Recently many changes have happened in the dynamics of my household. Some big changes have put me in a position to have seriously hard conversations with myself and those around me. A deep look into situations I have thought were long forgotten.
Some old memories popped up that I forgot ever happened opening new wounds that were patched up with make believe plasters to mask the pain the situation caused me.
As the eldest of 3 girls, I always felt that I am the one that has to look after, care for and protect when my parents were not around. And no, this does not mean that they were absent parents. This just means that they were hard working parents trying to raise 3 girls in an already dangerous and difficult world.
As a single parent, I realize the struggles my parents faced then. As parents we are human. We make mistakes. It is hard. It is draining. I don’t know what I am doing half the time. I rely on the way I have been brought up as the foundation which I will use as a guideline in my parenting skills. Be it changing things up a bit as I know times changed from the 80s and 90s way my parents raised us. We can all say for sure this era is way more advanced than the good old days.
One thing I will open up to is a deep seated fear, that the mistakes I make in parenting my daughter into adulthood will end up having her with hurts and pains that I am the cause of. The fear was made worse by the fact that she will resent me for the rest of her life. To the point that my mistakes will irreparably damage the relationship, we have with each other. You can imagine my prayer life as this one point is included all the time. Lord let me not mess things up so badly that I lose her trust and hurt her relationship with me.
I have come to realize that my parenting skill has always been to make her feel heard, and appreciated and that her voice matters. So when we knock heads over an issue I had to quickly learn that my Parent’s style of “keep quiet and listen to me” and “I am the parent you will do as I say” was not going to fly with her. She needed to be validated and in the times we are in, this baby girl of mine, soon to be woman, would need the knowledge that her side of the story mattered enough for me to keep quiet and listen.
I need to engage a different kind of approach for her to learn why I say no or be careful or don’t do that. I don’t always get it right. She let me know this very quickly!
Words play such a vital role in any relationship. The tone and body language when words are spoken in a conversation are key to getting your message and intention across. This is not just parent to child scenarios but in everyday lifestyles.
So some of you may know that my Mom lives with me. Talk about free babysitting services coupled with all the other things she does for me. It is a winning situation for both of us. I am so going to get into trouble with this #wink-wink
Our relationship is not always where I want it to be. We have knocked heads on more than one occasion and I know that I am not always on the right side of the track. But in the moment of the argument who will be less prideful and acknowledge this?
She still has a parenting mindset and will see me at 24 years of age (yeah just work with me on that being my age) as her baby. The little one that needs guidance and help.
I on the other hand just want to be recognized as the 24yr old (yup I’m keeping to my story on this one) that can decide for myself and do things that suit me at the moment.
I guess you can see the foundation of our discord on the above. It happens. We make peace and we start talking to each other again after a couple of weeks because yes, we are both that headstrong and will not give in easily.
One of the recent hard conversations I had to have this past 2 weeks was when I realized that my perception of an incident that happened around the age of 12yrs old was totally out of whack.
My whole life I had the feeling that I was never backed by my parents or anyone else for that matter. I always felt no one believed me and the struggle for validation was always there carrying it into every scenario I faced into adulthood.
I always felt a heavy burden of having the responsibility of being my sister’s keeper was unfair and many times I had to take the brunt if they did something wrong. This feeling of unfairness became one little rock I kept in my pocket of debts owed to me. I would stick little bright plasters on the hurts and move on. But years later the deep wounds had always popped their ugly head when my mom and I disagreed. Although not realizing it at the time but it all boiled down to that moment when I spoke up time and time again and nothing was done. In my perception anyway.
It hit me like a bucket of cold water when the truth was revealed. That all this time it was the hardest decision my mom had made to safeguard me but I never saw it. The truth was kept from me. And in her turn, she didn’t realize that not acknowledging my truth in the whole version of events made me think she didn’t care enough.
Imagine all this time both of us hurting. Lashing out when discord happened. If only we just spoke to each other when I was 12 so that I could understand better.
Wounds can now be allowed to be opened and breathed to find healing. Freedom can now come. For both of us and everyone around us.
How many times have we kept things from our kids that we thought would harm them where it would have had the opposite effect? How many times do we think we are doing the right thing but it’s the right thing for us because we are scared of losing or hurting them? Do we ever think it would bring them closer if they can understand better if they see our side of things?
I pray that I will always find the right words to keep my daughter informed about the hard things I am facing. So she can understand what my position is at that moment. I open up to her when I am scared and scared for her as my child. I open up to her when I feel disappointed or hurt. She will learn and understand me better in the same way I learn and understand her better.
And yes. I have to learn each day what is going on inside my daughter’s head all the time. She is growing up and maturing in ways that I wish I could hit the pause button. As she discovers herself and grows into what she stands for I want to be there every step of the way to keep our relationship bonded with cords that cannot be broken in any way.
I want to encourage you today. Be open with your children. There are ways that we can learn to speak out about how we feel as parents so that they can understand our reason behind the “no’s” and “don’t do that’s” or even understand the decisions we make as parents in the hard walk of life.
The time to cover them in bubble wrap is not being chucked away but we can use kind and gentle words to explain ourselves and given the opportunity I will guarantee your child’s comprehension and understanding will blow you away.
It can be a teachable moment for both you and your child. Years of heartache were saved.
So with all this said, it’s a new day and a new opportunity to teach our kids a different way. To see them with different eyes. We can pat ourselves on the back that we are indeed raising the chosen generation for a time such as this. Bold David’s who will Face their Goliath with knowledge of who they are. Kings and Sons of the Most High. Who can fault any part of that?
