{"id":280,"date":"2015-10-07T17:13:15","date_gmt":"2015-10-07T17:13:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.karen-gustafson.com\/?p=280"},"modified":"2015-10-07T17:13:15","modified_gmt":"2015-10-07T17:13:15","slug":"its-time-for-a-new-trend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.karen-gustafson.com\/?p=280","title":{"rendered":"It’s Time for a New Trend"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today is October 7, the day my grandmother was born.\u00a0 She would have been 97 if she were still alive.\u00a0The interesting thing about my grandma’s birthday is that it occurs on the 7th as does mine and my mother’s, three months consecutively.\u00a0 Mine is August 7th,\u00a0my mom’s September 7th, and my grandma’s October 7th.\u00a0 So when I found out that my first daughter’s due date was in July, we all wondered if she would continue the trend.<\/p>\n

She didn’t.\u00a0 She arrived three weeks early on the 4th of July.\u00a0 We were surprised by her early arrival, but thrilled she was healthy.\u00a0 As I looked at her, I thought about how she would be the beginning of\u00a0something new in our family.<\/p>\n

You see, for three generations there was a pattern emerging between mother and daughter; one of hurt and distance.<\/p>\n

My grandmother, like the rest of us, had hurts and wounds she carried\u00a0through her adult life.\u00a0 She didn’t speak openly about them.\u00a0 Part of that was probably the generation she came from and part\u00a0because of\u00a0who she was as a person.\u00a0 But they came out in other ways, they always do.<\/p>\n

She had four children; my mom and then a few years later, three boys in fairly rapid succession.\u00a0From what I understand, my grandmother probably suffered from postpartum depression, among other things.\u00a0 This left my mom feeling unwanted and distant from her mom.\u00a0 In the latter years of my grandma’s life, my mom wanted to close that distance.\u00a0 She tried talking to her, but my grandma just couldn’t bring herself to reveal those parts of her heart that she had hidden for so long.\u00a0 I know this hurt my mom.<\/p>\n

My mom\u00a0wanted things to be different with me and my siblings.\u00a0 Unfortunately, she too had hurts and wounds that made that difficult.\u00a0\u00a0Compounded by several difficult circumstances and abusive partners, she protected her heart so fiercely that there was a constant\u00a0barrier to getting close.\u00a0 I know my mom\u00a0loved me and I loved her, but try\u00a0as we might, there was\u00a0a familiar distance in our relationship as well.<\/p>\n

\"000038457e9e14f79cbea85d29e17a09\"<\/a>So here I was, looking at my own daughter, fearing that history would repeat itself again.\u00a0 I knew it didn’t have to be that way; I hoped\u00a0it could be different.\u00a0 She and I would start a new mother\/daughter trend.\u00a0 One that would be full of love, grace, mercy, vulnerability, and authenticity.<\/p>\n

Thankfully, I have a wonderful husband who allowed me the time and space to deal with my own hurts so I wouldn’t lay them on our children.\u00a0 And he’s been a wonderful partner in parenting.\u00a0 God was also very gracious to bring wonderful women into my life whom I could learn from and go to when I was unsure.<\/p>\n

I’m thankful for my grandma and my mom.\u00a0 They each showed love in their own unique\u00a0ways and they loved each other and me the best way they knew how.\u00a0\u00a0But I’m glad there’s a new trend in our family. We don’t always get it right.\u00a0 I wish there were things I would have done differently.\u00a0 At the end of the day, though, we have a closeness that I had always hoped was possible.\u00a0 My prayer is that my children continue the trend and do it even better…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today is October 7, the day my grandmother was born.\u00a0 She would have been 97 if she were still alive.\u00a0The interesting thing about my grandma’s birthday is that it occurs on the 7th as does mine and my mother’s, three … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":281,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2],"class_list":["post-280","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-family"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/www.karen-gustafson.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/000038457e9e14f79cbea85d29e17a09.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.karen-gustafson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.karen-gustafson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.karen-gustafson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.karen-gustafson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.karen-gustafson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=280"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.karen-gustafson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":282,"href":"http:\/\/www.karen-gustafson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280\/revisions\/282"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.karen-gustafson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/281"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.karen-gustafson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.karen-gustafson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.karen-gustafson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}