Parenting

My little sister can be a complete brat sometimes: eight years old and knows it all; famous for farting on my friends' faces and throwing giant fits that get her what she wants. I don't envy my dad or step mom for their jobs as her parents.

I used to get highly frustrated when she was allowed to eat two pieces of dessert instead of dinner or when I would ask her to do something and she would walk away without comment. "No respect!" I would yell in my head. Then I put myself in a different frame of mind. If someone my age pretended not to hear me when I asked them to do something, that would be extremely offensive, but she's only eight. I can see she has yet to learn the value of respect. Getting angry about this fact doesn't help anything.

I've realized that not everybody learns all the niceties of our culture. Not everyone had good parents and a loving community to support them while they grew into healthy, balanced, understanding people. It is not my job to teach every person every lesson there is to learn. There are endless amounts of lessons on respect, justice, truth, peace, how to treat people, how to love people in ways that allow them to feel your love, how to see a situation from the other person's perspective, why we don't always get what we want, etc. I am not the teacher of all things. Many times (maybe every time) my job is to teach people how far love can reach, despite all the lessons they've missed. My job is also to learn the lessons of patience and understanding that rude people teach. It's easy to be patient and nice to respectful people. Our real test is how we react when the sky isn't raining gumdrops and roses.

My sisters (ages 8 and 17) are flying in to visit for 17 days during November and December. I couldn't be happier! I'm also nervous. I don't know which lessons I'm meant to teach my littlest sister. It's not that I feel I need to be her teacher, but isn't that who I am inherently as her older sister? Shouldn't I be mindful of the things I'm teaching her?

On a selfish note, I have a fairly peaceful life. Giant fits over ice cream for dinner and when bedtime starts aren't really conducive to my inner calm. I'm definitely not ready to have children! Despite everything though, I know it will be wonderful to have that little girl sleeping in our guest bedroom for two weeks.

I hope I don't react to her anger with anger
because she has not yet learned
to harness and tame
the emotions that run wild within her.

I hope I don't mistake her fearful actions for disrespect ones.
because she is so young,
how can she know
where her actions are coming from?

I hope I don't take away even one ounce of her confidence
because she doesn't have a lot
and she needs it all
to survive the people who don't love her like I do.