Why I Don't Want My Children to be Happy

Hi all. Sorry for not posting last week. I don't really have a good excuse (unless five doctor visits in the space of a week counts as an excuse? I think it sounds more like bragging...even though it is not a very fun thing to brag about). I am hoping to make up the missing post today and get back to posting on Thursday. I have a lot on my mind.

Some big things have happened in our lives since the last time I posted. Okay, maybe only two big things, but they are huge things to me.

One, we found out we are having a boy! I am all sorts of excited and nervous, but that it is another post in and of itself.

Two, Kevin is two years old now. Does that sound as crazy to you as it does to me? We knew it was official when two of the four times we went to put her back in bed last night she had completely taken off her pajamas so she was wearing nothing but a diaper.  Yup, she's two.

Naturally, I think about my children a lot. As Scott and I were driving home from a visit "home" (aka, my parents house in Cache Valley) on Sunday, I was watching Kevin sleep and I mentioned to my husband that she seems so little still but I just know I am going to blink and she'll be twenty instead of two. He was kind enough to point out that she'll be on a mission when she's twenty, so I won't need to worry about looking at her then because she'll be gone. Um, not a helpful comment. I mean, I hope she goes on a mission, but that is her choice, and I am not really looking forward to letting her go. Then he talked about how the day he is dreading is when "The Boy" (aka her sweetheart) comes into the picture. Then we both decided we were getting ahead of ourselves and we needed to stop talking about her growing up and just listen to her snore in the backseat.

But I still think about her future all the time. I wonder who she is going to be. I wonder what her struggles will be. I wonder if she will become the person I want her to become. I wonder if I even have the right to determine who that is.

I wonder all of these things about our son too. Mostly right now I am just wondering what his name is going to be and if he will look more like his dad or my dad. But I also wonder about the kind of life he will have, when it hasn't even really begun yet.

And these wonderings have lead me to some conclusions about what I want for my children. I think you sometimes hear parents say, "I just want my kids to be happy."

Let's get this straight right now.

Happiness is not what I want for my children.

Let me explain.

There are many, many people in my life, people I care dearly about, that are not happy. They each have different struggles. For some, it is financial. For others, it is poor physical health. For others, it is unfulfilled dreams, or perhaps not being where they thought they would be at this point in their life. Still others are unhappy because they are constantly thinking about what they don't have. And the most heartbreaking of all to me are those that aren't happy because of mental illness--their bodies literally will not let them be happy.

And if it were just happiness these loved ones were lacking, I guess that would be one thing. But the lack of happiness is often overshadowed by an absence of peace.

And that, my friends, is what I ultimately want my children to have. Peace.

I want to raise my children in such a way that they know that it is okay to be unhappy. It is okay to feel negative emotions, as long as you don't let those negative emotions lead to poor choices. It is okay to fail. It is okay to miss the mark--and to miss it over and over and over again. It is okay to doubt, to question. But when you let your doubts overcome everything you have already learned in your life, that is when you find yourself missing peace, and when you are missing peace, that is when all you have is misery.

Peace can come in many ways. For some people, peace comes in a cure, or correct treatment. For others, it might come in having a plan, working toward getting to where they want to be. And still, for others, peace might be found in the arms of someone who can hold them up and keep them going for a while longer.

But what happens when that peace can't be found?

Peace can always be found, you say. Peace is in living the gospel, right? Peace comes in following Jesus Christ.

Wrong.

Sometimes, living the gospel is not a peaceful choice. Christ himself explained that his followers would find that "The father shall be divided against the son, and the son against the father, the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother...." (Luke 12.53). He tells us to "Think not that I am come to send peace on earth. I came not to send peace, but a sword" (Matthew 10:34). There you go. Words of the Savior himself busting that myth.

You may live his gospel to your very best ability, and you will still have hard times. Just because you've been modest your whole life doesn't guarantee that you will never be raped or that those that you trust won't ever look at pornography. Just because you've always paid a full tithe doesn't mean you won't have financial struggles. Just because you've always kept the Word of Wisdom doesn't mean your body will be free from any illness, disease or ailment. Just because you are a good person doesn't mean you are guaranteed a hassle-free life.

If bad things happen to you, it doesn't mean that you are a bad person. If trials are there, it doesn't always mean that you deserve them. God never promised us that bad things would only happen to bad people, and that good things would only happen to good people. Why? Because in His eyes, we are all His children, and that means that there is good in all of us, even when we can't see it in each other.

I feel that it is important for me to teach my children that life is not always going to be fair, it isn't always going to be easy, and they aren't always going to come out on top. Just as important as knowing that there will be mistakes and failures, however, is knowing that there is peace to be found in the struggles. And they will be loved regardless of the things that go differently from the way we planned.

I will love them. Heavenly Father will love them. Christ will love them. And He will give them peace.

How does that work if Christ also tells us to "think not that I came to send peace to the earth"?

Let me quote the Savior again:

"Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid" (John 14:27). 

This is the conclusion I have drawn, and that is that the answer comes in the phrase "not as the world giveth." The world teaches us conflicting ideas: we need to earn everything we get, so therefore we are always getting what we deserve, even when what we deserve is negative. There is also the mindset, growing increasingly popular these days, that we are somehow entitled to happiness. But Christ's peace comes "not as the world giveth." That means we don't have to do anything to earn it, but that also means that we aren't just entitled to it. How does that work? I'm not exactly sure, but I think it goes something like this.

We ask Him for peace. If our hearts are open to accepting it (meaning we have let go of fear and anger), He gives it to us.

That's it.

Sounds simple, right?

It's not.

But I testify that it works.

We might not always be happy, but we can always find peace, and that is what I want for my children. To be happy all the time wouldn't be happiness at all. After all, as a father once taught his son 2600 years ago,

"It must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things. If not so, firstborn in the wilderness" (in other words, the son that was born while he was experiencing opposition and trial) "righteousness could not be brought to pass, neither wickedness, neither holiness nor misery, neither good nor bad. Wherefore, all things must needs be a compound in one; wherefore, if it should be one body it must needs remain as dead, having no life neither death, nor corrumption nor incorruption, happiness nor misery, neither sense nor insensibility" (2 Nephi 2:11, found in the Book of Mormon).

I don't want my children to always be happy. I do want them to know happiness, but I know that their lives will not be full unless they also know something of misery. That thought, well, it hurts. I don't think any parent wants to contemplate the challenges that will come to their children. And if you are worried for your children and their trials, just know that they have a Father in Heaven who is probably just as worried and heartsick as you are.

I read something a few weeks ago that really struck me (especially being in the middle of the biggest medical dilemma of my life thus far). Someone had made a comment (at a funeral of all places) that "you can be cured without being healed, you can be healed without being cured."

That changed my focus on a lot of things. I no longer wonder (very often, at least) why this particular trial is mine that this time, why it is so much harder for me to do a good thing (aka having a baby), something I have been commanded by God to do, than it seems to be for everyone else. Instead of asking why He can't just cure me, I am asking him to heal me, to heal my heart. To give me peace.

And so to Kevin and her brother (my firstborn son in the wilderness), I say this:

I don't want you to be happy.
I want you to find peace.

And I want you to understand the difference.