Mess, Folly and the Grace of Seven Children

Photo by Jason Abdilla

It’s common enough for any of us on our hardest days, to survey the challenge that’s clear and present in our children, and decide that it’s damn near impossible to sustain a functional way of being with it all. When prompted, any father could recount the worst days, although it’s undoubtedly more apt to measure in hours or minutes, with the unpredictable vicissitudes of any given day turning on a whim - or seven of them. There are moments at least, when the particular challenges that each of your children faces become problematic at the same. Suddenly, in seperate children, you’re beset by a chlorine burn, a cheese addiction, a lego piece rampage, a Darth Maul impersonation, a runaway, a biter and a neuro-chemical dependence on reading ‘We’re going on a Bear Hunt.’

The challenges collide in catastrophic sound and fury, audible from the street and likely to tip most of us into a fight or flight response that cannot be capably satiated because, well, you’re the adult in the room and right now, you can’t add your own quirks to theirs at this given moment. These moments can become so tense, so jarring, so overwhelming, that your sense of communal identity becomes somewhat sullied or battered. Driving home from work at the end of the day, you begin to picture the worst case scenario, preparing to fend off cardboard lightsabers, a fight to the death over an anthropomorphic train, a pit dug in the backyard, filled with muddy water, and your dog cavorting about with one of the pet chickens in her mouth.

But sometimes, more often then not now, you can be pleasantly surprised by the calm, earnest play and joyous peace that greets you. Not in silence, because we don’t really do silence well until seven out of ten of our (including, yes, the dog), are asleep. But to step through the front door and see six kids in the backyard, on the trampoline, tending to the rabbit, flinging the frisbee, whilst your wife and eldest daughter are at the dining table, gleefully and peacefully working on their scripture artwork, almost makes you feel as though you’re going to spoil the fun. I knew better than to step into that backyard until I had to round them up for dinner, but the remarkable sense of playful pursuit and camaraderie that marked the scene, is almost enough to make you forget the brief forays into chaos.

This is what becomes family. Memory. Identity. There will always be moments of madness that threaten to overwhelm you, but in good time, a thick skin and a bag of tricks will be more than enough to get you both through. A word of caution, however. Any temptation, in the worst of it, to turn on one another, as husband and wife, is absolute folly. In your downtime, away from the kids, it’s essential to clarify and confirm the ways in which you need to work through it all. In moments of heightened tension, it’s such an alluring option to vent your frustrations on your spouse, because, well, they’re an adult and they should do something about this chaos, right? Who else is going to do it?

We need the dignity, authority and self-awareness to take the ‘log out of our own eye’ before we want to attribute our familial challenges to the ‘speck’ in theirs. So take those moments of peace, of joy, and do all that you can to forget about the details when God presents you with such a respite. “Do I need to run the bath?” I asked Tahlia, as she worked away in her notebook. “I guess so,” she replied, without a sliver of urgency or concern. She’d spent the day with them all, working, learning, sharing and living. Our bus had lost control and spun in its turn around a roundabout earlier that day (all were fine, thank God), but she sat there that afternoon, absorbed in her art and at peace with the world.

Sometimes, I’ll notice two of the kids that we don’t usually see paired up, working on some kind of new project or experiment, be it gymnastics on the trampoline or a makeshift ball game with plastic swords and balls. It’s lovely to see the uncommon dynamic, with two of them bringing out a new joy and playfulness that they wouldn’t necessarily get with their usual pairings. Or, a wonderful respite in our four year old’s usual aggression and self-aggrandising, when you pull off just the right type and timing of praise and he takes his little brothers under his wing for the day, instead of grappling and griping with them about everything they pick up to play with.

There can be noise, and mess, and folly, and enough of it to doubt yourself and your capacity to manage in the moment. But there’s also so much grace in the midst of it all, that if you let it, will pull you through. Your little tribe, your crew, your church domestic, is given what it needs not only for your survival, but your sanctification. I always think of Therese, and her Little Way, finding moments to unite our humble little sacrifices with our Lord’s. We had a sacrifice jar that we’d been using throughout lent, where the kids leave a bean when they’ve made a little sacrifice for God or their neighbour.

With four days left of Holy Week, the jar was overflowing, and a reminder that yes, through our home, through our family, we find endless moments that can elevate us above self-interest and personal desire. Our rag tag little crew know how to challenge, upset and overturn one another in their worst of moments; but no less than they work to support and sanctify their brothers and sisters, no less than their parents. Thanks be to God.