Letters to My Kids (part one)

June 4, 2013
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 Lately I’ve been writing letters to my kids. They’re not always sappy, as usual letter-writing-to-kids calls for. They’re  letters about things I want to say, but I can’t. Sometimes I can’t say these things because it is an inappropriate thing to say. Sometimes I can’t because I’m more of a stoic mommy, who tries way too hard to say the careful, correct thing. I rarely allow myself to say what I’m really thinking.
I write Elisabeth letters to tell her things that she refuses to believe no matter how many times I try to convince her.
For example…

Dear Elisabeth…
It’s bikini. Not zucchini.
You’re going to have to trust me on this one.
Mommy
OR

Dear Elisabeth…
Even if you are voted president of the world (which I totally think might happen), you can’t pass a law that allows you to marry your twin.
You need to let that dream die.
Love,
Mommy
My letters to Catie tend to be more serious.
Here’s my most recent…

Go Drink Pitchers of Beer and Skip Chapel, Daughter!
Dear Catie…
Yesterday, at your Celebration of Learning, you told your class and all the moms and dads and teachers that you wanted to go to college at Concordia in Nebraska.
And everyone was like, “Huh? What’s a Concordia? She must have meant to say UT. Or A&M. Who goes to Nebraska for college?”
You do, kiddo. You do.
I’m afraid to say this to you because I don’t want my opinion to influence you. I don’t want you to choose a college based on what I want. So, yesterday, when you announced your college plan to your class, I couldn’t give you a thumbs-up or hug you or say, “You will SO LOVE a Christian college.”
I didn’t say any of that. But I wanted to.
I wanted to say…
“Yes! Do it! A Christian college is so fun because everyone there is (mostly) wholesome. Your friends and dates and boyfriends and enemies all subscribe to a certain code of conduct that none of you will get too far off track.
You can rebel and do things like not go to church and drink beer by the pitcher, but you’re still surrounded by people who won’t let you fall too far. You can doubt the existence of hell and argue about whether or not women should be pastors and everyone gets where you’re coming from. Everyone agrees on the really big stuff. So, your Christian college is a safe bubble where you can do all that arguing and rebelling that seems so fun when you’re nineteen and have too much time on your hands.
Even as you all argue and fume with your college fights, you can still be pretty sure you’ll all end up marrying each other and working shoulder-to-shoulder to teach the world about Jesus.
No matter what stupid stuff you argued about in your dorm room at three in the morning.”
THAT is all the stuff I wanted to tell you.
Because when other kids in your class said they wanted to go to A&M, their Aggie parents thought, “Whoop!” and “I can’t wait for him to go to yell practice!” I thought…
Catie, go to Concordia. Just like I did.  Go there and meet your best friends who grew up with the same Lutheran liturgy and conservative parents. Go and bloom and find a part of yourself you didn’t even know was lost.
Go to Concordia and cheer on their losing football team and fall in love with all the future pastors, just because they are so earnest and love Jesus. Skip chapel. Or go. And have the most thrilling (wholesome) experience of your life.
Because, even now, a decade too early, you seem to understand yourself enough to know that you would like that. 
You seem to understand that going to Concordia would make you happy.
Is that it? If it is, know that this would also make me happy.
Love,
Mommy

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