I cry and then I cry some more. I wonder whether little bubba will feel the abandonment of his father the way I did mine. I feel the guilt parking itself inside of me and bringing out my own insecurities as a parent and as a wounded child in recovery. My mind goes to my parents and I think, look at how I am feeling right now, and how I am unable to contain my frustrations guilt shame and anxiety. Even feeling the whole of me and being so acutely aware in the vulnerability of being a single mama, I sit there wallowing in self loathe ever more for feeling all of this, for not keeping it together. I think for a moment that perhaps my mama was always bereft of an actively engaged husband and she was also emotionally abandoned as a child perhaps not so intentionally. Maybe my papa wanted to be there but he too was abandoned emotionally. An era of unconscious parenting. Perhaps.
I wonder whether there is any worth at all in casting blame or shame because at any point we will mess it up with our children. We want to so badly be there for them and so much so that this may override just being there for them.
We want to over do the goodness and conscious efforts as a parent. We forget to just let go and have some fun. So what if we lost the plot? Cut ourselves some slack and whats most important is that we are aware and willing to work on ourselves in moments like this. Any rupture must follow with a repair. It becomes a cause for concern when we consistently lose the plot, never repair the rupture, and the child becomes distressed. It needs attention when we are so busy and desperately trying to “perfectly” parent that our presence is amiss. We have mini meltdowns ourselves when we feel we are not enough.
Without any conscious efforts in listening to our self we will be sure keep getting nowhere and building pockets of frustration. We will keep looking for a time out, me time, and never get to just be as our perception is focused on getting it all right or none at all. When we don’t see how far we have come and only see how much mileage is still left to be covered, we will miss the whole parenting journey.
So am I simply on overload and overwhelm of following the fallacy of the perfect parent just so that I can prove myself to whoever because nobody is actually watching out story of us unfold? I think I might be tuning into the little me that always strived to be better or perfect so that she could win the approval of her own mama. My mama already loves me and adores little bubba. What I am feeling is not of the present but a past feeling that the present triggers.
Little bubba refuses to eat breakfast. And woke up a few times at night. I wake up feeling so sleep deprived but I am happy and feel great. Still I have in me an aftertaste of a lingering feeling of not enough and worthlessness but we start our day. He refuses to eat. And whines, and then insists on spraying me with something he found in the kitchen. Not funny. I break down. I feel useless, I feel not good enough as a parent because my little bubba won’t eat. Why do I take his not eating so personally? I mean yes we will miss our morning walk to the farm it took me till now to muster the strength to go to, since I was too ashamed to be seen. But there must be something else. Why do I feel so anxious when little bubba doesn’t eat?
And here it is again.
That refusal to eat points back at my own feeling of inadequacy and fear of rejection/failure. We were brought up to compete from schools to work to anything we ever did. We had to please, to win anything. Our work was only good enough if this was validated by social opinion. We were only as good as our following. Wow! Just imagine carrying this burden.
Most of us carry this with us and don’t realise what parts of us are triggered by our children. Some of us will react, and act in that. Others will let it build and use our spouse as the scapegoat. Very rarely though will we look at our own timeline for answers.
Even my own fears of little bubba feeling abandoned are not valid in the present as long as I don’t trigger emotional stress in him. These fears are not present. They are a lingering smell of a long gone bonfire of old wounds. That’s all. For a while, it just means that I take some time out to play have fun and simply be. Even if it means taking twenty minutes or less to just paint sew or eat popcorn.
Sometimes when we become conscious of our own wounds and are in recovery, we overthink and overprotect our little children and the playfulness leaves. We can aim to be good enough parents and not burden ourselves to become the best because there is no contest. Parenting is a journey and not a prize and neither is it about getting it right all of the time. It is in the journey that the awakening continues. We were taught to have goals and visions. To work towards the end. Well, it might be time to let the end go so we can be right here working through it all for and with our little children.
Our bid to become and be conscious parents is a worthy cause but when it becomes an obsession just like too much therapy then we will abandon our child just like we were ourselves abandoned. Do we want this? No.
So let’s get off the bandwagon of the “should” and let’s make life happen right now for us for our children and just be present for today. If you feel you mess up more than a few times a day, chances are you are depressed and that’s when we know our creativity is stifled and just a little sparkle glitter and fairy dust might be the pick up we need.
What’s your pick up?