We’re too aggressive with raising our children the “right” way. It has shades of the Victorian era when children had to be perfect lest they be banned from the presence of adults. While we work diligently to make sure they are happy, we make sacrifices to assure their pleasure, we push valiantly to ensure their success, we may be failing at the most important task of all – and that is their mental health. There is already research out there that indicates that children feel stressed about their parents need for them to be happy, kids are complaining that they cannot discuss upset feelings with their parents because there is an expectation that they “feel” good and “be” happy.
What I find ironic about all of this is that, children will take what they want from life experiences, not what we wish for them to have. As I listened to my daughter-in-law talk about this yearning sense of anxiety that blossomed within her after giving birth, I reflected on my own avid feelings about child-rearing. Decades ago I read a quote by Jacqueline Kennedy – and I am paraphrasing “I must do a good job raising the children, what else is more important? And when could you possibly get a second chance at doing a good job with your children?” That sentiment was completely real to me. My style of raising children is to cradle them in a safety net (which they may crawl out of) to give them as much as I can, anytime that I can (which they may reject) and to assure that they can move forward in their lives(and they may not).
In retrospect, I could have accomplished it all with a lot less anxiety. Children are not the blank slates of nature. Children come to us with their own DNA make-up, their own dream-like life agenda and their own decisions about what experience they will keep and what experiences they will discard. When I sacrificed I expected some understanding of that sacrifice – still do – yet on countless occasions that sacrifice did not even register, the kids were oblivious to it.
What did register was this: My whole hearted and complete investment in their lives. From moment to moment I am interested in who they are, what they are about and where they are going. I am interested because I like them and I want to be with them. Because they are finally adults, the lingering agenda of “you must perform and you must be happy” is gone. Thank God!
I think we miss the point when we work hard to be the perfect parent with the super achieving child. Our children are who they are and thus as human beings deserve to be accepted with their own agenda. That is not to say that we cannot make a safe, happy childhood for them, or conversely, as parents, we can also ruin whatever fighting chance our child may have had for happiness. That is to say that whenever we take on a social structure such as perfect parenting, we leave out who we are. We reject our own selves and our own genuineness. This rejection gets carried through to our children and takes our ability to be genuine with them away.
Perfect parenting is an impossible icon anyway. I don’t suggest we throw the baby out with the bathwater, what I do suggest is that we pay more attention to the humans that are our children and not cherish the idea that people have to be happy and perfect and super-achievers. Perfect children are no more real than perfect parents. Being authentic is a way of letting go that allows a much more genuine love to flourish. Acceptance allows a sharing that is transformative for both the parent and the child. What loving parent would reject sharing and genuine love?