I feel more comfortable talking to people if the matter is something I have personal experience with - and, apart from all the personal growth I have done, having been a rescue medium means I have had intimate experience of quite a few other people's problems (see here, here and here).
One of the matters I've generally avoided commenting on is parenting. However, I've had more experience at this than I generally give myself credit for, as so many of my partners have had kids (as someone I was close to who didn't have kids pointed out), and, between them, step-kids and step-grandkids, I've actually been through most of the various stages of parenting. The interesting thing about that for me, the aspect that inspired me to write the blog, is that these kids all turned out as unique individuals, in some cases despite the best of parenting.
Just talking about past relationships, and using a code letter (not any initials) for various people:
- W admitted she wasn't the best of parents when she was younger, but she did do the best she could. She had fairly intolerant views, and these were reflected to some extent in her kids, but two of her kids wound up in de facto (heterosexual) relationships with kids and a home (one with a mortgage), and not too dissimilar to many people in their lives. Her son, C, followed in the footsteps of his mum, and took up many of her habits (aggression, drinking and smoking). One her daughters, Q, took up these for a while, but has been trying to cut down since she became a parent. As a parent, W's approach tended towards a hard-line discipline (especially around manners towards other people), but she was supportive of her kids when they genuinely needed it - unless they were repeating mistakes.
- L had three kids. Her eldest, a boy, B, was incredibly affectionate; her younger son, the middle child, K, was always into trouble; her youngest, her daughter, S, was incredibly independent and stubborn ("No, don't help me get up onto the bench! I'll do it myself!" ... <30> ... "Help me up!"). They had all had the same loving parenting, with what I would consider fairly standard boundaries/discipline management, yet one turned out (at that stage) sensitive and loving, one craved more love and attention, and one didn't want interactions at all. All three had been through a recent separation of parents a couple of years before I became part of their lives.
- E had two kids, the oldest was a boy, K, and a younger daughter, also K by this code, but I'll refer to her as L. L was absorbed in upset at a recent separation of her parents, and saw me as a threat. K was quite taken by me, but that was a relationship where E's personal problems were an all-consuming issue, and both kids were worried about her. She did eventually find someone who was able to give her the sort of support she needed, and she started to do well. The last time I met her, she was well, and K had grown up to be a goth (can't remember now what she said about L.
Its a little like some of the media reports on medical advice: one study seems to say one thing, and then there may be another which seems to say another. [2] You do the best with what you have at the time. This, incidentally, is something I struggle with, as I am very hard on and judgemental of myself, in part as a reaction to the excesses of the "there there now - it wasn't your fault" approach, because I KNOW from personal experience what goals can be achieved, what can be accomplished, with sufficient self discipline, determination and persistent effort. [3]
The "best that you can do" with regard to parenting is, in my opinion, better now (in Australia) than it was when I was growing up (in the "be seen but not heard" type era). The existence of a range of parenting styles is known by many people (not all!), communication between people in society is generally better (I didn't say "is universally perfect" - just "better") than it used to be, and more is known about the problems such as violence and bullying (whether at home or at schools) and (to some extent) about the importance of things like good nutrition, good boundaries and social connectedness.
There is still room for improvement - for instance, there are still people with massive disadvantage in society (i.e., people who are poor or discriminated against - particularly indigenous Australians), and that impacts on their families. Most of all, I consider there is a need to acknowledge that techniques need to be selected or adapted to suit the character of each child: one size does NOT fit all when it comes to parenting (just look at the range of characteristics of L's kids, for instance). As an example, perhaps you have a dislike of "alternative" religions, or competitive sport: you may prefer your child did not participate in such activities. Yet that may be exactly what they need.
As one of my ex's once said: children are basically little people. They're not all innocent angels, nor all demons; the truth is a complex somewhere in-between, where each has a bit of both and a lot of the in-between. (I use her comment when people ask me if I like kids: some I do, some I don't, just like big people.)
Furthermore, each parent is at a different stage of their evolution, and will have different understanding and reactions to various bits of advice. For instance, if I say, "think of the colour green", there is a fair chance that every person reading that will think of a different shade of green. Communicating a message needs to be adapted to the audience, unfortunately (unfortunately, as that means it potentially involves a lot more work - see here for a previous post of mine on this topic).
We also need, in my opinion, as a society to give more attention to the issue of managing what happens when kids leave home. [4] It can be quite traumatic for parents, in part because of kids tending to be focused on establishing themselves as independent adults (they can actually be quite selfish during this period, but they generally "come back" in a sense).
However, even more so than that, we - as a society - need to focus on the view that, as Kahlil Gibran put it (this is not an exact quote), our children are not our own: they are borrowed from the future. You should NOT try to turn your kids into little carbon copies of you so you can feel immortal: you have a task to deliver them to adulthood as capable, independent beings - not carbon copies. This is something that my current partner excels at - and it can be hard when they have different views or behaviours to what you would like, but it is more important that they are capable of thinking and making informed decisions than that they be carbon copies of you.
Above all else, remember that, if there is something you are measured for, it is your effort and care, not the result :)
Love, light, hugs and blessings
Gnwmythr
Notes:
- I've seen different approaches to divorce, and, if I wanted to make a generalisation, it is that it is wrong for the non-custodial parent (if the divorce winds up with one parent predominantly having custody) to assume there is no point trying to make an effort to have contact with their kids. If you try later, the damage caused by you not making an effort may be insurmountable - which is something I have seen (and, to be quite clear about this, the custodial parent was trying to encourage contact).
I've also read reports which suggest that the difference in how kids handle the divorce or separation seems to be related to whether or not they knew there were problems: the ones who knew there were problems seemed to cope better. All of that is, of course, a generalisation.
- I never bother to save any examples of this, because the truth of the matter is usually that there are details which are different. For example, one study may be reported by a sensationalist heading "doctors say to drink more alcohol", about a study saying that certain people find they are more relaxed if they have ONE OR TWO drinks on a regular basis, and a subsequent study may be reported by the sensationalist heading "doctors say to cut back on alcohol!" about recent evidence saying pregnant women should not drink while pregnant.
On this, I had an interesting read on the topic "confirmation bias" at Wikipedia recently - see here.
- In the sporting field, achieving reasonable success at the Sydney Gay Games in 2002 in the sailing is one example. As a teenager, I remember reading a comment by an Olympic gold medallist to the effect that, the harder he worked, the luckier he got. In other words, people who didn't practice hard enough to understand the skill he had developed thought he was being successful because he was lucky. The truth was more likely that he and his crew had developed their "in-boat" skills to the extent that they were automatic, so they could focus on keeping their eyes outside of the boat, looking for evidence of windshifts (which gets easier when you PRACTICE it more), whereas the "you're lucky" grumblers were probably fumbling with basic boat handling skills, keeping their attention within the boat, and wouldn't recognise a sign of a windshift if it had neon lights. I was not a naturally successful competitive sailor (although the basics of sailing came fairly easily): I had to practice hard, study, test and learn. I pestered all the other, older sailors in the fleet for their views of how they did things ("How much rake do you put on your mast? Why? What do you change as the wind increase?" - I would also record this advice, and had one sailor commenting to another "Watch out, everything you say will be taken down and used in evidence against you" - intended lightheartedly, but I thought I should make the writing less obvious after that :) ) All this worked, with me having dominating success after initially always being last.
At work, turning a group of junior engineers into a skilled team of proficient and capable professionals - which I have done several times, and am currently working on again - is another example. I've raised the issue of getting more experienced people to help, which hasn't happened for a wide range of reasons, so I've turned what I had into what was needed.
In the psychic field, people like Charmaine Wilson, who I wrote about here, impressed me because she showed how much practice and effort is required to be good at being psychic - despite already having an impressive natural talent.
I spent over a year working up to 15 hours a day, 7 days a week at developing my skills and knowledge when I started. I'm still learning, and life means I cannot devote the same sort of hours to practise that I used to (I'm too old and don't have the energy, even if I did have the time :) ), but I still have the benefit of all that hard work.
I have frequently told people "there is always a price, even if you don't pay money": that price may be time, energy and effort, and in the case of "time, energy and effort", you still get what you pay.
- It's worth keeping in mind that you are preparing your children for a world where they are inherently NOT going to be the centre of the universe, so to speak. NO-ONE else is going to be as focused on them as you are: your children need to be prepared for that - apart from anything else, it's part of teaching them to get along with others, rather than being self-centred.
They are NOT always going to have criticism delivered to them gently - apart from anything else, the people they will work will occasionally at least be under pressure with deadlines or financial constraints, and not have the luxury if investing that much time, energy and effort into delivering a gentle, uplifting, encouraging form of criticism. Tough - that's life. Sure, it shouldn't be delivered in a way that is abusive, but be wary of mollycoddling your kids - of over-protecting them. DON'T always do their homework for them, don't help them with a short term sense of accomplishment at the expense of their capacity to be an adult.
As a variation to this, don't lose perspective because of your love for your kids: don't expect the world to adapt itself to you and your needs - for instance, if you visit the home of people without kids, DON'T expect them to have a house that is set up to be kid-safe. They have their own lives, and a right to live it as they wish. You DON'T have a right to tell them how to live it - and you especially DON'T have a right to tell them to arrange their home to suit YOUR convenience. Their your kids: you manage them in someone else's space.
As a final venting point, I also consider that if you EXPECT your kids to take care of you in your old age, then your love for them can be questioned. I take a fairly hard view on this, that I expect such love to be unconditional. EXPECTING kids to look after you is imposing a condition on that love - as well as being personally irresponsible. It is something that isn't needed in this day and age in most of Australia.
The views in this note are views I formed before I had any partners with kids; they remained unchanged now, after several decades of supporting partners with their kids, and supporting partners as their kids move out of home and get on with having a life.
In many cases, the kids will voluntarily want to look after elderly parents: that is wonderful, and it could be said to be a bit sad when they don't want to do that. Just don't do the crime of expecting it, and planning on it. It's not honourable - in a spiritual sense of "honour".
- As a final point, tongue in cheek and unrelated to anything in particular in this post, I was talking with someone close recently about teenagers, someone who needed cheering up about her daughter. Teenagers are the age where, to many of them (particularly females), being close to others and having friends is important. Almost everything they do is around demonstrating trust, and therefore demonstrating closeness. They will help each other, test each other by imposing on each (oh I forgot such and such - can I borrow yours? - which can also be about status, manipulation and a few other concepts they may not be aware of yet!) Hence, when a teenager behaves in a way that seems irresponsible to an adult, and is imposing on an adult, they may - in the teenager's mind - be saying "See, I trust you - we're friends, and, of course, that means I'm an adult too. Isn't that wonderful?" As an example:
- teenager forgets key
- teenager rings parent and asks if they will drop out key or rearrange home so teenager can get in
- parent thinks teenager is irresponsible and can't be trusted to be an adult, but decides can't accept the risk of kid not being home so cancels a work function (thereby putting job security at risk and increasing stress) and agrees
- teenager assumes they have just been treated as an adult because an adult demonstrated what the teenager considers is closeness
- when teenager gets home, parent snaps and talks about irresponsibility and teenager is amazed and complains about lack of trust
Don't worry, both my friend and I have agreed that I won't give up my day job for a career in humour ...
This post's photo is yet to be posted.
Tags: family, parenting, learning from mistakes, about me, challenge, emotions, indigenous, interpersonal interactions, morality, personal responsibility, perspective, relationships,
First published: Monday 23rd August, 2010
Last edited: Monday 23rd August, 2010
