How do you want to be remembered by your children? 3 ways to share your life stories with your children so that your connection with them lasts their lifetime.
How well do you know your parents? Do you know how they first met? Do you know the story of how they fell in love? Do you know when you were born and how your parents rushed to the hospital?
What about your family health and medical history? What hereditary illnesses do you need to be aware of? Have you had mumps or chicken pox? What vaccines have you received? What do you need to be aware of for your health precautions and your children?
Most people have the practical medical information we need from our parents for our reference. We need that for our health and medical records as we go through life.
But what about the stories that don't go on any medical files? The life stories that are a part of our identity, history, heritage and non-medical DNA.
Most people take for granted that there will always be time to have these conversations. That as they pass the various chapters of their adult lives, they can always reach out to their parents then.
We assume our parents will be there for our graduations. We assume they will be there for our wedding. We assume we can call for parenting tips when our new infants run their first fever. We assume they will be there as a sounding board for our most important life decisions.
If you are lucky, you will enjoy a lifetime of experiences with your parents well into your adulthood and gain a deeper understanding of your parents once you have crossed the various stages of life's milestones.
Unfortunately, not everyone is lucky. For some people, the company of their parents well into their adult years is lost from an early death or diseases like Alzheimer's and Dementia that rob memories from the parent and family. And for some, the family relationships may be distant or have become disconnected.
I was not so lucky. My father passed away when I was 6 and my mother passed away when I was 20. I have only fragments of memories and stories of who my parents were. I would love to have had the opportunity to know them better. (Read Finding Super Strength in Adversity for the full story on how my parents' deaths impacted my life.)
When we are young, we may not be interested in hearing the stories and advice of our parents. As we grow through the stages of adult life, our appreciation for them changes and we often see bits of our parents in ourselves.
I live in daily gratitude for the fact that I can be a part of my children's adult lives, especially because I have lived most of my life without mine.
Because of my experience of life without my parents, I deeply value my family and am acutely aware that I cannot be there for my children forever. I have relished every phase of parenthood and enjoyed every moment of getting to know my sons in each growth stage of their lives.
One of the reasons I blog is to leave behind my stories, thoughts, experiences and insights for my sons to read when they are ready. Perhaps I am overly aware of our limited time on this earth, but I think we all hope that our families will have stories to remember us by and share with their families.
Here are 3 suggestions for making connections with your children that will endure.
1. Be There
If we want our children to be interested in our stories, we need to be interested in theirs.
Being a parent is hard work, especially when you are a new parent. Juggling a career and family can feel like you are being pulled in a hundred different directions. It can be hard to focus and be attentive when you are too busy multi-tasking the days away.
It took me seven years, three doctors and the discovery of a brain tumour before I was able to conceive my sons. I take nothing for granted in the privilege of being a parent. (Find out more about my parenting approach in my blog Raising Generation Z.)
I was lucky enough to be able to step away from working full-time for 4 years when my boys were babies so that I could fully relish being a parent. Once they were in school, I went back to pursuing my career and kick-started it with a regional role for a global company that required travelling for 30-40% of my work year.
Life with two young children and a very demanding job was not easy but I had one rule for myself when I was with my sons. It was to be there fully in the moment when I was with them, regardless of how stressful the work day was or how jetlagged I was.
To "be there" for me means to spend time together with focus and intention.
My focus was on them and my intention was to connect deeply with interest and love. I was always truly interested in their stories about their school day, books they were reading, games they were playing, and things they were thinking about. Even if sometimes those conversations happened via Skype or Facetime when I was travelling.
Connections that endure start with being there to create the moments that matter and an intention to connect.
2. Capture The Moments
If a picture says a thousand words, then make sure you capture them!
My parenting journey started before the advent of smartphones and digital cameras. Yes, there was life before iPhones and iCloud. And the boxes, upon boxes of photo albums, hold the precious moments captured of my two sons' early childhood years.
I aspired to be a photographer during a brief phase in my teenage life. I took photography courses and could even develop my own film into photos. I love the story that a moment in time captured on film could convey.
Back in the day before digital cameras and smartphones, you had to wait to see what you captured when the film was developed. Amongst the "out-of-focus" or "not everyone was ready photos", there would be gems that caught the moment and memory perfectly.
It was an expensive and inconvenient process as you had to carry around an actual camera with film in it to be able to capture the moments. Now that we all have a phone camera with us, we are always photo-ready.
My word of advice for our device-obsessed times... Capture the moments, but live them too. Real life is outside of your iPhone frame.
Not everything has to be "Insta-perfect". The best moments are spontaneous and genuine.
It's not about capturing the perfect post. It's about capturing moments in life that will convey the story and memory of time spent together.
3. Write Down Your Stories
I started diary writing/journaling in my pre-teen years. It was actually recommended to me by a teacher for practicing my English when I was a new immigrant to Canada.
Throughout my life, I have kept journaling on and off. It is a helpful tool for processing life, working through emotions and capturing stories and moments that matter to me.
Journaling has especially been helpful for me during times of transition and major life challenges. It has helped me to de-stress, understand myself better and clarify the truth of tough times in my life where I benefited from reflecting more deeply.
Journals are a wonderful way of capturing details in life that fade over time.
During our downsizing move out of our family home of 18 years, I rediscovered a box of my old journals. One of which was started when I became pregnant with my oldest son. It documented my difficult journey to conceive and the moment of overwhelming joy when I found out I was pregnant. It captured all my hopes and dreams for parenthood and the anticipation of meeting my son.
These memories, thoughts and emotions had long been forgotten. Reading the journals took me back in time to important moments and chapters in my life that I want to share with my sons.
Don't worry if you have not kept diaries or journals to document your past stories. It's never too late to start. In fact, there are some helpful tools out there to help prompt you to the important stories that your children will love to hear.
There is a great series of prompted journals by www.questionsaboutme.com with an 8-book series of "Tell Me About Your Life Story" titles like Tell Me About Your Life Story Mom: A Mother’s Guided Journal and Memory Keepsake Book. There are versions available for dads and grandparents too.
All you really need to write your story is a pen and notepad or computer or tablet or phone. You are not writing a memoir novel of your life (unless that's what you want to do.) Just think of little short stories of important moments in your life.
Start yourself off with a prompting question like:
What was my best childhood memory and why?
What was my favourite subject in school and why?
What was the hardest part of attending college/university and why?
What was my first job?
How I met your father/mother?
Think about the things you want to know about your parents and go from there.
I am grateful to the teacher who suggested I start a diary/journal when I was young. Thanks to her, I have a library of stories to revisit and share with my sons someday.
It's never too late to start writing down your stories.
Live the Story You Want to Tell
I may not have had the luxury of time with my parents. I am full of gratitude for the life that I have shared with my sons thus far and for all the adventures and stories yet to come.
My husband and I have tried our best to be there, and capture the moments and now in my new blogging life, I am writing down the stories that I want to share.
My boys are just beginning their young adult lives. Where ever life takes them in their future, I hope that our strong family connections will endure throughout their lifetimes.
"There are only two lasting bequests we can hope to give our children. One of these is roots, the other, wings."
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
For other articles on my parenting journey and raising generation Z:
I would love to hear your comments!
What stories do you want to know from your parents?
What is a story from your life that you would like to share with your children?
Thank you for spending time on AYCLimitless.com
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