POSITIVE PARENTING: FUN!

Just a little example of PP from the Full Spectrums:

Pardner used to be a dawg. Not literally, but – let’s just say he spent his twenties, most of his thirties (there was that...brief first marriage), his forties...even the first part of his fifties, as a single, hunky, zest-for-life-filled, man-about-town chef who had a great appreciation for female beauty of all sorts.

And I do mean all.

When we first started dating, I asked him this highly original question: “What is the most important quality you value in a woman?”

“Fun,” was his simple answer.

Well, I felt very superior when he said that. How trite, I thought. How superficial! And how hard can it be to have fun with no kids, a thriving/rewarding/creative business, excellent health, and that special freedom of the non-married to extricate oneself from any less-fun relationship? A person who thinks fun is the most important thing must be pretty durn trifling, no?

Then I got to thinking about it. Here I was, newly-divorced and unemployed as yet, with two young high-needs kids (neither had labels yet, but the high-needs part was Not Subtle). I was shattered, really, at the time. And yet there he was...into me in a big and, to him, very new way.

Maybe he meant something different by “fun” than I thought.

As we got to know each other, I began to see how fun actually encompasses everything I truly value in life. It dawned on me that a most precious sort of fun was our finding a way to laugh together while courting despite my being in precarious mental, physical and fiscal health.

Fun isn’t just everything always being easy, lighthearted, and effortlessly sparkly all the time; sometimes fun is finding the sparkle in the (heavyhearted, hard, crusty, messy) mud, my friends. It’s choosing to giggle when you get to that giggle/sob crossroad (or at least to gigglesob). As well, fun is exercising our innate capacity to recognize and appreciate that sparkle, that giggle...

Now, we Full Spectrums hold FUN as our High and Sacred Family Virtue. Fun is finding a way to ENJOY each other’s company – even just for a few minutes, even after a crapola day.  Fun is being GRATEFUL for the kids you have and the family you make, whoever and however they are.

Yeah, this isn’t easy all the time; heck, it’s not even happening most of the time. But when it is? That’s fun. Thanks, Pardner!

Positive parentingly,

Love,

Full Spectrum Mama

#Positiveparentingday is the brainchild of the Introverted Matriarch. <3