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PT Spotlight: National Parents’ Day

National Parents' Day 2021

To our ProviderTrust parents, we want to say thank you for all that you do. Every day. We appreciate you so much!

It’s been one year (and two school years) of many working parents’ lives being turned upside down. At ProviderTrust, we are continually amazed by all of our hard-working parents who took this last year in stride. With schools running remotely, our teammates balanced Zoom meetings, lunchtime catch-ups, diaper changes, and homework – all while continuing to be amazing coworkers. 

Looking back on this past year, what's one thing you learned about being a parent?

Slowing down (from our previous activities) and focusing on our family was the best thing we could have done in 2020. We were pulled in so many directions before COVID – being forced to stop allowed us to think through what was important.

Any old place can be home, as long as you are all together.

This year has validated for me that no matter what, the most important thing in my life is spending time with my children. Having adult children who no longer live in the same household seemed normal until there was a period of time where we felt we couldn’t be together.

Validating kids’ emotions is absolutely vital. All kids want validation, even if it’s something that may seem trivial to you as a parent. Our kiddos are starting kindergarten in a month and we are also moving soon, so there have been so many changes recently, which means heightened emotions. I try to remind myself every day that our kiddos want their feelings and emotions to be validated.

I’ve only been a parent for roughly a year, so I guess most things I’ve learn about being a parent have happened this year. One things that comes to mind as practical advice is to store spare diapers everywhere! Being in need of a diaper and not having one is the worst!

I’ve learned that you can only do so much to help train and teach them and then at the end of the day you have to trust God with their lives and their decisions.

What has been your favorite memory of this past year?

I have two favorite memories of this past year. The first is our family vacation last summer. We rented a cabin in northern Wisconsin and spend the week just the six of us boating on the lake and just hanging out. Our time together was priceless!

The second memory is that of this Fourth of July. We have family friends who we absolutely treasure and are basically an extension of our family. We haven’t been together for nearly two years but everyone came home for the fourth and we spent an entire day just treasuring our reunion and looking forward to three weddings between our two families in the coming year.

We have a play set with a slide in our backyard and a blow up pool, so we’ve turned it into a slip-n-slide situation. Due to the pandemic, our neighborhood pool was closed last summer so this has become an (almost) every weekend in the summer occurrence since last year.

Sitting on the floor with our daughter and watching her take her first step.

Taking our daughter on “an adventure” to Chattanooga. She was so excited to go on a trip with mommy and daddy and she loved the fish at the aquarium and the trains.

Becoming a parent for the first time and watching our son get to experience waking up to life. Seeing him start to smile and learn to laugh is the best feeling in the world.

What advice would you give to other working parents?

Our children grow up so very fast so make sure you make time to create new memories. Logout from your email; be present and love those kids because before you know it they are all grown up.

Build in interruptions to spend time with your kids.

I’m going to broaden this answer to parents in general and my advice is: Remember that everything is a phase, whether it be a phase filled with less sleep or a phase with extra snuggles.

Let’s not be so hard on ourselves. Work doesn’t always have to happen 8-5. Enjoy the time with your kids because soon we’ll be out of this and going in 10 different directions each week.
Make their lunch the night before and set out their clothes. It will making for a much more pleasant morning.

What is your favorite parenthood memory?

Realizing our 8 year old is braver than I am, as he is convincing me to go down a terrifying water slide at Sound Waves.

Every time I get to pick her up from school – I just love seeing her at the end of the day!

Surviving the last 5.5 years as a twin parent with two happy, healthy almost kindergartners to show for it! 

Hard to narrow it down to just one. It’s been so incredible to watch our daughter learn and hear her laugh for the first time. 

The first time we put my son in the pool and he could not get enough. He can barely control his own limbs but he kept trying to splash and play in the water. 

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