Without Reservations

Pretty sure I’ve said this before on here, but being a parent is hard.  You either have to be a naturally good and wise person (I’m not) or you have to work like hell to become a more self-realized adult to prevent your own crap from bleeding over into your children.  I’m working on option two. 

I mean, I know there are people who really don’t care too much.  They pop out kids without really thinking about much above what the monogram is going to look like on the Christmas sweater.  And they seem fine.  Their kids seem fine.  And they float through life living pretty much the life their parents lived, but with more technology.  I’m not sure how that works because I’m seeing it from the outside (and simplifying it a ton.)  From the outside, I just don’t see how this happens.  Don’t they question?

And I guess that’s it.  I lead an examined life.  And by “examined” I mean, full of doubt and learning and change.  It’s uncomfortable.  I question religion.  I question family ties.  I question what I read and hear.  I question my own thought processes and inspirations.  I question the love I receive and the love I give.  I question my place in this world and my contributions to others.  I question everything.  It’s exhausting.  No wonder I look so old.

I like that I don’t take the status quo and run, but this way of looking at the world also breeds a kind of bone-deep sadness that I don’t want to pass on to my children.  I want a few pieces of absolute joy to shine through – find them where they will – otherwise they work too hard for too little happiness.  Jack finds his joy in his coding world right now and I worry that he will someday find that he is not the best programmer in the world and that “just” being ONE of the best coders in the world won’t be enough.  See how ridiculous I am?  And Lila, emotionally intelligent and logical and indomitable, sees too much of the pettiness of others.  She watches like a hawk.  And thinks that’s the way it is and the way it always will be. 

In a way, I think I want ignorance for my children.  Which is so bad.  Or is it?!  Part of me wishes I had those children who are a little dumb and don’t see the nuances of this world, don’t see what can’t be unseen.  Jack has a little of that, in that he doesn’t always get that people are being intentionally horrible to him.  What a gift!  And my children are given the gift of having come from a privileged background.  They are not threatened with poverty or having to wonder if their lives matter to others or being placed in horrible schools. 

They are, however, part of the epidemic of young people wondering if their lives matter enough to themselves to continue living.  As a mom, I wonder how much I contribute to that voice in their head that says they don’t do anything right, that no one sees them, that there’s nothing better in the future.  Because if that’s what they hear, part of that is ME. 

Trying to get them to see the world as I want to see it – full of opportunities to help others, full of the wonders of the glories of nature, full of a collection of humans with amazing variety of knowledge and experiences – also means there is a world infested with problems to fix and people unlike us who just don’t want to see it.  And that’s sad.

And it was sadness that started it all this morning because it is Monday and it is early and Lila is the new kid at school.  It’s big school and she’s a social animal and it’s hard to be on the outs.  There were tears and lots of moments where I had to hold back my own impatience with her emotions and understand how truly difficult it is for her.  Hugs, hugs, and more hugs, sprinkled with a little bit of perspective. 

My issue is why I felt like she needed those sprinkles of perspective.  I’m trying to help her see that bogging herself down with negative thought over negative thought is a dangerous place to be; you stop seeing the positive.  But I also want her to be ok with just feeling bad sometime.  She doesn’t have to always look for the sunshine behind the clouds.  She doesn’t have to fake feeling good.  She doesn’t always have to pay meanness back with kindness.  I’m looking for the balance.

That’s how I deal.   But is it how I want my kids to deal?  Not really.  I don’t want them to have reservations about where they are and how they feel.   I want them to have a little more confidence that their desires, feelings, worth, and abilities are wholly justified.  My struggle is that I can’t justify things without questioning them.  I always have reservations.

When they were babies, I felt like my job was only to show them how much I loved them so that they would leave our home always knowing that they were loved.  Then, they could function in the imperfect world with a solid base, have a place to come home to emotionally.  They could deal with whatever came their way.

They are no longer babies.  And I feel that parenting has gotten way more complicated.  Pitfalls abound.  The good news is that they are mostly their own person now.  My role has become a bit of a nattering voice in the driver’s seat who annoys them with questions about their life and commentary about current events and the occasional embarrassing singing episode.  

But maybe I need to return to how I parented my babies a bit more.  Maybe my only real purpose is to love them as hard and as often as I can.  Because everything else is unstable.  The questions will always there – in them and in me.  Honestly, I need to do this unbalanced thing because it is the only damn thing I can do without reservations.  Love them.  Love them always.  No holding back.