It's Not Your Fault
White mom problems strike again.
Did you see my last post about Lifa being embarrassed about having a white mom?
[Side note: My sister won the blue ribbon in Best Blog Response for the last post when she responded that she was also embarrassed for Lifa, but it was because of his white dancing and not his white mom. Please stay tuned for proof.]
This time, I have more of a “white mom problem” than Lifa.
Lifa is eight. He cannot possibly eat enough rice and beans, tuna fish or corn on the cob to keep up with the rate his legs are growing. He wears capes and plays with his puppy. He’s learning how to throw a frisbee with Chris and lives for Saturday mornings, when he’s allowed to sprawl out on the couch with a cup of tea and Tom and Jerry. He eats dinner INCREDIBLY slow because he loves having the family sit at the table, and, sometimes, he falls asleep between bites. He is thriving and so full of joy that we often catch him happy-dancing by himself when he thinks no one is looking. Lifa is perfectly eight.
He is also beginning to understand things that are different and things that don’t feel right. He sees the missing element of family and safety in the culture he was born into, and he doesn’t know how to reconcile the two types of families and cultures he belongs to. He cries in his room when he realizes he’s behind in his new school and cannot understand what the other kids understand. It’s starting to weigh on him when adults speak about adult things to him instead of us because he is the one in our family who understands their native language the best.
Chris and I tell Lifa all he has to do is tell anyone asking him to do something that's not a "kid job" to please ask his mom or dad. He does not have to translate or make sure that we understand anything. “It’s not your job Lifa.”
That is the reigning truth and reality in the Ladd household: We love God. We love each other. We take care of our marriage and our kid. Lifa obeys his parents and gets really awesome at knowing how to be a kid. There is a whole other reality and truth, however, in this world and in this country we live in.
South Africa has 11 national languages and calls itself the “rainbow nation” because so many cultures and colors co-exist. All these side-by-side languages and people have crossed wires but not paths. They have oppressed each other, and there is a lot still to overcome.
People often don’t look so they won’t see each other. They don’t speak so they won’t be spoken to.
It’s not respect. It’s not language barriers. It’s not culture preservation. It’s fear. It’s shame. It’s bondage and lies.
This weekend, Lifa and I went on an exercise outing while Chris was out saving the world. (It’s his actual day job.) Lifa rode his bike while I jogged to the gym just down the road. When we arrived, a gym employee began speaking to Lifa in SiSwati. I told the employee I could not understand what he said to my son and asked how I could help him. The man was visibly uncomfortable, looked past me and said, “No, I was just speaking to that boy,” and begun to walk away. Once he understood that boy was my son, the employee explained he'd been telling Lifa where to ride his bike. I thanked him and was able to help Lifa make an alternate bike track. It was no problem, really. Except my heart was pounding.
“Lifa, just remember, if someone is ever speaking to you in SiSwati about grown up stuff, you can always tell them to go ask your mom or dad. It’s my job to make sure you know and follow the rules, so I have to know them too. It’s not your fault I don’t speak the same language as you do.”
“It’s not your fault that people think they should talk to you instead of me. It’s not your fault, Lifa. All you have to do is say, ‘Will you please go ask my mom and dad?”
Gratitude flooded his eyes. He zoomed off on his bike while I did burpees and thought about that “It’s not your fault,” pounding through my heart.
Lifa didn’t choose to have a white mom and dad or to straddle two cultures. Lifa didn’t choose what language he speaks, the nation he was born into, or how the history of that nation would ravage personal dignity, the right to safety and the value of family systems.
Lifa didn’t choose to be born in a rural government hospital and then to be abused, malnourished and abandoned. He also didn’t choose to be made different from the other kids like him and get scooped up by a Texas lady who hugs, kisses and cooks too much. It’s not his fault.
And it’s not just Lifa. There are stories, struggles and pains we do not choose.
You did not choose to have the parents you had or be raised the way you were raised. You did not choose the lifestyle you were born into – whether you are the one with the picture of the sponsored African child on your refrigerator or you were the child on someone’s refrigerator.
You didn’t choose to be touched there, treated that way, or to see what you saw.
You didn’t choose to lose a family member too soon, to deal with the medical conditions you deal with, to be left alone, or to be in the exact situation you are reading this post from.
My mama heart reflex is to protect my kid. I want to throw a big, fat “It’s not his fault!” frisbee at life and at God. I want protect him, cover him, hide him from all the broken.
But Lifa was made to be a warrior and not a victim. And I’m made to be a mom and not a Savior.
We tell Lifa to say, “Please go ask my mom and dad,” because he’s covered. It’s our job. We’ve got him. Whether he does something wrong, is afraid, or just doesn’t want to deal with the stuff that’s not his job to deal with.
Jesus came to say, “Please go ask my Father.”
He’s got us. When we do something wrong, when we are afraid, and when we think we just can’t bear the burdens of it all anymore.
I want my kid, my household and this nation to know they are covered, protected, and that they matter. Not because of a mom or a dad or a circumstance change, but because of the Father who sent His Son to cover us and carry the grown-up sized burdens. I want you to know that too.
I want you to know that it’s not your fault; it’s your victory. It’s not your fault; it’s your platform to find your freedom.
We were made to step up and stand tall on the things we didn’t choose. It’s from that vantage point, we find the freedom to race wildly beyond the world, the things that weren’t our fault, and the things that were.
You weren’t created to be a victim to life’s circumstances. You were created to be a kid in God’s family.
You were created to be a kid who knows he’s super, who wears a cape and does super stuff with his family because he belongs there.
You were made to know the feeling of a cape flapping in the wind.
When the urge to save, hide, protect, lash out or lose hope creep in on us… In the lowest of lows when the lies get so loud… We were made to look at those lies and tell them, “Can you please go ask my Father?”
Now go put on your cape and fly.