There is this moment in parenting when you have to separate the ‘parent part’ of you that is dealing with the moment, from the ‘child part’ of you that is feeling old pain from the past. The ‘child part’ must be put away for the time being to be tended to later. The ‘parent part’ then has to respond in an adult way while simultaneously feeling the ‘child part’ screaming somewhere deep inside. It’s quite a dance.
Last night I lay in bed with my 10-year-old daughter listening to her sadness about friends. Friends are an interesting thing since Covid because it is hard to know if their distance is because of the virus or because they are just not interested in the friendship anymore.
I faked it hard as I lay there with my arm around her, listening, giving her love and tidbits of encouragement. The truth was that I wanted to run out of that room, call every friend she knew to organize sleepovers for the next 2 months, then cry messy, grade 5 tears until I was ready to escape with wine and Netflix for the rest of the evening.
But I endured. Lying there feeling those strong emotions begging me to run away from the moment, was a test of will. When she finally fell asleep, I congratulated myself for staying, and then I knew I had work to do.
Our children are given to us to evoke the exact pain that we have not yet fully acknowledged from our past. When we don’t acknowledge the pain, it gets stuck inside of us. All the compulsive behaviours we wish we didn’t engage in so frequently are a result of this pain.
When it bubbles up, we don’t want to feel it, so immediately we think about scrolling on our phone, eating food, drinking wine, buying something, watching shows, or anything to take us away.
I knew that if I were to walk out of that room, and head straight for the wine and Netflix, then that grade 5 child inside of me would still be screaming, and I would drink the whole bottle.
The work I had to do did not take long - I was still able to watch my show. Quietly I locked my bedroom door and sat at the edge of my bed. With a hand over my heart, I connected with the ‘parent part’ of me and surrendered to the truth. The hardened tension that held in my pain softened, allowing it to emerge upward, and the tears came.
Grade 5 was hard. I remember feeling so deeply alone in a sea of children who had no connection to my well-being. I would walk around the playground with my metaphorical arms reached out yearning for someone to see me. I just kept reaching, craving, wanting so badly for love.
That is the feeling that my daughter’s experience last night was evoking in me. I spent some time with it. The ‘parent part’ of me felt good that it could be there for me. And when I sighed, I knew my ‘child part’ felt heard and loved. Then, of course, I went downstairs to drink my glass of wine and watch my show. I knew, though, that I wasn’t escaping. I had done the work and now it was time to rest, feeling whole and integrated – both parts of me settled as one…until tomorrow, when another parenting moment has me repeating the cycle again.