Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff
Previous StoryNext StoryIt was just a tiny, round gold loop placed in his left ear, like the one many of his friends wore, but it bothered me. Why? I am not sure. It might have been because it represented a rebellion against the norm in our family; girls wore earrings, and guys didn’t.
It could have been the primary concern that our friends might think our parenting skills were weak or the fear that he would reject other rules we thought were important. So, I did what frustrated mothers do; I scolded him, nagged him, and finally pleaded with him to take it out.
Reluctantly he did. It was such a small part of his life. The important thing was that he was a quiet, shy young man in his first year of college away from home, and he was following behind his near-perfect sister, who was outgoing, an honor student, and sang in the college choir.
However, all I could see was the gold earring in his ear. But, of course, I had not read the book “Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff, and It’s All Small Stuff” by Richard Carlson. This small, 245-page book provides strategies for keeping it all in perspective, such as; “Repeat to Yourself,” “Life Isn’t an Emergency,” “Turn Your Melodrama into a Mellow Drama,” “Remember, 100 Years from Now, All New People,” “Keep Asking Yourself, ‘What’s Really Important,” and “Choose Your Battles Wisely.”
Carlson suggests that life is full of opportunities to choose between making a big deal out of something or only letting it go, realizing it doesn’t matter. Letting it go is what I should have done. For example, our son wearing earrings was not a new thing or a big deal, but my reaction made it a big deal.
History tells us that the practice of men wearing earrings started thousands of years ago. In 1991 a body was discovered found frozen in an Australian Glacier. Test claimed the body was more than 5,000 years old, and both ears were pierced. Some superstitious sailors pierced an earlobe to improve eyesight, and if their bodies washed up somewhere, it would pay for a Christian burial.
In many societies, ear piercing is done as a puberty ritual and is an almost universal practice for men and women; it is only in Western civilization that it is deemed effeminate. Many famous men such as Shakespeare, Sir Walter Raleigh, and Francis Drake wore gold rings in their ears during Elizabethan.
When I reflect on raising our children, it is evident that I was sometimes guilty of sweating the small stuff, but I never stopped believing in them. However, according to Carlson, sometimes parents overreact, blow things out of proportion, hold on too tightly, and focus too much on life’s negative aspects.
He and his wife also wrote “Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff” for men, women, teens, love, family, and money. If I had read all those books when I raised our children, I might have been a lot more relaxed. But the fact was raising our children was the most important thing we did together in our marriage life, and sometimes it was intense.
It is comical to our children, now that I am a grandparent, how I am always telling them to relax; it’s not that important. However, this week our adult children were concerned about their daughter having a small gem pierced in the side of her nose. She’s only 16. Like me, they are anxious over the many decisions she makes with her life. I remember the feeling so well. I also remember the prayers I prayed for my teenage children’s decisions.
Not long after the oldest son married and became a father, we visited him and his wife over the holidays. He leaned down to welcome me with a warm hug, and I felt something brush my cheek. Sure enough, there it was again. Only this time, it was silver. It looked like a little spring wrapped gently around the lower lobe of his ear. When he let go, and I looked up at him, we both grinned, remembering the mother-son battle of many years ago.
Author for Morningcoffeebeans.com