Straddle Parenting at 50

I've had a wide range of ages to parent for a decade and a half. And now... I've got my Dad and step-mom in the mix, too.

Fifteen years ago now, I landed on a term to sum up the experience of my days. I called it “Straddle Parenting,” because that’s how it felt; at the time, my oldest girls had just become teenagers, and I was hugely pregnant. There were a host of other kids I was responsible for each day as well. I was potty training one, and teaching another to read and still making the time to talk about those niggling signs that puberty was coming for one more. One foot was firmly planted in the world of the little ones, but the other? I had jumped the fence and was navigating the world of leading them to adulthood. Straddle Parenting, I said, and it felt right.

It was an even better fit as my family continued to grow. Last year the call that my eldest daughter was in labor came while my 3 year-old was enjoying her very first carousel ride at the zoo. I excitedly encouraged both of my girls— Straddle Parenting.

In the past two years, there’s been an added pull that’s made that straddle even harder, but it’s not in parenting. It’s in daughtering. My father and step-mother have reached the point in their life’s journeys where their health is precarious. Uterine cancer was the first blow. A dignosis of Sjogren’s Syndrome. Back surgery. A series of strokes. Hernia repairs. Long recoveries, chronic issues, limited mobility, and cognitive abilities dulled with age have made the past twenty-four months a parade of hardships for them. As a daughter, I want to help. It’s not just an obligation, it’s a longing to be present in the pain and to assist where and how I can.

Straddling again, but now from my preschooler to my aging parents.

Oh, the stretch is painful some days. Physically painful, as my sweet 9 year-old, who could use just a touch more Momma right now, helps me pack my bag again for another 3-day stay with Grandma and Grandpa. Emotionally raw, as my Dad—who has always, always walked me to my car to inspect the tires before I leave— now stays in his recliner, watching me shut the door as I head home. There is not enough of me to do all I want to do, not enough of me to be in every place at once. So I settle for living in this in between place, in the breath-holding stretch of the straddle itself, praying that God uses me where He can, and knowing that His grace is sufficient for those needs I cannot fill.

I am grateful for the training that my earlier years of Straddle Parenting brought me. Realizing that I could not possibly teach every Algebra lesson and attend every speech therapy session, could not counsel every teenage emotion and police every potty joke the 6 year-old discovered prepared me for the fact that I was not the center of every relationship, was not meant to be the glue that held all the details of every life together. Listening to my daughter’s wedding reception outside the window while I nursed her baby sister to sleep for a much-needed nap, flying out of the country to meet my first grandchild days after my own baby’s first birthday… these things have been made easier by the lessons God gave me in holding the details loosely and trusting that His hands will catch those things I let go. If it weren’t for the decade and a half of this learning curve, my heart in this season of being present in the face of needs for sick parents and curious preschoolers would tremble. Instead, I have a sure faith that the Lord will provide for all this, and more— because I have witnessed His provision firsthand.

“Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord,
whose trust is the Lord.
He is like a tree planted by water,
that sends out its roots by the stream,
and does not fear when heat comes,
for its leaves remain green,
and is not anxious in the year of drought,
for it does not cease to bear fruit.”

Jeremiah 17:7-8

I’ve grown accustomed to extending that trust to the generation below me, the one I’m raising. Now that foot that had jumped the fence and was stretching me until my joints ached is being tugged even farther, and my trust must go with it. Is it comfortable? Oh, friends, I won’t lie and say it is. Some days I feel fragile with the weight of all of it. Some night I find myself crying as I run through the list of needs of those closest to me, laying them at the Lord’s feet and realizing how small I am in the face of so much. Some days I am overwhelmed with wanting to be in four places in once.

But most days? Most days I realize how blessed I am to have my Dad and Kathi still here with me, even if it means that I am watching them decline in real time. I praise the Lord that He has allowed me to see them come to faith, that He has restored the years that the locusts have eaten, and that He has allowed me to make precious memories with them both.

Most days I look at my married kids and think, God— You have been so, so gracious to me. I look at my kids at home and marvel at the fact that I have been given the privilege of still actively parenting, even as I’ve turned the corner into the second half of a century.

I am not enough for the job I’ve been given here on earth. I cannot possibly be all things for all people. And yet, I will not be anxious even in the heat and drought. Even though I am Straddle Parenting and my feet are stretched across generations, both are firmly planted near the water. I do not fear.

In Christ,

Heather