Tag: Parenting (Page 1 of 2)

Chapter 28 (The Need to Explain)

June 4, 2025 / Callie Page / 0 Comments

Our society tells us who and how to be. We get signals from all over our world. Sometimes our parents tell us, point blank, how to act. Sometimes we get subtle cues from our friends. And for the past 30 years we’ve been getting visual clues from the internet world that surrounds us each and every day. Whether we resist or not, we are being told, CONSTANTLY, who we “should” be.

It’s exhausting.

A bigger house, a nicer paint job, a better car, a new uniform for our kids’ new sports bag, highlights for our hair, a more up to date kitchen, a more present friend, a more luxurious vacation for our facebook profile pictures, all of these things are constant expectations for all of us. It becomes a part of our budget, both for our money and our time.

One of my daughters got rid of her snapchat only because people could see where she was at all times. She often wanted to stay home just because she’s a laid back personality, but she wasn’t feeling like it was acceptable for her to just be home. She felt an expectation from her peers to be doing something. Anything that was public was acceptable, but it was even better if it made a good picture to post. She couldn’t take it anymore.

I can’t take it anymore, either.

A lot of people who know me would describe me as an extrovert. I’m outgoing, I LOVE people, I even own a concert venue and coffee shop! The very nature of the things I’ve created in this world are very social experiences. You might assume that I’m an extrovert, but even if I am, there is a piece of my soul that runs on peace and quiet. I crave alone time. I LOVE stillness.

For me that means no phones, no beeping, no buzzing, no tv, no music, just stillness. It soothes my soul. I can’t live my life without quiet moments like these.

I can’t have a moment or two of silence with my phone next to me, that doesn’t count. It feels as if I never felt the silence. It has to be truly silent with zero need to react to anyone or anything. I know it’s weird, but it’s required for me to be me.

If you can’t reach me by phone, or text, or carrier pigeon, it’s because I’m taking some alone time. Yes, I get made fun of ALOT for this. I’m deemed “the girl who never answers her phone, the girl who never calls me, the girl who never responds”.

I’m sorry for that, but really, I’m not.

It’s a choice I’ve made. It’s just the life I need to live or I can’t be the me that I’ve come to like. I’m sorry this is an inconvenience. I’m sorry if it hinders your life in some way, truly, I am sorry for that part. However, I can’t operate in my fullest capacity if I don’t. And my first priority from here on out is to be the person that God created me to be. Of course I don’t know exactly what that is, but I see it as my job to seek that clarification. I need silence for that.

I understand if you don’t feel loved by me when I don’t respond, but just know that, on my end it has nothing to do with that. Please know that I’m doing the best that I can with the knowledge I have to be the best version of myself that I can be. It has nothing to do with you, or how much you mean to me, or your value in my life.

I just want you to know that. It’s important to me that you know because you are a part of my story, and I care about you. I’m sorry that we live in a world where we feel like we have to qualify our down time.

Just know, you are valued by me no matter what my response rate is.

Chapter 27 (The Influence)

May 28, 2025 / Callie Page / 0 Comments

Oh the perils of social media. And yes, I do understand that you are probably consuming this content because of social media. The irony is real.

Much like the topic of parenting, I could write 100 blogs about social media and the influence it has on all of us, but I’m hoping this blog isn’t that. I’m hoping this blog post illustrates a reality for me currently that is adding to the story of my life and how I’m experiencing it.

My 17 year old daughter just told me about “sephora girls”. Have you seen that trend? The premise, I guess, is 10-12 year old girls making Tik Toks about going to sephora, having all the “cool” things that they’ve accumulated and then basically showing the world that they have them.

My heart hurts when I think of this.

What were you doing when you were 10? If you are 40 something or even older than that, I could probably guess what you were doing. You were playing outside. You were playing with the neighborhood kids or doing chores or riding your bike. And during the winter you were watching a sitcom or reading a book or trying to pass the time with a board game.

We would have been doing these things not because we are the greatest generation or because we didn’t get on social media and rot away our brains, we did these things because WE DIDN’T HAVE THE OPPORTUNITY TO BE TEMPTED BY ANYTHING ELSE.

We can’t act superior to the younger generation. It’s not their fault that these technological advances exist. It’s ours. Our generation created this thing that we can’t let go of. We created this crutch we can’t live without.

It has affected them.

First and foremost, I’m sorry. Secondly, what are we going to do?

The reason that this trend was brought to my attention is because my daughter was discussing the “sephora girls”, and feeling really guilty and sad about her role in it. She was in a sort of panic that her “hauls” on instagram or the videos she consumed of her generation showing the world all of the material things they have, had led to young kids spending all their time and attention on becoming like the “big girls”. She was mortified. She was almost in tears.

This is why this experience affects my story…

As a mom, I want to tell her that life is more than material things and status. I want to tell her that the mistakes my generation made with her generation and how that will hopefully be undone with the next generation. I want to tell her that everyone will find something other than material goods and societal acceptance to base their life on. I want to say that phones and social media will become less and less important because we will eventually focus on what matters about this life, and that there is something much deeper and more important to fill your soul with.

I want to tell her all of these things. I want to reassure her. But…I spent 39 years of my life chasing the same material things and status. I’ll always be the mom she knew (before I knew Jesus, and thus, the meaning of life), as well as the mom she knows now.

I’ve messed up. I didn’t intend to, but I did just the same. There’s only one thing I can do at this point to reverse some of the damage I’ve caused.

I must live differently.

Chapter 26 (The Phone)

May 21, 2025 / Callie Page / 2 Comments

It’s a cell phone world we live in. Parenting cell phone kids is not easy, but “parenting” ourselves in this cell phone craziness is potentially more difficult. I could write a hundred blogs on cell phones, mental health and parenting, but I guess I won’t stand on my soapbox in this forum. I’ll just tell you my story in regards to these little computers attached to our hands.

Brad and I decided to give our teenagers a phone right before their freshman summer. They were 14 at the time. It was not a popular decision with our kids, but we stuck to that plan (they wanted them earlier, we wanted them later). We assumed they would need a phone during summer high school sports activities and it would make it easier on us to be able to text them for those things.

Was that the right choice? Was it the wrong one? I don’t know. I still don’t have a positive feeling about it all these years later.

The problem is that the mental and physical attachment to phones are not only with our children, they are taking over the adult population as well. It’s not just a “kid thing” to be addicted to our devices. In fact, I think I make the problem worse for my kids because they see me model phone attachment behavior. I often wonder how much better they’d be able to deal with the need for their phones, if I could let go of mine.

I’ve made the excuse for years that the reason I have a cell phone is because I’m a business owner. I’m wondering if that’s just my crutch.

Having an addiction to anything is not the life I want to live. And yet, as I’m sitting here typing, I have my cell phone sitting beside me just in case someone needs to get ahold of me. Now, I’ve adopted the practice of putting my phone on “do not disturb” almost exclusively, but even with that practice, I still need to check it more often than I’d like.

Why is that?

For me the need to need something is exhausting. I value the feeling of freedom. Real freedom. The kind of freedom that isn’t dictated by something or someone else. When I have a device next to me to interrupt my life, and expect my response, I feel like I’m always “on”. I feel like I always have to see a person’s text and respond. I feel like if I don’t respond, they might assume that I don’t love them or care for them, and I can’t think of anything I want less than that.

But…that’s not fair.

If that is fair, then my life belongs to societal norms. Other human beings are responsible for my happiness. If their interpretation of my missed response is less than well received, then I tend to feel terrible about myself and that affects the way that I live. The social anxiety of that situation is exhausting to me.

I work in our coffee shop everyday, and mostly I hear this, “Man. I’m tired. Life keeps going faster and faster. I kind of miss the whole quarantine thing. No one expected anything of me during that time. We couldn’t go anywhere or do anything. It was nice.” If I’m being honest here again, I have had the same thought several times.

Could it be possible that we are doing this to ourselves? Is it possible that our constant need to be “on” and reacting in ways that are deemed socially acceptable is too much for our mental health? Is it possible that the way we are living is sending a message to our children that we would never want them to adopt for themselves?

I’m afraid it’s possible.

Chapter 25 (The Game)

May 14, 2025 / Callie Page / 2 Comments

I have to be careful when I talk about parenting because it occasionally comes out as a directive. I don’t mean to say that what we have decided to do with our children is “right”. I have NO idea if it’s right, I just know it feels right to us. That’s all any of us can do. Please don’t take my words as any kind of judgment at all. That’s not what I’m intending to do here.

On that note, I’ve screwed up too many times to count in the parenting world. Unfortunately for Ellie, my oldest, I’ve made the most mistakes with her.

One of the things that I regret the most is the pressure I’m sure she felt when it came to sports. I’ve never been one of those people that is loud at games or tells her what she did wrong on the way home in the car, but the pressure was definitely still there for her in many ways. I wish I would have been aware of that when it was happening.

Talking about sports, giving her my opinions on how she can improve, and offering to get her extra lessons weren’t helpful to her. In her head that meant, “this is VERY important, maybe one of the most important things in your life, and you need to be good at it.” If I would have known that she had the potential of feeling those things because of my words, I would have stopped immediately and then dug a hole to crawl into.

That definitely wasn’t my intention with my unsolicited “help”.

I’ve apologized to her several times for the inconsistency between my words: “sports are not the most important thing in the world. Just have fun” and my vibration “sports are so important, you must be the best you can be at them”. She says she’s heard me, and forgives me, but the guilt I feel doesn’t always leave me.

She’s in college now, and has no connection with her previous sport. The pressure is over, and I feel a little bit responsible for stealing some of her joy throughout her sporting career. I can’t take it all back, but I can make a difference in my persona going forward. My younger children have benefitted from her experience.

So if you see me at a game and I’m not actively cheering or clapping, it’s not because I’m not incredibly proud of my children and yours, it’s only because I want them to know that I don’t place any REAL importance on their performance. I’m not saying that’s how they feel, I just don’t even want that to be a possibility for how they could feel. I have a different approach now and I think it fits better with my soul.

All we can do is our best both as parents and as children. We will screw up. We will feel guilt. We will apologize. We will try again. It’s ok. We are only human.

Chapter 24 (The Run)

May 7, 2025 / Callie Page / 0 Comments

My first three children were a much different experience for me than my last three. I had my first when I was 22 and my second and third followed quickly after. I had 3 kids…3 and under. It was something else.

At the time, Brad, my husband, was teaching and coaching. He would leave at 6:00am and usually come home around 6 if it was a practice day or 10 if it was a game day. I don’t know if you’ve ever taken care of 3 kids under three by yourself while also trying to run a photography business, but it’s not really all that easy.

There are much harder things in the world for sure, but these years in my life weren’t a cake walk. Not only were the day to day needs of 3 babies difficult to satisfy, but somewhere along the way, I forgot who I was apart from being a mother. My kids didn’t go to daycare at all, so every single part of my day was centered around them. For a while I was just trying to make it through the days. I was always so tired. I tried to nap when they napped, but if I did that, my house was a complete disaster 24/7. That added a level of “not enoughness” to my mental game as well. My business was always the thing that came last, and that was difficult for me to accept because my business was the only part left of the me that I recognized.

I had no friends, because I didn’t have time for friends, and my only conversation with an adult was my sister on the days that she spent with me and her 3 young children. We looked like we had a daycare when we would go on walks or to the mall. People would always say, “Wow. You guys have your hands full.”

I remember once when Brad arranged for a day all to ourselves. He got us Cardinals baseball tickets and asked my mom to watch our children. It was a great idea, in theory.

The only way I could perceive that at the time was that I was escaping for the day, but the break wasn’t able to “fix” anything in my overwhelmed brain. Now I LOVE Cardinals baseball, but escaping for the day, to be surrounded by thousands of other people wasn’t exactly what I needed. On top of that, I didn’t have any children attached to me, and it was taking me a while to decompress after we left them. There was also this thing running through my head that was telling me, if I was going to escape for the day, I wanted my husband to be the one taking care of our kids. Leaving them with someone else just felt like more pressure because they still weren’t getting to spend time with daddy.

Because of everything above, I had to have Brad pull over to the side of the interstate. I was having a major panic attack. When I have panic attacks, I have to run. I NEVER run. Running isn’t even a goal for me. I hate running. I’ve always hated running. But on this day, with this panic attack, all I could do was run. So…I ran along the interstate as far as I could go.

I tried to run away from myself and my body. I know it’s hard to believe, but it didn’t work. I just needed some peace. I needed a break from every thought running through me.

Eventually I got back in the vehicle. I think Brad probably thought I was crazy. I wouldn’t blame him. There’s just no way that I could explain it to him. It was too much to understand if you’ve never felt it. I know there are some momma’s out there who have experienced almost exactly the same thing.

To those mommas I would like to say, I get you. I believe in you. There are better days coming. Just kiss your babies and hold them even when you want to cry from overwhelm. Be still. You are not crazy. You are not weird. You have a place in this world. You are loved.