Did you ever have those misunderstandings as a kid that lasted WAY longer than they should have?
I did, and it’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately.
When I was a young kid, my family moved around a lot.
First with my single mom and my sister and later on with my stepdad (who I consider my dad) and two additional sisters.
By the time I was in 4th grade, I had lived in five separate homes.
While setting up yet another bedroom in yet another apartment, I noticed my desk drawer was broken and I asked my mom about it.
She responded absentmindedly with “the shoemaker’s kids never have shoes”. She might have been on the phone at the time…
I, being seven, understood this to mean that a shoemaker broke my desk drawer.
I had that desk for years until I got a new one after my bat mitzvah. It was white and covered in stickers and had a broken drawer. Which the shoemaker broke. Or so I thought.
As I got older, I realized I didn’t know any shoemakers, and didn’t understand how a shoemaker would have gotten access to my desk, and how someone who was careful enough to make shoes could have broken a drawer so bluntly.
I thought to ask my mom about it–
I said “you remember that drawer that the shoemaker broke?”
and my mom said “what shoemaker? Do you mean your desk drawer? The movers broke that!”
We laughed at the misunderstanding, and as time went on I realized one of my moms common sayings was “the shoemaker’s kids never have shoes.”
I am sharing this story with you for two reasons.
One, our kids can live with a curiosity and misunderstanding for years and years before they think to clear it up. They are always, always listening to us and what we say and assuming it applies directly to them, even when it doesn’t.
This is known as “lantern attention” which enables kids, unlike adults, to truly focus on 5 different facets of their environment at once. Ever try having a quiet conversation in the kitchen while your kid plays in another room? And then they come up to you and ask you about every detail of that private conversation? … Lantern attention.
So, that’s one, but most importantly, and why I’m sharing this with you is because of the lesson.
The shoemaker’s kids never have shoes. This is a lesson I think about a lot. What someone does for work and how they show up at home isn’t always aligned… sometimes more or less than others.
I am finishing up several Raising Resilient Kids cohorts right now. And I try to always make it clear that, though I teach all of these very important lessons and systems and concepts, and though they work SUPER well when implemented, no one does them perfectly. Not me, not my clients, not anyone.
It’s easy, though, for the parents I serve (especially those I see week in and week out) to feel that I somehow have this parenting thing all figured out (I don’t). That everyone in my house breezes through the day with perfect systems and perfect tones of voice and perfect alignment.
Someone made a comment in one of our final classes along the lines of “well of course your bedtime goes well, they’ve got you for a mom!” That struck me, because my kid doesn’t have Talia the Teacher as a mom. She has me as Mommy.
I, as Mommy, sometimes enact every detail of everything I teach. During those times, I am super present and connected, I hold boundaries calmly, I discipline around parts of the day I care about, I highlight my kid’s strengths, I create fun crafts, and things go well.
Also sometimes, I didn’t sleep well, am hungry, am eager for bedtime and want my kid to just get to sleep… and I act accordingly.
So, the shoemaker’s kids never have shoes. I like to think my toddler and future kids do have shoes… but maybe not the perfect, sparkly, beautiful shoes that I’d make for someone else. That’s how it always is.
Just a reminder as you scroll through your reels and take those classes and read those books, that though we may have a clear idea of how to do things when we’re on zoom in the middle of the day and no one is home and we’re all well fed and have a snack, that’s not always how it looks in the real world. Not for any of the hundreds of parents I serve, and certainly not for me.
In fact, in the Raising Resilient Kids class we have a rule– flounder, fail, forgive, forge ahead. The plan is that we’ll fail. The plan is that we will snap, something won’t go well, we’ll try a strategy and won’t remember part of it, we’ll be inconsistent with the consequence and make discipline harder for ourselves. And then, the plan is to just move right along and forge ahead, try again next time knowing the systems we want, and trying again to implement.
The good news is, we don’t have to be perfect all the time to have an extremely positive impact on what we do at home. In fact, part of what builds our kids resilience is dealing with imperfect caretakers.
When I yell at my toddler, I work on doing so less frequently. I might try to notice next time I’m getting upset and work on repairing with her and allowing her to process it with me.
When I am too busy on my phone to pay attention to what she’s doing, I put into place some better boundaries for next time or I put my phone down in another room right then so she can have my attention.
… and yet, I know I’ll still yell again at some point and I’ll still look at my phone again while we’re together.
It’s not about being perfect, it’s about knowing the systems you want and slowly working toward making them come to life at home.
I read a statistic that floored me– we need to be present, accountable, focused, and nurturing 30% of the time for our children to develop a secure attachment. 30%!! That’s so little. I bet if you’re reading this, you’re already there.
It’s not about perfection, it’s about continuing to show up with intention, before during and after our mistakes. And, about not making a huge deal out of the times we act differently than we wanted to.
So, as we head into the spring and we’re all outside at the playground more, and noticing other parents and other kids more, just remember…
The shoemaker’s kids never have shoes. We are not all perfect, and our ideas aren’t always our reality, and all of us will mess up and need to repair. It’s part of the messy reality of being in relationship with these tiny beings. Especially in these United States with such limited resources and supports for parents.
So, do take a lesson from our Raising Resilient Kids course and flounder, fail, forgive, and forge ahead.
And I’ll do the same, right alongside you.
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