Parenting seems to be the great Yin and Yang. I want to say that parenting has brought out the best in me, but it has brought out just as much of the worst in me. Every single moment is the worst/best. Every single moment I am confronted with a situation where I can channel the strength I know I have inside and be fully present or I can fold under the pressure and succumb to bad habits so deeply ingrained. I can make things better or worse for another human being. No, not just another human being. An extension of me. Someone way more important than me. Way more important than anyone. The most important person in the world.
I did so much prep before having a child. I had a discipline plan, a molding-him-into-a-good-citizen plan, a you-will-do-as-I-say plan. Upon the birth of Jack, my first son, my world turned upside down and I learned that this was a bit like a World Series game. I could practice all I wanted, but nothing could prepare me for the stadium lights in my face, standing on the mound in the bottom of the 9th, bases loaded, 2 outs. This is my every moment as a mother. My every choice will affect the entire game. Games end and I will get another chance, “we’ll get ‘em next year,” but every mother knows that feeling of defeat. That feeling of total failure, that feeling of letting the entire team down, that feeling of never being able to make it up, the feeling that this will go down in history–no way to erase the heartache on the little boy.
But parenting is not a game.
I had my first panic attack when I was 18 years old. I have been through years of therapy, treated with antidepressants and have experienced what it is like to struggle to even leave the house. At 38 years old I feel light years away from these awful times, thank god, but I will always have my guard up, hoping they don’t return. This road toward gentle parenting has been a long one. It’s only been 3 years. Jack made me a mom. He made me question everything about myself. He changed my identity. And he brought me to a place where I want to be a better person. I would have said all along that I wanted to be a better person, but I don’t think I really even knew what this meant until there was a person whose emotional health depended on it.
The reality is that Attachment Parenting can’t save me. The 7 B’s can’t help me now. I thought I could throw myself into my parenting philosophy and emerge a fully healed human. When our world was turned upside down and we realized that in our hearts we wanted to raise Jack as gently as we could, my husband and I seized onto the principles of Attachment Parenting. Our every moment revolved around reading more about this theory and how we could adjust the technicalities of our lives. We rearranged rooms, changed sleeping arrangements, threw things away and started a damn blog about it! This blog would be about our growth and enlightenment. How we had figured out parenting and we could spread the good word now that we had all the answers.
What I wasn’t expecting was that none of this would end up being important. I didn’t know that I was about to come face to face with the only thing that did matter. I wasn’t prepared for the unraveling of all of my “issues.” Every single issue that a person carries around from the moment of their birth. When my husband and I talked about how we would raise our child we thought it was as simple as having a plan or being on the same page. Our marriage is a happy one and I figured our children would just join the fun and we would live happily ever after.
I’ve come to realize that there is no real enlightenment in parenting. There is no one who knows more than anyone else. Because each and every one of us will come into a new situation that brings us back to square one. We always return to that original place where we have just been handed a tiny, slimy human. That moment of transition from who we were to who we are going to be. That moment of empty silence where intellect doesn’t exist. Where we are truly and deeply connected to the cosmos. Or maybe that is enlightenment, the not knowing, the simply being.
My happy marriage is a great foundation for my kids, but it’s not the driving force behind my reactions and behaviors as a parent. It was hard to accept that I couldn’t keep saying, “I’m not going to pass my issues down to Jack.” There is no getting around this. I am the person that my parents raised. And while my childhood was pretty average and I have a great relationship with my parents, there is just no escaping the patterns passed down through generations. No one can escape their childhood no matter how perfect it was. There is no escaping the cycle. I can do work to be aware of it and challenge myself to make changes, and I do this work, but it’s not just going to disappear. I am not simply going to stop being who I am.
At each turning point I hope that I can make that final step that will lead to an easier time, a more peaceful parenting practice, the a-ha moment where everything clicks into place. But I realize again and again that I am just learning, there is nothing more that I can do, there is no cheating that can get me answers quicker. I can only take the lessons as they come and challenge myself to do better for my children. Keep my eye on the guy on first and try to rip one right over the plate. The pressure is worth it to pass down as much peace and gentleness as I can to my kids.
Abby Theuring, MSW
