Feelings, parenting, and treating me right

When I started my parenting journey some 21 years ago, I hadn’t really thought about a parenting approach. I just had three principles I was working from. One, there will be no physical chastising of this child. Two, there will be no telling this child their feelings are wrong. And, three, there will be no abandoning of this child.

I had no clue what any of those things would mean in practice, but they shone clearly, like north stars, or maybe more like spotlights: clear in patches, and otherwise generally obscure. But as it happens, they were enough. Over the years, they helped me choose schools with my child, navigate moves and disappointments, talk through relationships and sex, even develop a strong co-parenting relationship after divorce. In short: they were plenty.

What I hadn’t anticipated was how much they helped me confront and overcome my own baggage and fears. As I worked to be accepting of my child’s emotions, I started to truly feel into my own. I began to sense the difference between boundaries and exclusion, learning to set my own. I developed more clarity on all types of violence, not just that visited on children by adults (which still, to this day, to me is the absolute worst).

I was thinking about this process yesterday, as I sat with a particularly yucky feeling in my chest. Intellectually, it was warranted but maybe outsized. In any case, that is what I told myself: tone it down, that feeling is too big, it is unwarranted. Or put differently, it is wrong.

I would never have talked to my child that way. I might have told her a physical outburst (such as hitting or slamming a door) was inappropriate and not OK, but I would always have accepted the feeling behind the outburst as whatever she said it was. Feelings just are — they can’t really be right or wrong. The moment I remembered this truth yesterday, my whole perspective changed. I let the feeling flow through me, observing it with care: what does it tell me about boundaries crossed and values infringed? What does it tell me about my general state of mind?

Parenting definitely isn’t for everyone. But for me it has been a journey of self-discovery and growth like none other. I needed to focus on treating another human being right, before I was able to extend that courtesy to myself. This morning I am filled with so much gratitude towards my child for helping me become me.