Over the course of this year, I've found myself following several foster families on Instagram. Most of these families are very large, mom and dad, 5 plus kids, huge house with all white decor, and apparently a personal photographer that captures every moment in their freshly cleaned kitchen. Based on the mess I'm trying to keep up with in our house, I'm sure they have a housekeeper.
Last night as I looked through some of these families' pictures, I searched for something that looked familiar...a Paw Patrol toy, some dirty socks on the floor, crumbs...oh the crumbs. Couldn't find it. I started wondering what it would be like to live in a house like that. They all look happy in their pictures. Are they? I asked myself if I was envious...not really. Except maybe the housekeeper part.
I started reading the captions and what I realized is that even though our homes, our clothes, and our pictures are quite different, our stories are much the same. Court dates, prayers, heartache, tears, joy, connection, trauma, memories, and love are the things that fill all our homes big and small. They have the same hopes and fears that I have. They want to share love and stability with their children and they pray desperately that the love and stability they've shown will never again be absent from their children's lives.
When I think back to my childhood, most of my best memories were made in a rickety two bedroom home with all our cousins and friends piled in the living room on pallets. We'd leave the ballfields late a night and my parents would bring half the team home for a sleepover. Mom would grab a couple dozen tacos and we would picnic on the floor. If we had games the next day, she'd leave late to go to my grandparents or the laundromat and wash our uniforms. I wish I could give her a dollar for all the grass and dirt stains she scrubbed out.
I'm grateful for my childhood and equally as grateful for the life I'm able to give my children. Our home is small, but it is HOME. It is full of love and laughter and sometimes it's really messy. I'm grateful that there's not a photographer capturing us at the dinner table, eating Sonic...again.
I'm not really sure the reason behind why I was lead to share these thoughts, but maybe to remind us that we're more alike than we are different. Appearances can be deceiving. Or maybe it was simply to remind us that childhood is precious, and it doesn't need to be flashy to be spectacular.
