Getting ready for a summer furlough is so much easier with only three children who are actually not children, but teens. It's an amazing blessing that they can each pack and carry (!) their own bags, decide what books and music they need for the trip, and even go to the store on their own for whatever snacks they might want for travel days.In the early days I used to put the little ones through "furlough boot camp." To prepare them for a season of being completely thrown out of their routines, I would make the preschoolers take naps in strange places around the house. No more comfy cribs or familiar beds. I would put a blanket and pillow somewhere on the floor and say, "Nighty-night," and leave them to figure out I meant business. This did help once we were on the road and staying in different people's homes because they were accustomed to going to sleep wherever and whenever I told them.
During boot camp, no matter what food I served them, they were not allowed to comment unless they really liked it. They were never to beg for seconds unless I specifically offered them. They had to say please and thank you with a smile on their faces. I trained them to respond to a discrete snap of my finger, wave of my hand, or lifting of an eyebrow. We'd make a game of "coming quickly when called." We even practiced walking in tight formation so we wouldn't appear to be as big a family as we really were. Each older child had a younger one they were responsible for, and the middle child was responsible for the diaper bag (or dog when we were dumb enough to travel with a pet). By the time we left for furlough, we were looking good!
With this said, I must confess that I took the "training exercises" a bit too far, and pridefully drilled into my children how to be perfect little house guests. After all, we wouldn't want unruly children destroying the houses where we would be staying. Seriously! We do need to train our children, and furlough is a good excuse to go into high gear. On a deeper level, though, God only knows my true motives were nothing short of arrogance. I didn't want to risk anyone seeing what we were really like. Instead I painstakingly taught my children to become little hypocrites, acting the part of loving, well-mannered Christians, when their hearts were not quite there yet. I am sorry for that.
It wasn't until after I read the book Shepherding a Child's Heart (which I HIGHLY recommend, by the way), that I became convicted about only working on the outer appearances rather than focusing on heart issues. From then on I vowed to discipline my children for the purpose of training their hearts to fear God, not merely to make Mom look good in front of her friends. I'll never forget the time we went up with one teen and his big ol' afro, and other teen with his long stringy hair. It was still a struggle to not consider "What will people think?" but I forced myself to look at it from God's standpoint. No sin was being committed. Their hearts were good. Why should I require a haircut just to please our conservative support base?
Ironically, it wasn't until I stopped being so paranoid about our "real selves" being revealed in the presence of our supporters that people began to connect genuinely with me. I once had a woman tell me that she used to berate her children after we passed through as house guests, saying things like, "Why can't you be more like the Loker kids? They never...." Oh, my, what damage was done due to my pretense of having well-behaved children? This same woman was quite relieved on a later trip we made to the States, when she saw my children acting like the kids they really were, and even not acting very "Christian" (read between the lines: they were fighting!). Then she began to talk to me on a deeper level. No pretense. No shame. Just honesty. It was a good thing.
With that said, I have heard some frightening tales of things missionary friends' children have done on furloughs that made me glad I had trained mine to be inhumanly perfect. (Ha! Like that's possible.)Maybe you can flesh this out with some real life experiences of funny things your children have done on furloughs.
IRL* The flip side is that I have fewer stories to tell.
Oh wow, Jamie! That hit a nerve! Once, while staying with people we didn't know, our dd ripped all the tags off the host daughter's Beanie Babies collection. oops. And she wasn't one bit remorseful. The forced apology was that--forced. :P Now, she gets it, but then she was convinced that a stuffed animal should be 100% cuddly and not have some label thingy hanging off it. sigh. We were actually more distressed about her attitude than we were about the toys, or what the hosts were thinking. The damage there had been done, but her attitude was quite a doozy for a 4 yo.
ReplyDeleteAnother good book that our homeschool group here just finished reading together is "Teach Them Diligently". I highly recommend it. It's a terribly convicting book, though, so be ready. :)
Conviction can be good. I'll add that to my long wish list on Amazon. Thanks. And I can imagine the scene with the beanie babies. Ack!
DeleteAs an MK I remember the lectures and "boot camp" type training . . . "You will like it whether you like it or not!" . . . "I can't believe you _______" . . . and the LOOKS, whether from the pulpit or across the table or across the room.
ReplyDeleteI determined not to be so militant with my kids. As a result, they have embarrassed me more than once. They also have surprised me in many pleasant ways! I have only two kids, so I don't have to worry about the trying not to look as big a family as we are. I have one son who is very compliant, social, kind, a little arrogant, often over-cautious, somewhat negative. I have another son whose nickname is appropriately, "Monkey." He's passionate, impulsive, creative, extremely smart, and will one day be a strong leader (if we can train his heart).
I've taken to talking to them about how "now is the time to shine Jesus. . . I know you don't want to ________, but you are serving Jesus by doing _______" and how "now is your chance to be gracious and make others feel loved by your body language and your words." Sometimes they get it. Sometimes they don't.
Whenever I really want to yank them into perfection, I remember what it felt like to always be tense in American church/social situations, always wondering when I will make a mistake. Even today I still feel uncomfortable with a roomful of Americans, worrying about when I will do something unacceptable.
It's so good to get your perspective as the child and also as the parent. Only by the grace of God will my seven not spend their adulthood in therapy to overcome their insecurities. Sigh.
DeleteNot to be militant. Good reminder.
I love this post, Jamie! Especially the napping in strange places. Even though we're long into our furlough aka re-deputation aka unending transition, i think there are some great points to be gleaned for my own little ones. Thank you for treading the path first, and not being afraid to share the mistakes as well as what you've learned! :)
ReplyDeleteIt's my pleasure to get mileage out of my mistakes. :)
DeleteThanks for this post! This is great to remember for those of us with little ones especially. Mine have not really done anything during furlough to embarrass me (that I can remember) but they do embarrass me anyway. Josiah like all 3 year olds says what comes to his mind, talks about everything he sees(he is soooo observant even noticing a hole in someone´s pants and loudly pointing it out to me) and is at the questioning and complaining stage. Shepherding a Child´s Heat is on my list of books to get and read.
ReplyDeleteHi, Rachel. Oh, those talkative 3-year-olds and the things they say. Stay tuned for some stories along those lines next week. I can relate!
DeleteOne other thing I used to drill into them was to not make remarks about people's appearance. In Guatemala it never mattered because people didn't understand English. Then in the U.S. they would speak up in a public place, "Mommy, look how FAT that man is!" Not cool!
Ha! I got a kick out of this. We've done the sleep training thing too (taught my kids to sleep in a miniature tent) and it's totally paid off! This post made me laugh! :)
ReplyDeleteI figured I couldn't have been the only one. Someone should publish a pre-furlough manual with these tips and warnings.
DeleteI LIVED the furlough training bootcamp! Our only respite came when we had guests. We used to LOVE guests who came and stayed - our parents wouldn't yell at us or spank us so much or so hard with guests around!
ReplyDeleteHowever, I can still sleep anywhere and often voluntarily lie down on my wood floor for a nap just because the sun is shining on that spot.
Our kids - well, we try to teach them to respect others, but I have been guilty of telling them, "hey, these people support us, so I know you don't like to sit in another meeting, but just do it!" We try to compensate by time to run and play on the road if we stop to see things, and they seem to realize that it is part of the job - the good and the boring.... yes, you have to sit in meetings, but yes, you get to see Yellowstone, too. Gotta take the good with the bad.
We only have one who worries us... he is so polite, interesting, and sweet, but he will pipe up and say, "Do you know, in your room, in your closet, in a box, you have _______? What do you use it for?" Now we brief him before we go in, "No going in people's rooms. no looking in their drawers! No comments on anything that is not publicly displayed!"
It's always fun to hear your perspective being the MK as well as a mom of MKs.
DeleteYour story about the inquisitive child knowing what people have in their closet gives me the shivers. Oh, man! I think I would put a leash on him.
I think the most confusing thing to me as a MK was living with the "split" - who we were in public and who we were in private. Or perhaps between what missionaries said and what missionaries did. Sadly, I also parented like this in my early years of parenting, and am now attempting to walk out of it. I struggled to understand why, if we were so "right" (because we were!! That other group had their doctrine/theology/missiology all wrong), why did they look more like Jesus acted? We were "right", but we talked bad about them, and Jesus said to love. We were "right", but we gossiped and criticized... and Jesus said to honor others. I think MKs have a front row seat to both the highest ideal spoken and the roughest life lived, and the struggle to reconcile those two can completely derail us at times.
DeleteWe've thought of a muzzle for our little guy a few times... especially at border crossings when he pipes up with such jewels such as "oh, yes, we do have weapons" and "oh, good, I finished it before you got here because I know it is against the law!" (fruit... he finished his apple.) Another time, he cheerfully told the police, "My daddy always runs red lights." Yup, he's a fun one.