The last time I talked about blueberry muffins was 2013. A lot has changed since then. This morning I made the muffins while the rest of the family was still asleep. It has been a rough couple of years, for many different reasons. As I reflected on different aspects of life, fatherhood kept coming to the forefront of my mind.
The teenage years are hard. I know all about the chemical changes my sons are going through. I know they are facing peer pressure. I know they face issues with people calling them names, or asking them to compromise their values (I do think this generation is meaner and angrier then when I grew up, but that is for another post).
Then throw in social media, girls, and just discovering their own path in this world to create a confusing time for them and for me and my wife. I don’t know when they will be silently moody or sit and talk to me for half an hour about their frustrations (as highlighted by my second son who didn’t speak a word to me when he first got up this morning).
But it is Sunday morning and I am making blueberry muffins.
Like many parents, we have dealt with dishonesty, the heavy sighs when we ask them to clean their room, the issues all parents have dealt with. But as I mixed in the blueberries in the batter, I thought about how I cannot actually control my children. I cannot make them think, or feel, or believe anything. As teenagers they are in the hard process of deciding who they are. What they stand for. What future they will create. This is knowledge that is hard for me to deal with. Some lessons do not need to be learned the hard way.
As I put the muffins in the oven I understood one thing. What I could do is make blueberry muffins every Sunday morning. As a family we will sit around the table and talk, or at least nod our heads in agreement if we didn’t feel like talking. What I can control is the example I set for my family. The lessons they learn about life come from our home; this is their foundation. I know there will be rough spots to come. I know my heart will ache with the decisions they make, but my wife and I will be here to love them and to show them the right way.
Got to go, the timer just went off. The blueberry muffins are done. Time to gather the family.
It is all Connected 