Tag: mothers

Values

I was recently challenged to ‘contribute’ more to my family through the means of bringing in income. It was directed at me with the implication that all I do is live off my husband and swan about.

Naturally, I felt hurt and insulted.

I work hard. Most days the only time I get to sit down between 6.30am and 8pm is in the car to and from the school run and at supper; my mind is constantly flitting from one ‘to do’ item to the next and wondering how many I can multitask simultaneously. Oh and yes about once a week I will meet a friend for a coffee or a catch up, my rest time, because my job is all-day-and-all-night-every-single-day, so a coffee break every now and then is just basic essential care.

Many articles have crossed checked the monetary value of a SAHM (Stay at Home Mum) and have discovered that to replicate their input into the household would require a vast outlay of money on separate personnel. But I don’t want to compare my job to gold coins, I want to shift the perspective to our core values, money is certainly a necessary commodity but it is not the ultimate need.

In relationships we discuss whether or not we have similar values, rarely does this simply mean how much finance each partner will contribute. More often than not these values include honesty, respect, communication, parenting choices and family relationships. Do the values marry? If so, these are signs of potentially strong and life-long relationships.

For me, wholesome values are not just in partnered relationships but across the board in friendships, work peers, community connections and of course within our parent/child dynamics.

So when my ‘value’ as a SAHM was narrowed into the crude description as to whether or not I brought home gold coins, I felt a deep grief for all that I provide to my family, for all the non-material value that is unacknowledged and underappreciated across our societal norms. I felt that grief ripple out to all those individuals who offer their voluntary acts of service to our community to care for the young, old, infirm, environment and animals, who are whitewashed into the background because they don’t bring gold bullion back home. How distorted have our societal values become when my job, to shape, nurture and guide our future generations, is dismissed as luxurious and frivolous?

For me, I hugely value the consistency and security my children receive to help their confidence flourish out into the world; to enable them to stretch their bungee ropes to distant discoveries and bounce right back again when they need. I know that my choice to stay at home is solely built on nurturing their human potential.

That potential is not about shaping them into the best lawyers or doctors, but to help them know their own happiness now and in their future, to help them have the courage to stand up for truth and honour, love and respect.  And all that is a multi-levelled task; it covers presence, diet, response time, emotional well being, sleep, health & friendships.

My daughter recently described her future to me, when she would leave school, what her career would be, how many children she would have, the usual musings of the young and fearless! But what I heard in amongst her description what that she would take a career break to have children; she has chosen a career that she can step out of and return to when she wishes because she values what me being at home means to her and she wants to offer that back to her children too.  It has been important to her, it has been of value.

There is a wonderful analogy in Heidi’s Children where the grandfather is on his deathbed and asks little Marta to go to the high pastures and pick him fresh strawberries. She does as he bids but, with the encouragement of her friends, instead of returning straight home, she sells them in the town and brings home money which she is told will bring her grandfather greater happiness. The grandfather is furious, for he had been looking forward to the succulent, refreshing strawberries all day, and he demands Marta bite the coin to see if it brings the same satisfaction.

This…

This is where our values are mistaken at times, there is no monetary replacement for nourishment, kindness and love and the most glorious thing about these is that they are absolutely free.

So next time someone challenges me to bring greater value to my family, I might just remind them that I gift strawberries not gold.

WTF

So last week I had one of those ‘what the f*** just happened’ moments. The sort when I think everyone’s on the same page and getting on happily and then I get smacked in the face by someone’s reaction and am sent reeling into next month.

And, in typical style, I have been reflecting on it….

So as a very quick précis, my child and their best friend had a minor falling out, nothing out of the ordinary for their age and stage. My child was feeling vulnerable and upset about the situation so I asked the other mum if we could meet before school to resolve it all before facing the day ahead. No biggie. Or so I thought….

My child started to speak to the friend but was so overcome by upset they burst into tears and asked for my help. I checked in with the friend to see if they knew what it was all about and before either of us could speak another word the mother interrupted, shooed her child away and angrily stated ‘she wasn’t having this’!

SMACK!

What the f*** just happened? Weren’t we all just gently and kindly trying to help the kids work things out?

The mother went on to state that she didn’t want her child ‘put on the spot’; that they could ‘figure it all out at school’; that I ‘shouldn’t be involved’ (facepalm!); and it went on. I goldfished for a few moments before fury hit me, my child was by this point sobbing with distress that peace hadn’t been made before school started. Honestly, whatever the perception and judgement on my way of doing things versus theirs, what left me speechless was the total lack of compassion towards another small human being. I simply cannot imagine seeing a little one (mine or anyone else’s) in such distress and refusing to help. What has happened to compassion?

So that is what I’ve been reflecting on. I am still feeling totally rageful towards the other parent but that is my journey to process and release over the coming days and weeks. And for me to find compassion for her – oh the irony!

But actually I think there is a deeper and bigger issue at stake. I believe, in general, the population are feeling pretty disempowered, taking charge of their own lives seems to be becoming a foreign concept. This feels deeply frightening and ultimately dangerous.

What I saw in this dynamic and in other recent moments has been a lack of personal responsibility, not out of malaise, but, more insidiously, out of habit. This is how our recent generations have and are being trained throughout their childhood, to pass the buck of responsibility. This litigation culture means that it’s always someone else’s fault and there is inevitably someone who can resolve the issue for them, be it teachers, parents, police, the lawyers, the government. And by always passing the buck, there is never an opportunity to learn how to handle and resolve conflict before it becomes overkill. When I brought my child to that conversation it was not only a space for them to express their fears and worries on the friendship but also perhaps to hear some hard words in return; maybe the friend was annoyed, maybe my child had done something to upset them, but there is no shame in facing our shadows and deciding how to integrate that into our psyche.

The constant avoidance of these moments not only creates this desperate place of disempowerment, where our own strength to face discomfort and challenge is never experienced and therefore not integrated fully into our beings, but with that comes this lack of compassion that I witnessed. The fear of conflict overrode natural human kindness and actually created a greater and uglier conflict than was necessary. That’s what fear is like, powerful, pervasive and ultimately distressing. In this scenario it was so strong that the other mother believed I had no right to be involved in the situation, a reflection perhaps of her feelings, if she hasn’t the power to face conflict calmly, why should I be allowed to carry it? Disempowerment demanding further disempowerment to justify their own.

Urgh, it feels like a big ugly tangle of disallowed feelings and suppressed strength. In venting conversation with my friends, I questioned ‘what happened to just having a conversation about it?’ Have we really reached a point in our society where the gloss veneer is all that is permitted?

Dark and difficult conversations are so vital to understanding the complexities of existence and humanity. Please let’s keep exploring them, it is only fear that makes them truly unpleasant.

Mini Me’s

When my daughter, my first born, arrived in the world, I was immediately struck with an intense solar plexus knowing that she was her own person. I knew that she had been gifted to us, to guide and raise, but her soul was already formed and strong; she did not belong to me.

I was so grateful for this knowing, realising that she had her own purpose in being here and that my job was not to create a perfect version of humanity through her but simply to support her unfolding into her own true self.

Accepting and following that understanding was so easy in the first couple of years but as she and her brother grow and express all facets of their personalities in a variety of social and antisocial scenarios, it has sometimes been hard to hang on to.

Surprisingly one of the hardest aspects has been my determination for them NOT to be a ‘mini me’. Not only was I conscious of them being their own soulful being, but I have recently realised that I was also attempting to make sure they didn’t become like me; the flawed, wounded, often angry and impatient me that I judge so harshly. I wanted something different for them. But of course, even though our babes have come with their own journey to explore, part of that journey is to be our imitators and our mirrors; to hold up our reflection and see how we react to it.

My children do this well and perfectly for me. They express their impatience and their fiery tempers and their annoyances (in amongst all their generosity and kindness and love) and I have come down hard, trying to force it to be different. Trying to educate them, trying to change myself to model better; trying, pushing, resisting.

And then I realised that as much as they are their very own soul, with all the beautiful unique qualities they bring to the world, they are also ‘mini me’s’. They are reflecting back to me not what I have to force myself to change but what I need to accept.

I listened to my son’s kindergarten teacher speak a few nights ago about the boisterous and energetic behaviour of the elder kids and I really heard how she described the Steiner philosophy on how to work with their energy.

‘If something is being expressed then it needs to come out, suppressing it doesn’t help. By allowing its expression there comes the possibility of transforming it into something else.’

From this I visualise the smoke that comes out of me when I feel angry or annoyed or impatient, I see it swirl into the air and transform into dragons and magic and stars and sparkles.

So let me be the container for my children, let me hold the space for them to express all these parts of themselves, that I have rejected in myself, and let us together allow these intrinsic parts of ourselves voice. By doing so let us witness them transform and flow on, from rigidness to free form, with safety and love circling them all.

My children are their own spirits but the parts of me they have chosen to mirror are intrinsic aspects of them too. By allowing these I can offer them one of life’s most precious gifts: self acceptance and with that the freedom that walks alongside.

Role Models

I am sensitive to the role models that pass through my children’s lives. Not for the obvious reasons, I care less about their differing values to mine (as long as they’re not morally corrupt!) in fact I enjoy my children being exposed to different view points and exciting their curiosity and questioning, but I mind greatly about their consistency in our lives.

I know I can’t control where life takes us and friends pass through over the years and that itself is a great lesson for my children, but there is still a place for acknowledging the importance of each role model and their influence.

I speak from a place of loss. I speak from a place of sensitivity to those moments where an adult left my childhood world without word or explanation.

Growing up, the role of father was a gaping hole in my life, my own being emotionally incapable of filling it. Later in life, my early choice of boyfriends certainly reflected my desire for a father figure before therapy and personal development moved me beyond it. But in my childhood itself, certain men stepped forward to offer themselves as a surrogate; family friends, my mother’s boyfriend, uncles, many spoke directly to me, acknowledging the gap and asking permission to represent a father to me.

Every single one left me.

Not a single one remains in my life as a guide or elder. This is not a pity party, I have beautiful support around me now, but at the moments of their leaving, I grieved a loss every time, alone and unacknowledged. Each one just disappeared from my life, sometimes out of loyalty to my mother; sometimes out of separation from my mother; others, I project, because I was too challenging or difficult for their perspective, but for whatever reason they felt no need to say goodbye. And that hurt beyond measure.

So for my children, I ask, when life takes you away from us, when our paths diverge, please just take a moment to say farewell.