprised us 7 years after Alyssa came. I found out I was pregnant and immediately had a horrible dark and ominous feeling and I had no idea why. I got waaay sicker with her than the other two, and then at 16 weeks we got the news that there was an anomaly with the umbilical chord as well as a significant chance of a serious birth defect to go with it. By 20 weeks I was on bedrest with high blood pressure spikes and that was also the last week Bella grew at all en utero. All of the doctors kept telling us she was not going to live. For six weeks we heard every potential worst case scenario/outcome (over and over). Many times we were practically begged to end the pregnancy and move on with our lives. They were SO sure that she was going to be born with something fatal. Her chances of being born alive were slim just because of the lack of blood flow and nutrients alone. The day before she was born by emergency section, I had been on hospital bedrest for awhile. One of the doctors came to my room and made one last plea for me to stop holding out hope. He thought it would be more merciful to me and Bella to be induced and say goodbye to her. He said that she’d suffer needlessly if I wanted them to intervene medically and try to resuscitate her. His last statement was, “We don’t even have a tube small enough to fit in her airway because she is as small as a 20 week fetus.”
I refused to give up until she was actually dead. Of course I didn’t want to cause her suffering, but I was pretty confident that she wouldn’t remember much of anything later on in life if she did survive!! On August 17th, 2009 (pretty much exactly 3 months earlier than her November 18th due date) she was taken by emergency surgery from my belly because her heart rate had begun to drop over and over. She weighed 14 ounces and she was 11 inches long. They did have a tube small enough, and she did not have any of the fatal genetic defects they had predicted. In fact, even though she had a pulmonary hemorrhage at one week, and heart surgery at 2 weeks…Bella ended up without many complications that most bigger premature infants experience! She spent 4 months total in the hospital. She was tube fed for 2 years and 9 months. That was very hard, and in her case, sadly not necessary. The therapies to teach her how to eat were not helpful, so I threw out the doctors and therapists and did it myself. Today, she is an active, incredibly smart, little 3 year old who EATS a good variety of food (with a fork or spoon, too!) and she knows her letters and numbers and colors and shapes. Really all that’s left over from her perilous birth is her size. She’s tiny at 23 pounds, but HEALTHY AND HAPPY!
Bella is my little conqueror.
I love my girls with all my heart!!!
You must be logged in to reply to this topic.