Parenting

I believe there are a few subjects that shouldn’t be discussed in public.  These subjects can be controversial and everyone is very opinionated about them.  There subjects include politics, religion, and parenting.  We live in a time of the so called mommy wars.  Women are very opinionated and judgmental.  Most of these opinions have nothing to do with scientific fact or are really in the best interest of their children.  Most women attach their own self worth with the idea of what they think being a mother is.

As I contemplate which subject to discuss first, parenting or marriage, I found myself thinking about the age old question.  What came first the chicken or the egg?  While I don’t have the answer about the chicken, I did think about how ideas of love and marriage come from how we are raised and the ideas of marriage are embedded in us from our parents.

Procreation is instinctual.  Our biology is designed to become parents.  This can also be debated with various reasons why individuals choose not to procreate.  Parenting begins with the decision of when and who to become parents with.  A wise doctor I know once said, if you aren’t actively trying to prevent pregnancy, you are actively trying to get pregnant.  Birth control, abstinence, child out of wedlock, all of these beliefs are usually based on parental guidance, lack there of, or religion.  The decision to abide or rebel from these social norms can also be attributed to the individuals own upbringing.

Let’s start with my definition of parenting.  Parenting doesn’t mean the biological mother and father of a child. It is those who are responsible for caring for children.  This can be one of multiple individuals. While biological parents who are not involved in the upbringing of their offspring can create psychological impacts on their children, it doesn’t dictate potential success or failure of the child.

While many aspects of parenting can be debatable, most of them don’t really matter.  Parents spend time worrying, arguing, and feeling guilty about a wide range of topics including but not limited to C-sections, vaginal births, breast feeding, formula, home schooling, dietary habits, vaccinations, screen time, etc.  What really matters begins with the reason someone decides to have children.

My mother had her first child at 16.  I have heard many variations of this story but I believe she had her first child to become an adult.  She was having an affair with a married man.  She was upset with my grandmother for not telling her she was adopted.  She was also disabled from birth and wanted to feel normal.  She wanted to feel like she had the ability to have some kind of purpose in life. Her second child was an attempt to keep her then husband from going back to his previous wife.  Her third and fourth children were to get a man and then try to keep him.  I was her fifth child.  I heard two versions of why I was conceived.  My mother’s version was that I was the child that was going to prove that she could be a good mother.  Just the act of her telling me this demonstrates her feelings about how she parented her other children.  It also demonstrates how being a mother gave her a sense of self worth. She didn’t want to have a career or be a loving wife she only wanted to be a good mother.  That act would somehow prove her worth to everyone around her.

My father has a different version of the story.  He didn’t tell me his side until I was about 13.  He was about to leave my mother when she told him she was pregnant.  he wanted to be a better father than the father he had.  He already had a child from a previous marriage.  That didn’t end well and he allowed another man to adopt his son.  He also wanted to prove that he could do a better job this time around.  I wasn’t conceived because two people loved each other.  I was conceived to make my parents feel better about themselves.

I would like to say that these kinds of reasons for becoming a parent are uncommon but it is more common than people like to admit. My siblings and my husbands siblings have had children for very similar reasons.  I have friends and know other individuals who have children because that is what you are supposed to do.  Women find a husband and have children.  These mothers tend to live and die for their children.  They are very active in their children’s lives.  I have also seen the downside to tis type of parenting.  Frequently, these mothers are overprotective, don’t allow their children to be independent, choose their children over their marriage, and have emotional attachment issues when their children become adults.

There was a time that I didn’t want to have children. This was mostly because I didn’t want to be like my mother.  My sister says she doesn’t want to be like my mother and she believes that she isn’t.  Everyone else can easily see that she is exactly like my mother.  It saddens me to see my niece following the same path.  I was scared that I was predisposed to repeat the same mistakes.  I rebelled against this idea.  Instead I got married before I had children.  This was the first step in breaking the parental cycle I had known my whole life.  After getting married we had several miscarriages.  While this was traumatic, it was finally OK to be what I thought was normal.  I started to believe that I was capable of having a normal life.  At the same time I discovered that I had no real role models to show me how to be a good parent.  Every individual that I could think of had some issues or in some way had some sort of dysfunctional parenting style.

When I became pregnant with my first son, it was for a mixture of reasons.  I had been married for 3 years, I was recovering from grief due to multiple miscarriages, my hormones were overwhelming, it was what I should do, and I wanted to take on the challenge of being better than my mother and my sister.  I also wanted to use all my experiences to create a better childhood than what me and my husband had for my child.  Without a proper role model, I read books, listened to doctors, and created my own set of rules for parenting.  I soon discovered that doctors don’t know everything, books only have one perspective, and children don’t follow a set of rules.  My first son was born with special needs even though I did everything I was supposed to do.

My second son was very planned.  I wanted my child to have a sibling and wanted them to be two years apart.  When he was born, I was overwhelmed.  I realized that I had no idea what I was doing.  I felt guilty for not being perfect.  The life I thought I wanted wasn’t going to happen and my parents and my husbands parents weren’t going to magically change because they were now grandparents.  Whether I had post-partum depression, situational depression, or a reduction in optimism due to facing reality with limited support, I was a very different mother for my second son.  I love him more than he will ever know but I can definitely identify the lack of emotional bonding between us.  By the time I could cognitively understand it, it was too late to fix it.  I didn’t have him for the right reasons and let my own issues get in the way of doing what was in his best interest.  When he is highly emotional or is uncomfortable hugging me or his father, it will be a reminder of how much parents can impact the development of their children.  This will always be my deepest regret and I hope that at a minimum he will understand that it wasn’t my intent.

My third son was unplanned.  I am guessing that when we actually conceived, we had our house up for sale and it didn’t look like we were going to get any offers before the start of the school year.  I had discussed taking it off the market and just succumbed to our current reality.  I believe that me relaxing and letting the universe guide our lives is the reason I go pregnant.  Our house sold immediately, we bought a much smaller house and before I knew it, I was pregnant with no room or plan for another child.  That pregnancy was very emotionally draining.  My father passed away, we weren’t speaking to my husband’s family, my mother was a negative influence in my household, I lacked direction or purpose, and my last hope of having a girl turned out to be a boy.  My third son wasn’t about my needs but fulfilled my husband’s needs.  He was more relaxed, stable, and confident as an individual and as a father.  For him, a third child completed our family.  He also is the sibling my middle child needed.  He brought us balance.  Allowed me to understand that my children don’t define me.  That I can relax and still be a good mother and that there is no right or wrong or one size fits all to parenting.

Many parents believe that childhood should be enjoyed, let children be children.  Many enable their children to be dependent. This creates adults who are not accountable for their actions and who don’t understand what natural consequences are.  I believe it is my responsibility to teach my children how to become adults.  Childhood is guided practice.  I provide them with the opportunities to grow and develop into the adults they want to be.  Parenting isn’t a passive activity.  While I allow independence, I also push and challenge them to improve.  Not because I define my self worth by their performance but because I want them to be the best possible versions of themselves.

Good parenting begins with the reasons individuals want to become parents.  That reason will guide their decisions and in turn dictate the environment in which they raise their children.  That environment will then shape how those children perceive the world.  This is their basis for how they will view religion, parenting, and marriage despite their individual personalities.