Parenting | Page 2 of 22

Perhaps I Did Do My Best

May 3rd, 2025
Mollie T. Cox

Memory, my dear Cecily, is the diary we all carry about with us.
Miss Prism, The Importance Of Being Earnest

Yes, but it usually chronicles the things that have never happened and couldn’t possibly have happened.
Cecily, The Importance of Being Earnest

I don’t believe my memories are my imagination, but I do know that memories are tricky. Sometimes I forget the victories and remember the struggles. Sometimes the opposite. As I think about raising my sons, my memories tell me I could have listened more or played more or many other things more.

Rarely does one get a chance to revisit past situations. Last month—as I cared nonstop for young children for days and days—I got that chance.

Through last month’s filter of sleep deprivation, constant action, fatigue, and rarely having solitude to think, the things I left unsaid and undone while raising my sons were not unreasonable. By reliving my circumstances when my own children were young, I now understand that the things that I wish I had made happen couldn’t possibly have happened.

Perhaps I did do my best. Like you.

Parenting

Advice From Another Mother

April 12th, 2025
Mollie T. Cox

… And since when is good advice criticism?”

“When it comes from your mother.“
For Better or Worse Comic July 9, 2024

Our children need a mother. As they age, they want a mother that doesn’t belong to them. They want the advice we would give—just not from our mouths.

When my children were younger, I found it odd that young adults seemed to be trading mothers. My cousin didn’t ask my aunt for advice. However, my cousin’s best friend did. My cousin turned to the mother of another friend.

Why?

My aunt listened sympathetically to the problems of her daughter’s peers—more sympathetically than she listened to my cousin.

Why?

Along the way, I learned that by the time my children really needed my counsel, baggage had accumulated on both sides. Even when baggage wasn’t an issue, as healthy adults who were finding their own identity, my sons wanted privacy. And a mother who wasn’t overly interested.

So, what’s a mother to do?

I pray that my children seek godly counsel. I pray that the right person is put in their path at the opportune time.

… But wisdom is with those who seek counsel.

Proverbs 13:10

Parenting

Keeping Easter

March 29th, 2025
Mollie T. Cox

Guess what I got in my Easter basket? Pink nail polish.

I hid candy from my childhood Easter baskets in my pockets. I snuck the candy into my mouth during worship.

I hope it doesn’t rain and spoil Easter for the children.

The statements above reveal a lot. The first was an interruption to my Easter Sunday School lesson about Jesus’s Resurrection.

Given my observations and childhood experiences, I desired to preserve the meaning of Easter. The cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches may choke the Word (Matthew 13:7), but I shouldn’t contribute.

What’s a mother to do? This may sound extreme, but I never gave my sons Easter baskets. My family hosted Easter egg hunts on Saturdays using Resurrection Eggs * that tell the Easter story. Eggs with candy were intermingled.

We had traditional Easter fun, but I separated it from the Easter morning celebration of the Resurrection. We dyed Easter eggs as a Spring activity. Weeks before Easter, we held mini-Easter egg hunts each morning. As the boys aged, they hid eggs for each other. Don’t worry. My sons got enough candy—half-price after Easter.

How do you counter the culture?

* Family Life Ministries

Memories, Parenting

Our Children’s Memories

January 4th, 2025
Mollie T. Cox

Sometimes you will never know the value of a moment until it becomes a memory.
Dr. Seuss

My husband and I have spent a lot of time with our children. We’ve said a lot of things to them as well. Which activities and words were important? According to Dr. Seuss, the moments my children remembered.

Unfortunately, those moments are not always the ones I remember. These days, I’m surprised when my memories coincide with my sons’ memories.

“I don’t remember that” was my mother’s worse response to my vivid recollections. I vowed that I would remember what my children shared until I didn’t.

I’ve read that if you ask children from the same household to describe their childhood, you will get vastly differing accounts. My sister’s memories of our childhood compared to mine are consistent with this statement. Now I understand it wasn’t the overall experience that differed but rather our key moments.

What do I wish I had known? To slow down and think instead of rushing responses and experiences. The totality of a vacation is not as important as a remembered moment during a day.

May we all make the most of our 2025 moments.

Christmas, Parenting

The Christmas Generation Gap

December 14th, 2024
Mollie T. Cox

Along the way, I learned that Christmas traditions are outgrown. When my sons sat in the car instead of helping choose our Christmas tree—they claimed it was too cold—I was dismayed. I thought my high schoolers had turned into Scrooges until I remembered my mother’s disappointment when I said, “I’d rather get back to the dorm. Decorate the tree without me.”

When my sons were no longer interested in seeing the White House Christmas tree, I remembered my father’s disappointment when he said, “Pilot Life has its Creche displayed. Who wants to go see it?” and my siblings and I declined.

Eventually, my sons will grow old enough to return to the festivities they enjoyed when they were younger. Until then, the generation gap amuses me.

Exciting for the young and old—not those in between

Along the way, I also learned that my sons’ return will be on their terms. I mustn’t mind when they dismiss the Festival of Lights with my husband and me and then plan a similar outing in another city with their dates. (This really happened.)

P.S. My children never outgrew Christmas food or Christmas worship services.