Becoming a parent – angst, guilt and never enough
Becoming a parent. To be a mom. It’s sort of insane really. It’s said that humans are wired to propagate so the desire to have kids ought to be a natural and irresistible urge for pretty much everyone. It was for me.. to some extent. I somehow just knew I was going to have kids, it was never a question of ”if”.. just “when”. Maybe that comes from being the oldest child and therefore more likely to follow given rules and family traditions. Maybe it was because my friends started getting pregnant and having children. Maybe it was my biological clock telling me to hurry up. Maybe it was because I was curious as to how it would feel to have a baby growing inside or that I wanted someone to flood with fierce and passionate love. Maybe it was all of that. Somehow I always knew I would have kids. Two of them actually. And that’s what I’ve got.
But being a mom is nothing like I thought it would be. It’s been better and more than I could ever imagine and it’s also given me countless hours with darker thoughts than I believe is politically correct and that makes my ego cringe when I think about it.
Everything I do I do with the awareness of how it might impact them. It gives me strength to carry on when I’m way past just “a little tired”, it makes me really want to be a better person, it makes me question my motives and my values. To be their mother, to be the one they come to when they are unsure, scared or worried about something and just want that little push to get going. To hold their hand when going to the dentist, to see their recitals, to laugh with them at silly jokes or whimsy stories. It gives me the feeling of belonging. Like my life have meaning. I was part of creating them – these two creatures with the ability to spread so much joy and laughter.
But with that achievement came a sense of responsibility and worry and the distinct thought of – “Ehh hello! I’ve got a complaint! There wasn’t a manual delivered with this baby!”, What have I’ve gotten myself into?! What if I fail completely and all my theories about parenting, that I’m more or less wildly just testing out on these two little guinea pigs, pushes them over the edge into angst and stress or into just being lazy teenage brats without an ounce of empathy or ambition?
Yeah, those fears probably says a lot more about me than about who they are actually growing up to become. But for a long time I really felt burdened with the huge responsibility. That it was such a huge and important job to lead two human beings towards adulthood. That it really should be done with more conscious, deliberate and informed strategies than I ever had the time to formulate or implement.
I finally realized two things that have helped me just get on with it:
- I’m doing the best I can and I try to live my life with some conscious congruency between what I think, feel and act upon. Kids do as you do not as you say so if I focus more on how I live my life instead of how I should be instructing them it should turn out okay in the end.
- We were all “damaged”, one way or another, by our parents and by the experience of growing up. Either you were smothered too closely or ruled too strictly or something in between, it’s part of the set up that you test your limits and push you boundaries with your parents. It’s an inevitable fact that there will be misunderstandings and poor programming that later will need to be re-scripted to serve us better. I came to accept that I with 100% certainty already have screwed them up in some ways and that I most assuredly will continue to contribute to anchoring and convictions that aren’t empowering them. And that that is okay. That I can’t go around feeling guilty or bad about what has been or what might happen. Walking around with those thoughts will NOT make me a better mom. No more remorse over failures in the past or torment about the future – I’m doing as well as I know how to with good intentions.
And even good intentions are sometimes not enough – I got yet another proof of that one morning not long ago. At breakfast one of my daughters told me about how daring and courageous one of her class mates was acting the other day and how she wished she could have as much courage. In our family we define courage as in doing something in spite of being scared. My daughters friend had defied the gym teacher and misbehaved and therefore had been dismissed from gym class. My girl, who didn’t want to participate in the class, thought it was very brave to talk back at the teacher like that…
I’m doing as well as I know how to. And when I know better I do better. We’re working on that definition of courage… 😉
Let go of any guilt or worry about doing “parenting right”. Worrying doesn’t make it better and it definitely won’t be worse by letting your shoulders down and just doing it with a laugh. Doing it is what we do anyway – a well as we can!
