Hi.

I know you don’t know me.

In fact you were driving so fast I doubt you even saw me fly out of my front door trying desperately to catch a glimpse of your license plate so that I could call the police.

Yep. I’m that person.

I grew up. Got old. Became a parent. And now I’m out to destroy all of your fun.

Because here’s the thing. Your sort of fun? It gives me nightmares.

I was shaking as I watched you tear recklessly down my street with no regard for your own life, let alone the life of anyone else.

Let me tell you something I doubt you ever considered. Lean in and listen real close.

While you were taking a joy ride through suburbia, there was a three year old on a tricycle and a five year old close to outgrowing his training wheels, riding down the street.

I heard your souped up engine revving. I knew how fast you were going before I sprinted to my front door. I saw your used Pontiac for a split second. I heard your unnecessarily loud bass. And I caught a glimpse of you and your buddies having the time of your life.

You didn’t have a care in the world.

Can I ask you a question?

How would your world have changed if my five year old son, his name is Ezra by the way, had ridden off the curb? What could you have possibly done if my three year old, his name is Hudson but I call him Tiny, had disobeyed his daddy (as he sometimes does. I mean he is three after all.) and darted into the street?

You would not have been able to stop.

My world would have shattered because you thought you were invincible.

Let that sink in for a minute.

I was seventeen once. I get it. I know it feels like nothing can stop you. But that’s a load of crap.

Every single choice you make has a consequence. That freedom of choice is one of the most incredible and beautiful and terrifying gifts in this life.

Your choices determine your future.

Your choice tonight could have ended someone else’s future. And your own.

I know I said I wanted to call the police on you. And part of me still does. But if I was given the option I think I would make a different call.

I would call your mama.

Because even though you managed to piss me off in two seconds flat, once I knew my babies were safe, I had a thought.

You are somebody’s baby too.

Every single kid in that car is loved by someone, probably lots of someones, and if I were your mama or your aunt or your grandma or your fifth grade teacher, I would want to know you were being an idiot.

So I could slap some sense into you. (Not actually slap. Relax. It’s a figure of speech.)

I know you feel a freedom in being a teenager, probably almost legally an adult. But it’s only fair that you know the truth. It doesn’t matter if you are 18 or 21 or 45 or 73. You don’t ever get to stop being somebody’s baby.

Ezra and Hudson will never stop being my babies.

And tonight you helped me realize something. As they get older, become teenagers, start driving and dating and owning smart phones. As they search the world just to find themselves. I do not want to be the cool mom.

I always thought I would be the cool mom, but I just realized how desperately I don’t ever want to be her.

I want to be the mom who makes sure parents are home before my kids go to a friend’s house.
I want to be the mom who asks nosy questions and makes her sons talk to her.
I want to be the mom who holds her boys to the highest standards when it comes to how they treat women.
I want to be the mom who takes away driving privileges if I find out my kids are speeding through neighborhoods.
I want to be the mom who is aware of what my kids are doing online.
I want to be the mom who doesn’t look the other way when her kids act the way society says kids will act.

And if all of that makes me the least cool mom ever? That is fantastic.

Because I know that my boys were created to be amazing men and it is the greatest privilege in my life to be able to guide them on that journey.

And you, dear speeding driver, I believe that for you too. I don’t know you. Or your story. Or who is championing you along the way. My prayer tonight is that someone is. And my guess is that if I were to call your mama or your daddy, and tell them how reckless you were tonight, that you wouldn’t see your beloved Pontiac for quite some time.

See as parents, no matter what the media says or how they try to pit us against each other by talking about parenting styles and discipline tactics and organic vs non organic food, the truth is that we all know parenting is the single hardest job one could ever take on and we need each other.

I hope when my kids do something stupid (as they inevitably will) another parent loves them enough and respects me enough to call me. And I will do the same for them. Because it takes a village. A really freaking big village.

I don’t think you’re a bad kid. I think it’s quite possible you’re a wonderful, funny, intelligent, compassionate kid. You would probably call me ma’am if we ever met and I would tell you never to call me that again. It’s one of the things I like least about the south.

But tonight? Tonight you made a bad choice.

I am so thankful that for today the worst thing that happened is you left skid marks on my street.

But what about next time?

I’m crossing my fingers that there isn’t a next time, but make no mistake. If you speed down my street again I will jump in my minivan and I will follow you to your house. I will knock on your door.

And I will tell your mama everything that happened.

Because every mama deserves the chance to keep her baby safe.

Safe from others. Safe from themselves. Safe.

We can’t protect you from everything. But we spend every single day trying our very best to do just that.

Help us out, won’t you?

Sincerely,
The owner of the voice you heard screaming at you from blocks away and the mama of these two babies.

I always knew my boys would have long hair. I mean the thought of cutting it when they were little just never crossed my mind. What’s more adorable than a sweet baby boy? A sweet baby boy with long gorgeous hair of course. Admittedly this is my own personal opinion, but I stand by it.

What I never expected, and in hindsight possibly should have seen coming, was the countless people who would glance at my boys for a split second and automatically assume they are girls. It happens ALL. THE. TIME. And I really don’t mind. I look at my kids and I see boys with long hair, but I also understand how a passerby could glance at them and make a quick assumption that long hair equals a girl.

It’s not always a true assumption, but it is an innocent one.

When someone refers to one of my boys as a girl, I smile kindly and let them know that he is in fact a boy, with long hair. Most people quickly apologize or simply say, “Oops! of course he is!” and we move on. But sometimes the conversation takes a slightly different path, and then I start to mind.

This was my interaction with a kind and well-meaning cashier last week.

Cashier: Oh she’s beautiful!

Me: Thank you! He is actually a boy, he just has long hair. (Somewhere in the background the child in question is interjecting with an adamant, “I am not a girl!”)

Cashier: What?! (pointing directly at my son while my son sees and hears the whole conversation) You’re telling me this is a boy?

Me: (smiling but desperately trying to move the conversation in a different direction) Yep!

Cashier: (shaking head in disbelief) Seriously? 

Me: I throw his hair in an ponytail when it’s extra hot out. But trust me, he’s a boy. 

Cashier: (jaw literally dropping) You do what?! (looks around frantically) POLICE! POLICE!

The cashier drops the act, winks at me, finishes bagging my purchases and calls me sweetheart as we walk away.

(end scene)

Because really, I felt like I was in a bad sitcom just then.

The issue is not that people mistake my boys for girls. The issue is not that I don’t want anyone to ever say anything that might possibly offend one of my offspring. The issue is not that the cashier suggested I should be arrested for putting my son’s hair in a ponytail.  The issue is not that I can’t take a joke.

You want to know the issue?

When you make jokes about who my child is or is not, when they hear you say that something about them is unacceptable, when you point at them and question what they know to be true about themselves, you change the person they see in the mirror.

The heart of the matter has nothing to do with my boy’s hair length, and everything to do with adults thinking before they speak to kids.

Even as adults, the words people say to us are powerful. A stranger on social media leaving a hurtful comment can bring all of my insecurities screaming to the surface. How much harder for a child, one who is just beginning to discover who they are and who they want to become, to navigate sarcastic or joking comments centered around their identity.

You can call me dramatic, it has happened before, but consider this.

We see so many kids, children so young, struggling with anxiety and depression and self harm and eating disorders and on and on. So often the blame is placed on their peers or Hollywood. I can’t help but wonder, if they were asked, how many of those precious kids carry deep wounds from the careless words of an adult.

I do not think that the sweet, misguided, cashier wounded my son. In fact my three-year old has seemingly forgotten the whole interaction. But last year, after too many similar situations, my oldest son asked me to cut his long hair. His words broke my heart. “I love my long hair mama, but I don’t want people to think I’m a girl anymore.” We cut his hair the next day. He stared at himself long in the mirror and I asked if he liked his haircut. He nodded, “Yeah, I like it. I liked my long hair better, but now no one will call me a girl.”

I am left wondering, how many thousands of interactions will my boys have with adults during these precious, formative years of childhood? How many of them will be life-giving? How many will cause them to question their value? Their identity? Their purpose?

How many children have changed who they were because someone told them what they are, who they are, is less than enough?

I cannot protect my sons from everything. Or even most things. Trust me, I have moments I want to be like the mom from Bubble Boy and never let them out into the real world, lest they scrape their knee or get knocked over by a bully or catch the common cold. I sometimes mutter under my breath in the grocery store aisles, while my kids beg for Froot Loops, about food dyes and gmos and evil marketing companies preying on children with cartoons and preservatives. I have had my heart-broken watching other kids ignore or refuse to play with my boys. I also understand that these are all normal, albeit difficult, parts of childhood. And sometimes they even get the Froot Loops.

The thing I refuse to accept, no matter how normal or common it may be, is adults speaking anything but life into children.

We have all been there. We have all gone through the awkward, uncomfortable, scary, hormonal, acne-ridden journey that is growing up. Remember that before you roll your eyes at rowdy teenagers aimlessly wandering the mall on Saturday afternoon. Think about it before you wonder why the exhausted and overwhelmed six-year-old throwing a tantrum in public can’t control himself. Before you make a joke, ask yourself if you would have thought it was funny at their age, or would it have stung?

And hey, don’t be afraid to apologize if you say something without thinking.

I’m a red-headed Irish woman who lived most of her adult life in New York. I was born with a temper and a wild spirit. When I think something, I say it. And too often those sharp words land on my boys. I am not perfect. I never will be. I will always make mistakes. But one thing is for sure, my boys have heard, and will continue to hear, me apologize to them when I accidentally say something hurtful.

Because when I say I want adults to speak life into my kids, and any kids they happen to encounter, that expectation starts with me.

Dear Ezra and Hudson,

My sons who I love.

Sit down, scoot close, cuddle tight, listen big.

I have so much to tell you but the words are quite hard. Bear with me, be patient, it’s worth it, you’ll see.

Two of the people who love you the most, the deepest, the fiercest, the loudest, they’re gone. Jesus, he holds them in his hands, he needed them home, so they had to go. But forever you must know, how extravagantly they love you and how although their faces will never light up as you enter the room, so much of who they are is forever inside of you.

Your grandpa, what a man. Tall and skinny, brilliant but not so witty. He smiled easy, spoke wisdom, and only ordered water at restaurants. His shorts were often too short, pinched pennies caused holes in his socks, he backed into the garage door twice, in one week, and he was the last to get a joke. He prayed for you before I dreamed of you. He woke at five o’clock in the morning every day to play tennis with me, not because I would one day win Wimbledon, but because for that hour he got all of my attention, and I got all of his. He never gave up on me no matter how hard I refused his hugs, and the only thing he loved more than your grandma, was his Jesus.

If he were here, you boys would be his delight. His eyes would shine at the shout of, “Grandpa!” a role that breaks my heart to never see him play. He would make you promise to work harder than you think you can, read more than is recommended, take the scenic route every time, and never EVER get a credit card. And above all he would make sure you did all that while falling desperately in love with your Jesus.

Your Auntie H, she proved family is not decided by blood. Louder than a blow horn, and more beautiful than we could convince her to see. The day after I met her, I couldn’t imagine life without. I still can’t. She laughed too loud, ended up at the Mississippi River in a quest to be six hours in the other direction, she reminded me how important it is to play, I reminded her how important it is to be on time. At least I learned something. She collected earrings, and Starbucks gift cards, and friends. So many called her theirs, I still don’t know how I was lucky enough to be called hers. She stole your grandpa’s pen once, she held me at his funeral, and she was listening to a recording of his sermon on grief when her life ended too soon. Our God is a God of details.

After she died, I found a sealed letter in her room addressed to, My Koslowskis. We were hers, she was ours, and this will always be true. My firstborn, she helped you learn to walk, my tiniest you forever carry the h in your name for her. If she could see you now, you would be deaf from the decibel level, and overflowing with a love only h knew how to give. Unconditional, unending, fierce, loyal, without judgement, and contagious. The love I try every day to emulate, because with it she changed the world. She would make you promise to love well, be true to you no matter how many people stare, look for the hurting and be Jesus to them, occasionally lose your directions and find an adventure instead, and wear the biggest sunglasses you can find, like, bordering on ridiculous, big. Because bordering on ridiculous was exactly what our h did best, and we adored her for it.

Oh sweet boys, grief is a confusing place. One day the pain, so new, too raw, overwhelms and envelops, life is a fog. Then, life continues, as it tends to do, and one morning you wake and go about your day. Only when you lay down, once the sun is gone, do you realize that their memory was not your constant companion that day. You whisper their name but their face takes an extra second, maybe two, to become clear in your mind. And grief springs brand new. Too many days without them has made their memory dull, it’s not okay, it cannot be ok, they’re too important to fade. So although life moves forward, we will alway talk, always share, always remember these two who love you so dear.

These two who are so intricate a part of who I have become, who your daddy has become, that there is no way you will not continue to be shaped by them. Short shorts, bad time management, and all.

xoxo