God won't help you

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Pious or not, we all beg God for help in those weak, terrible, dark, I have Norovirus again moments. It’s the same with kids. And it never works.

This isn’t a religious post. I’m not religious. I’m a child of 80s and 90s era New Agery, Eastern religious exploration, and quasi Pagan/First Nations dabblery. But it doesn’t stop me from asking and expecting some kind of God to do things for me. Especially as it relates to puking. And my kids.

And I expect it immediately.

I grew up loosely Anglican, the religion of my Father and his Mother/parents before him. It’s tough to sell religion to a kid. Most have to buy into it or go to church just because. It’s what families do. The Catholics are good at guilting you into it. Or scaring you. Mostly it’s just boring. And hot. And stuffy. And old smelling. Plus what kid all way up to teenage years can sit still for an hour? A half hour even? It was forced on us at childhood and after years of protest, kicking, screaming, whining and asking whyyyyyyy do we have to do this, it’s SUNDAY!

My Dad finally caved one morning. We were dressed for church. We did our usual moaning and he said “Fine”! We were shocked. Like, what? Fine? What’s that? Fine like we don’t have to go? Seriously? Ever? Are you messing with us?

He wasn’t messing with us. We didn’t have to go. Ever again. We were conflicted. We’d won. Our moaning paid off. We were free. But my Dad stormed off. He was upset. Maybe it was one of those parent things he wanted to pass onto us. I mean, I know now that it was exactly one of those things. And other than Christmas I don’t think we ever went again. It was weird. I felt guilty. But not guilty enough to stop me from being relieved.

After all that it’s not to say I hated everything about it.

The music is great. Lots of chorale stuff. The organ is phenomenal. Christmas singing is awesome. Some of the songs are musically fantastic. Beautiful melodies, lush chords. It’s classical music after all. Old Anglican church architecture is also spectacular. And church is where I first discovered those white sugar cubes they give with tea in the church basement after service. I’d pop 5-10 of them and run around, chase my sister, pull relentlessly on my Mum’s sleeve to go home.

And as a friend once said, “The Anglicans let you get to drink real wine, not the juice the Catholics give”.

That being said, I have developed a sense of spirituality over the years. After some world religion courses and experience with Buddhism, I’ve grown to like a combined sense of Eastern and First Nations approaches to spirituality. Or maybe philosophy is a better term. I don’t do anything dogmatic other than the occasional meditation, and only have a sort of conceptual idea of what a “higher power” might be and do. Which makes what follows funnier for my lack of practice and dedication.

When it comes to kids, I surprise myself how often the word God or Christ comes out of my mouth.

Obviously “Oh My God” is an iconic line in practically every language and culture, Christian or not. And while not as widespread, some variation and alternation of Jesus Christ, Mary, Joseph, and maybe some of the disciples are up there as well. All of them make for phenomenal expressions of frustration and emotion. I’ve told my wife who as a Catholic is often shocked at how often I cuss that if it was going to be a sin to use the Lord’s name in vain, they shouldn’t have made it so great to say.

Jesus Christ.

You cannot find a better combination of vowels and fricatives. Each name is excellent. You can use the whole thing, or each one independently. It suits every kind of situation. It can be happy. Sad. Frustrated. Angry. Overwhelmed. Scared. Excited. Very few names offer this kind of flexibility. Not to be exclusive. Or comparative. In my personal experience and opinion, if overuse and type of use were going to be future considerations, then they should have just called him Dave. Dave Smith. Or maybe Roger. It would have removed a sin from the list. No one would say it. It’s just not the same.

But it’s also obviously the fact that you’re not supposed to say them that these names have such weight and power. And whatever I say now about the state of religion in my upbringing, I’m sure somewhere, my choice of those particular words to lean on as deeply satisfying expressions of emotional difficulty come out of that tradition. They come out at times of stress and fatigue. Times when I need help. Times when I wish it would get better. When I’m at my lowest. Which is also what people tend to say about religion. It’s what you turn to and lean on in difficult times. We like to think whoever or whatever form of spiritual power up there is looking out for us. If you live by a certain code, you might get the help you need. Especially as parents. When shit is real.

But generally, it doesn’t work.

Or at least not when you need it. Or not with kids. Or not when you need it with kids. Which obviously, is right fucking now. Jesus Christ.

Which brings me to the point.

Not the Anglican connection, not the Buddhist calmness of mind, not the Mother Earth philosophy, nor any other form of religion or expression of higher power has done jack shit for me through the hardest parts of my parenting experience thus far. And there’ve been lots of them. And I mean, why would it? But I think everyone has had some point in their lives where they begged some kind of God for some kind of thing that would help them out of some kind of situation.

Like you know that kind of pleading and bargaining you do with God, whatever God is or means to you, when you’re hunched over the toilet puking your guts out with a new round of Norovirus your kid brought home for the third time in a year, praying you don’t heave, or shit, or heave and shit, again? The bargaining, the pleading, the desperation, the crying, the whimpering, the promises: “I swear, please, if you help me (buuuhhhnnhhhuu) I won’t [insert promise] again…please God, please, please not another…” That kind of thing. We’ve all been there. And if you recall, it doesn’t work.

It never works.

Norovirus has to go through its full lovely cycle of barf and shit to get out of your system. Keeping it in, not puking, despite begging God to make that happen, isn’t actually how you get over it. You have to puke. It has to get out. God doesn’t really factor into it. If God helped you, somehow, to keep it in, you would just feel worse, for longer. And in my experience, God doesn’t do anything particularly helpful about it regardless. But it never stops me from trying, does it.

Pious or not, we all beg God for help or relief or wisdom or death in those moments. Those weak, terrible, dark, lying-on-the-bathroom floor moments.

It’s the same with baby/toddler sleep. It’s also the same with baby/toddler sickness. It’s also the same with baby/toddler behaviour. It’s also the same with baby/toddler travel. The number of times I’ve pleaded, begged, cried for God to help my child fall asleep (or stay asleep, or get better, or stop coughing for Christ’s sake) is more than you’d expect from a semi-atheist. And more intense. And more entitled. And more genuinely expectant of intervention. Despite long experience to the contrary. But whatever it is I believe in, none of it has worked. No amount of bargaining, promising, begging, demanding, yelling, name-calling, or fully cussing out a higher power in the myriad—myriad—times my sons have had problems, from sleep to sickness, nothing in the realm of religion has worked. No help has come. In the darkest moments, the worst nights, the longest stretches of brutal crying, screaming, writhing, snorting, coughing, wheezing, when I’ve been so low on sleep I can’t fathom another night, I would beg. God please. Please. And relief would eventually come. But not when I needed it. Not when I asked for it. Not when I wanted it. Not when I hoped for it. Only when it came of its own good God-damn time.

Of course, writing now, and thinking rationally, it’s hard to really expect a complete and immediate solution to my problems to come from the spirit realm. I’d get angry, I’d be furious: “You never help me, fuck. NEVER. All I ask is to make him stop crying…is that so much? You’re God, you can’t fucking help me out?” And the crying, screaming, writhing, whining, coughing etc., would continue. Sometimes it almost seemed (and seems) like a cruel joke; I’d ask for one of my kids to keep sleeping. I’d ask for the sick one to stop coughing. I’d beg for the two of them to both have a good, long afternoon nap. A nap where we could get a break and they could recover and catch up on needed sleep. My wife would hop in the car as both kids were asleep thinking we had a couple hours of quiet and I’d slump down on the couch excited to just sit. And then, one of them would wake up. Crying, obviously. Because what kid ever woke up from a nap or night of sleep, you know, happy?

Someone more pious might try to tell me that God was acting precisely in my best interest, leaving me to stew and cry and plead and fester and boil. S/he/it was teaching me a lesson. Or helping me help myself. Or helping me build self reliance. Thanks for that. Or maybe I’m just not doing it right. Maybe I’m asking the wrong way. Maybe you have to give something in return. Maybe I have to whip my back like the guy in DaVinci Code. I mean what does a highly sarcastic and often-joke-making-about-religion type of person know about prayer anyway? I will literally ask an invisible something looking down on me, who is obviously paying attention, right now, to only me, in the giant undefinable vastness of space and time, to do something for me, only when I need it, only when I’m in a bind, immediately. Something that this higher power can in fact do. And something that this higher power deems to be something that also should be done. Not that that matters a shit to me when I’m yelling inside my brain about how God never helps me. I just need it done. Like yesterday. Let’s go. When it doesn’t happen, immediately, like within seconds, sometimes minutes, I complain. That’s how prayer works, right?

And I mean maybe I need to try this out more frequently. And not in only those dire sweating sleepless terrible moments I normally ask for help in. Like, please help me finish rebuilding my deck. Or maybe I’m expecting completely the wrong thing. There’s lots of “give me strength” type talk in the annals of Christianity. Maybe I need to ask for that. Not that a higher power stops my kid from coughing, finally, after two solid weeks, but that I’m given the strength (or patience, or whatever the opposite of PTSD is) to listen to it, again, for another entire night. If I had that, maybe it wouldn’t be such a big deal. Maybe. And usually if I recall, the asks for something to stop AND for the strength to endure it go hand in hand. Like, please help my kid stop coughing AND give me the strength to endure it for another Goddamn night. But again. I could be and am very likely wrong on that. There’s also a glaring hole here in my logic. I’m not a practicing practitioner of really any type of religion. For some reason I feel like that’s probably important. And take Buddhism’s raison d’être. The entire premise is to be present. To exist in the moment, without regret about the past or desire for the future. If I were to apply that literally, I would just be alive while my kid coughed incessantly for two weeks straight, not hoping for an end, not wishing for change. Just being.

Not sure if anyone can safely say at this point if the Buddha ever had to live with a 4 year old who got colds that turned to coughs that turned to croup that lasted for 2 weeks and repeated every 2-3 weeks, for the better part of 3 years. And not sure if anyone can safely say how the Buddha might have changed his core teachings if he did.

While I’m still here and still kicking and still love and adore my kids, the non-answering of my admittedly unrefined and likely comical prayers has really decimated whatever razor thin faith I may have had. To think that you’re on your own in these moments is harrowing. No one will help you. No one will take it away. You have to fucking sit through it. Again. And Again. And Again. If you get help, it will be the following night, or the following week, when you aren’t expecting it, or when you don’t need it anymore. Which is exactly when your kid will sleep the night through, get over whatever bug they were fighting, and stop coughing. Not when you want it. Not when you need it. Not when you ask for it. But when it comes of its own accord.

Unless you have one of those old world God-fearing relatives who actually can change the weather and make real shit happen with prayer, prepare to not get anything you beg for in those moments on the toilet. Save yourself the 5 stages of grief and just get to acceptance. It won’t get better. It won’t change. Or at least it won’t change or get better by lying in bed pleading and whimpering with your hands crossed or otherwise awkwardly intertwined. Follow your Doctor’s advice, do the puffs, administer the pain meds, and expect to not sleep. At the very least, morning does eventually come and you can OD on espressos.

Now that’s a Godsend you can rely on.