"How" to parent is a mystery to me. "Parenting" as a verb is contrite. I have never understood why being a parent is so brutally hard until I took a long hard look at myself. I knew it was hard. So overwhelmingly hard on so many days. What I couldn't pinpoint was the why. I followed the rules, tried different "methods" and listened to my Mama voice and yet I still wondered if I had "done" it right each and every day. There are those nights you lie awake wondering if you will ever get your child to forgive you and how you can reverse the damage you have done to them. Then you look at your own stuff and discover you -YOU- are the reason parenting is so hard. Yep, it was me all along.
The way we view the title, the verb, the "job" - PARENT- dictates the way we will be with our children. What does your definition of PARENT look like? You see all of the facebook memes about how you are your child's parent, not their friend and that then allows you to do x, y and z. There are the ultimatums written by women to young girls essentially slut shaming them and warning them against relationships with their boys. Historically, we are all meant to dread the teenage years and wait for our children to rebel and spin right out of control. We are to hope they don't get pregnant while in high school and pray that they go on to post secondary education and not get caught up in the hazing in Frosh week. From a societal perspective, we need to "control" our children, govern over them and make sure they don't do the stupid things we did so they will have a better education, better job and better chances than we did. Crap, it is a lot of responsibility. If that is how you want to look at it.
Working with parents every day I am astounded at how deeply our own conditioning is engrained. We do what our own parents did to a certain extent or we do the polar opposite and hope for the best. The modeling we were subjected to is embedded within us and we either continue to perpetuate the parenting we experienced or we make big changes so our children don't feel the way we did growing up. If we feel comfortable with our own childhood experiences we move forward. If we don't, we can flounder. If we don't want to model what was modeled for us then how do we move forward with parenting? If we were hit as children and don't want to hit our own children yet yell at them instead are we really changing anything? Yelling, screaming, the silent treatment, sending the child away to their rooms - all of these treatments can be extremely damaging. Just because we are not doing exactly the same thing that was done to us do not mean we are not causing harm to our own children. So what are we to do?
What if we were to drop our title - Parent - and consider this..... I am an imperfect grown up human raising a small human? What if we drop the story we have constructed around what a "Parent" is and focus on forging a loving relationship with this small human(s) in our charge? Now before you think that control needs to be exercised over children consider this: control is a form of power. Power does not have leverage as children grow into adults. To control something, someone, the situation - means that we can't trust and must exert power and control over to manage it. I am asking you to do this...trust your children. John Holt says:
Trust children-
Nothing could be more simple or more difficult. Difficult, because to trust children, we must trust ourselves. And most of us were taught as children that we could not be trusted.
Resonating with you? Did you feel trusted as a child? Do you trust your own children? What if we believed that our children could be trusted? What if, right from conception, we trusted our children? What if we believed our babies were conscious, aware and worthy of respect? What if we respected every aspect of our children from the time we first held them in our arms? We can. It starts with us. We have to heal our beliefs, our wounds, our toxic mind thoughts. We need to understand our triggers...you know, that "button" we believe our children push. That "last nerve" they get on. It's not them. It is all about you. Yes, you. You are your own stumbling block.
As parents we are our own self-imposed obstacles. We don't understand why we get so upset with parenting until we really learn how to self-reflect. We need to lean into our stories, strive for healthy improvements (cause there is absolutely no perfection in parenting!) and find out how to be our authentic selves. It is heavy work. It is conscious day to day work. It is not impossible. We are not alone. We need each other in this journey, this relationship building endeavour with these little humans. I am so grateful for my best friends in this journey. They are more than happy to be in the arena of parenting with me as I get my ass handed to me. They keep me real and I can talk to them and let them know when I feel vulnerable. Their empathic hearts bring me back from the edge - sometimes on a daily basis.
You will birth your baby and fall in love. You will be so freaking exhausted. Yes you will. You will announce some days that babies suck. the.life.right.out.of.you. And we will agree with you. Every single word. Your babies will grow and get ready to develop into brilliant toddlers, inquisitive preschoolers, knowledge hungry school age children and those crazy teenagers that scare the crap out of us. You will get your ass handed to you. A lot. And you know the best way to respond when you do? Work on your stuff. Really ask yourself what your "stuff" is. If you think you don't have stuff then you are either really lucky or you haven't figured out what that "stuff" is yet. But you will.
If you want your kids to be around you when they are adults you will work on your stuff. Try to respond instead of reacting. Acknowledge your children, validate them and stop throwing out the stale meaningless "good job." Work on your stuff so your child will feel (not know, cause feeling and knowing are two very different things and register differently in our attachment with our kids) heard, empowered, acknowledged, responded to and trusted in every interaction they have with you. You can't have a relationship based on fear and shame. For real. Say sorry when you should. Don't try to be perfect. Be willing to fail. Be willing to be loved when you fail. Find your tribe and have them walk alongside you as you grow this relationship with these little humans. There is a definite hierarchy needed in our relationship with our children. Our children look for a strong attachment with us. If they don't get it with us, chances are they will try with their peers as they grow. Allow the natural drive to connect that children have with us to develop by clearing up your own hurts. And know that no matter what, nothing will prepare you for parenthood. You are the best way to parent really well. Work on you and the relationship will evolve into a solid attachment. Trust yourself that you are enough and you can get there. We see it every day. It is possible. xoxo