Parenting and Love
Parenting & Love
Many of us have heard or read about what true love is meant to look like in romantic relationships – the value of striking that balance between being close, connected, intimate, one-ness, and simultaneously independent, individuated, healthy adults. This conversation becomes more nuanced when it comes to parenting children; our children are dependent on us, literally, for many physical and emotional needs, and that is developmentally healthy. And yet it is also important particularly as they get older that we encourage individuation, independence, and resilience. And so, the million dollar question(s); how do we support individuation without pushing them away or worse, abandoning them? How do we love generously without promoting codependence, and without losing ourselves in the process?
One fine Saturday I was having one of those days of intense fluctuations of feelings; my girl had been sick all week and home from school. I was feeling flooded and uncentered. Her demands and clinginess would make me push her away, and in that moment I’d be flooded with guilt, keen to correct my mistake. Am I correcting for her or to make myself feel better? Stuck in a totally unconscious cycle of push and pull, I suddenly noticed familiar inner dialogue “you’re pushing her away” “she’ll never be close to you” “she doesn’t feel loved”… and “you’re a bad mom” “why can’t you handle more, look at all the moms who do this better than you do”…
Something in me managed to pull back from the situation and say knowingly, “I need to go for a walk, I’ll be back soon.” Surprisingly accepted by all family members, I stepped out and took a deep breath. As I walked, I asked nature questions that I knew only she could answer… questions about what it means to give, to care, to love.
I looked up at a palm tree and received some insight. The palm tree is so steady in its presence, rooted, and giving. She gives us dates so generously that in that moment I felt drawn to thank her. And simultaneously, she never gives us so much that she can’t produce dates anymore. She willingly gives us fruit, even drops them to the earth for us, and simultaneously holds onto herself, her trunk, her roots, all intact, so that this time next year, she can share her fruit so generously again.
Why do so many of us forget that to give to the point of self-sacrifice is not love. Not in a romantic relationship and not in motherhood? Society led us to believe that martyrdom is love, that mothering is about unending giving up of ourselves and our needs… and these scripts led us to forget our true nature. We do it unconsciously, unknowingly, thinking others will be happy for it and simultaneously thinking we will feel good for having done it.
Do I want my daughter to learn that being loved comes at the cost of the person who is loving you? That the more we love the less we have left of ourselves?
And in the same breath I continued my walk, surrounded by flowers and trees, and they reminded me how to truly love. Just be… be present and anchored, not swept by the tides of our inner world nor the outer… be there to compassionately witness them, hold them, and be alongside them.
Thank you nature and thank you God <3
