I would chat a while here, but tonight I’m highly tired. My right eye is doing it’s weird twitching thing it does when I’m over-tired, so off to bed early I am. Join us won’t you? Miss Kate has provided us with a word prompt again. This week it’s the word risk.
Tonight I paused
Catching my words
Wanting, as I talked with a lad
To say things as I should.
Tiredness weighs deeply on my shoulders
Foggy thinking clouds my judgment
So taking time is a needful thing.
My lad reading
Asking questions.
Seeing things that
I wouldn’t see.
Asking questions I don’t
Know the answers too, but
Trying and stumbling to help him see.
The author isn’t wrong, but
He hasn’t covered all the possibilities.
A teenage boy
Learning to put his thoughts together.
Asking and challenging.
Covering all possibilities as best he can.
Wondering why others don’t do the same.
Helps me understand the risk I take
When I engage with others who
Want me to cover every possibility
in a short answer.
Helping me see why some take offense
Simply because I didn’t take the time to
consider all thoughts before I answered.
When all I thought I was answering
What a simple question, requiring a simple answer.
But hidden within the simplicity
Some see complexity.
And if you don’t meet the complexity
Challenges and frustrations arise.
I wonder if this 14-year-old sees
the stretching he causes
in a mom 40 years past his scene.
I never had children, but I once taught, and this brings comfort to a teacher’s heart.
Thank you so much for writing and sharing it, Annette.
Thank you Andrew. I’m hoping to stop by you tonight. 🙂
These are beautiful reflections! I love that as you teach your son and help him grow, you are learning and being stretched too!
it’s a wonderful thing Lesley… we are both learning, albeit not always the same thing
So true, kids stretch us so much – at whatever age. I am learning so much now mine are in their 20s. It’s humbling and encouraging at the same time.
Reminds me of a saying I heard: God gives us the children we need to grow into the parents we should become.
oh Liz… does that mean the stretching will continue? OH… I’m so glad I don’t have to do it all at once! 🙂
Nothing has stretched me more than being a parent – and being a homeschooling parent, especially! But it’s a good stretch – without that stretching I wouldn’t grow and learn and become better. Love this.
oh, thank you Kym. 🙂 I hope I’m becoming better….
This is beautiful. I am just in the starting of our journey as I have a preschooler and an infant, but I will hold this close as my kids get older.
thank you. They’ll stretch you even as littles too! 🙂 wait until they ask you hard questions.
This is on point. Perfectly. My middle child is this way and we are both forced to stretch when I don’t answer as she expects or cover it all well. Very beautiful.
Thank you. Some poetry comes from the heart and this one did. 🙂