In my current position I get to be with your kids. Let me just start off my saying that I am truly honored to be in the presence of such amazing humans. Your children are bright, brave, and carry a strength with them that has the potential to go on and change the world. They are so beautiful, and I am so proud of the courage they show every day.
But, that’s not the reason I’m writing this. I’m writing this because I cried all the way home from work today. I talked to your kids today, (I talk to them every day) and they tell me how they feel. Today, they told me that they don’t feel as though you really see them. They told me that they don’t feel like you are proud of them, they told me that you don’t tell them that you are proud of them. They told me about the times that you got up and their faces and screamed at them, they told me about how they work so hard to keep themselves on the straight and narrow and how they are afraid to talk to you, to tell you that they are doing their best, to tell you that they just want to make you proud, to tell you that they want you to say that you love them. They told me that they feel lonely and isolated and how they try to just keep their heads down and stay out of your way. They told me how they stand with theirs fists balled up as you yell at them and don’t give them an opportunity to tell you how they are feeling. You see them standing with their fists balled as a sign of disrespect and aggression, when in reality, all they are trying to do is hold themselves together. They ball theirs fists because it allows them to hold back their anger and their fear. Their anger from not being heard, from having to respect you even though you are not respecting them. They ball their fists to keep the tears from streaming down their faces to stop the words from coming out to stop themselves from screaming at you “JUST LOVE ME, JUST HEAR ME, JUST LET ME SPEAK.” It’s not disrespect, it actually the most respectful thing they can do in that moment and you call them out on it like they are doing something wrong. You parent from fear, fear that if you are not hard on them then they will not be prepared for the world. You parent from experience, you tell yourself that the harmful way that your parents raised you made you a better and stronger person somehow, but it’s not true. You are not better for having been treated this way and your children are not better for your decision to continue this cycle. Yes it is your job to make sure that your children are strong, they’ve got that in spades but it is also your job to make sure that your children have a safe and soft place to land the world is a hard place, it’s big and scary but it’s so much less scary when you know you have a place to go to recharge your batteries, a place where you can be yourself, where you can cry and be held, where you can mess up and still feel like someone loves you and someone is always proud of you. As parents we must do better. It’s okay to respect your children, it’s okay to let them feel the full range of human emotions and the only reason they can’t is because you haven’t learned how to handle your own emotions and so you continue to project your own helplessness onto them.
I want you to know that I tell your children I am proud of them. I tell your children that they have so much to be proud of within themselves. I tell them that they matter and I let them say all of the things to me that they want to say to you. I try to inspire them with ideas that could change the way they see you and relate to you, I try to help them see why you are so hard on them and they don’t understand now but they will someday. I hate that it feels like I am telling them to learn to parent themselves, I hate that it feels like I am telling them to be their own soft place, but you continue to tell yourself that you are doing the right thing. Your anger, fear, pride, or whatever it is, holds you firmly in your position of power. When I was first starting out as a parent, I read an article about perspective. There was an exercise when a parent would sit on the floor and another adult would tower over them and scream in their face. The person on the floor was not allowed to get up or talk back they could only sit their and feel the helplessness imposed on them by a person who was bigger, stronger, and more intimidating based on the perspective of being smaller. Try it, get your significant other or another adult to tower over you as you sit on the floor. Take a moment to feel what it feels like to be so helpless, to stand literally in the shadow of another person, feel intimidated for a moment, feel humiliated and helpless for a moment and then realize that is exactly how your child feels. If it doesn’t feel good to you then it doesn’t feel good to them. The challenge would then be to change your pattern of behavior and stop the cycle.
Your kids need you much more than they need me. The things I tell them, the way I see them, and they way I treat them would mean one hundred times more if it was coming from you.
I know you’re tired, I know you try, I know you have you own hang ups and experiences in life that have altered you, but it is not and has never been your child’s fault and while all of those things might be really good reasons they are terrible excuses to continue parenting by way of intimidation.
If you don’t know where to start, read a parenting book, get some counseling, or sit down with your kids and let them talk to you, but leave all of your defensiveness at the door and whatever you do just listen to what they are saying.
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