This has nothing to do with loyalty, but I love that my kids were camped out in the crib reading books together.

I’ve been thinking a lot about loyalty lately and being loyal to my family has been at the forefront of that thinking. In society, we talk a lot about loyalty–to country, to employer, to spouse. But I don’t think we talk enough about another very important kind of loyalty–loyalty to our children. Often, I find that in an attempt to make others feel more comfortable, I put my children down. Basically, I make the choice that a total stranger’s feelings are more important than those of my child. Horrible, right? But so very easy to do.

Let me give you an example. Yesterday, I was at the store with Monkey and Baby Boy. Both were doing pretty well. Baby Boy was content just looking around and being sweet to the couple of people that stopped and cooed at him. Don’t you love how babies break down barriers? Monkey was riding along and behaving nicely. When we got to the check-out line, a father pulled in behind us. His little boy (maybe 3 or 4 years old?) was having a major meltdown, screaming at the top of his lungs, smacking his father, and just making a ruckus. A ruckus that seemed to have no end in sight. He went on and on and on. I think it was about a toy that he wanted. The cashier made an apologetic face and you could tell that we were all trying to kind of pretend like we couldn’t hear what was going on. You know that awkward grocery store behavior? Anyway, it in attempt to make this poor dad feel better, I turned to him with what I hoped was an understanding smile on my face and said something like, “Believe me, I’ve been there,” and motioned to Monkey. The dad smiled back and said, “Yeah, I would be laughing too.”

So, goal met, I guess. Maybe I helped the dad feel a little better. But as I stood there I realized that I had done two things wrong. First of all, I had lied. Secondly, I had been disloyal to Monkey. What did I mean by saying, “Believe me, I’ve been there”? I had never been there! Monkey sometimes whines a little bit about wanting a toy or something at the store, but he has never ever screamed at the top of his lungs for over 15 minutes (he was still screaming when they passed me in the parking lot), hitting me and thrashing about. Now, this isn’t to say that will never happen to me. Nor does it mean that I haven’t had my own hard times at the grocery store. But never at that level. So, why on earth did I say that to that dad? It wasn’t true and it wasn’t loyal to my son. I put him down in front of others about something that wasn’t even true, just to help a stranger feel more comfortable.

Insanity.

I’m going to make a conscious effort to be more loyal to my children. They are growing and learning and this means they make mistakes. But they are also miraculous little creatures that bring so much joy and meaning to my life. We are a family and this means we should support each other and build each other up.

Stephen Covey talks about this concept in his fantastic book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Families. He says:

talk about others as if they were present (…) focus on the positive rather than the negative–and if you do talk about those weaknesses, you do it in such a responsible and constructive way that you would not be ashamed to have those people you’re talking about overhear your conversation (55).

So here’s to being loyal–to ourselves, to our goals, to our families, and to our little ones.

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