Redheaded Jill

I think I’ve touched on this before, but I was in college before I realized that my family was weird. I always knew we were weird because we were the family with seven kids who didn’t homeschool and were extremely Christian and conservative and well… weird. BUT… I didn’t realize my family was weird because my parents love each other.

I met SO many kids at my Christian university who had parents who were not even NICE to one another, much less showed ways of loving one another.

My Mom always said she wanted to out please my dad. She wanted to do things for him to make him happy. Sometimes that meant a clean house, and so before dad got home from work around five or six o’clock we’d rush around tidying up. Not because Dad would have been mean if the house wasn’t clean, but because mom loved dad and she wanted him to come home to a clean house.

My Dad never speaks ill of my mom. He does not talk to us about mom negatively, he does not ever complain. He defends her and has always required us to respect her. Even when I know he’s unhappy about something I cannot remember a time when my dad has talked to me negatively about my mom.

Growing up my parents were always affectionate to one another. They would be smoochin’ in the kitchen and we’d all roll our eyes and say, “Ew!” One day my mom said, “Wouldn’t you rather that your dad and I love one another than have parents who didn’t like each other? Isn’t it better that we’re kissing rather than punching?” Ever since she told me that I stopped complaining about their PDA, even in jest.

Parents who support one another are so important. My mom was able to be a stay at home mom because my parents prioritized that. My parents like each other. They love each other. They choose one another over their kids. (I think it’s tragic how many couples lose their connection because they only focus on their kids.) They choose one another over us, and they choose God over one another.

In a lot of ways this is the dream. In some ways it seems unrealistic and impossible. I have insane standards because of my parents and thus I have yet to find a guy even as remotely good as my Dad. But it’s a struggle worth having because it means my parents are my parents.