IT IS AN irony that the hardest thing we do as parents is not about parenting at all. It’s a skill called “not-parenting.”
This is the task that falls to us from the moment our children are born, and it has to do with working to perceive — and then act on! — the gap between them and us.
Mother Nature ill prepares us for this challenge. She does a great job of bonding us to our kids. I was chatting with a pregnant first-time older mom the other day, and she voiced her worry that she didn’t feel bonded with her baby and wasn’t confident that she’d feel connected to the child once born.
I and the other mom in the room laughed and said she had no worries on that score. Because at the deepest core of our being, we love our children. This is not a matter of choice. Nature wants it that way, so we’ll take care of them till they’re old enough to survive on their own. Which for human babies takes a while.
In fact some of us are still doing it when they go off to university.
Does Mother Nature want that? Once you become a mom, you know that inner she-bear. She becomes part of your character, ever ready to step out.
That mythical woman who could lift a Volkswagen off her child is not myth to us: I am mother, hear me roar! Threaten my child and watch out! There are not enough rescue clichés adequate to encompass what we as parents do to make things better for our children.
But back to the child going off to university. That moment looms like a cliff in parental consciousness — as if it were one traumatic moment. Jump off, you gotta do it.
But this is an inaccurate description of reality. In truth, from the moment our children are born, part of our task, if we are to be the best parents we can be, is to see them as separate people, people on their way to independence, whose brief (but ever lengthening) absences from us are dry runs for the big one.
If we see this developmental trajectory clearly, if we force ourselves to acknowledge where we begin and they end, we can begin to accept that our children are their own selves, and we can then give them some space to try out those new wings.
Like fledglings of other species, they will fall during some of their early flights from the nest. And we will desperately want to rescue them. It will feel like a physical imperative.
What separates us from animals is that they operate 100 per cent on instinct.We get to think before we act.This is the golden opportunity to grow resourceful independent children with their own life skills.
At the moment when rescueparent kicks us, just as you’re about to don the Superhero cape, please stop and think before Super- Parent roars into action.
Think: Does my child really need to be rescued now? What would happen if, instead of doing this for my child right now, I helped them figure out how to do this for themselves?
This question can be applied to almost every parenting situation. Okay, they can’t drive the car or go to parent-teacher meetings, but they can learn to cook, clean, take responsibility for their own homework and manage their friendships.
Did you ever have a great coach when you were young? Did they score goals for you, or did they teach you how to score? What made them a great coach?
My guess is that they first believed in your abilities, second, helped you grow those abilities and third, celebrated you for them. So be the coach. Grow great people with strong wings. They will thank you for it.
