A child comes into this world seeking only sustenance. Sustenance for survival – food, water, shelter. Emotional sustenance –trust that the world is a safe, loving place to be. And sustenance of self – a sense of place and purpose. Each is critical. Survival is easy, in the sense of obvious; food when they are hungry, sleep when they are tired, a warm place when it is cold. This gives them security, but it does not feed their need for love. They need secondly to be important to someone. To matter to another. To know that someone would mourn their loss.
This is the vulnerability that comes of adult love – the willingness to give a small piece of your ability to smile each day to another person who might take it away if they leave or don’t cherish it. Children just love, blindly, presently. They do not debate whether the love will live forever, or whether it is real or safe, they do not wonder if the person might leave. They just love. But they need that adult love – given unconditionally in the face of all the reasons adults have learned it is not safe to love. And parents, usually, do.
Some parents are inconsistent. They are still too wrapped up in old patterns, fears, losses to consistently give and show the love they feel for their child. But even where the mistakes are many, when the love is strong and true, the child will know. They know. They may search for evidence they are unloved, but only because they already know how loved they are. Sometimes it is a burden. Sometimes confusing. But it is still their safe haven in a storm. Mother dries the tears. Father chases away the fears.
Ah, but the sense of place and purpose. That is the one sustenance that is so difficult to give. Such a small thing really, but difficult to give to ourselves much less to another, much less to the little you running around in this world. It is often unknown in our own experience, and thus we struggle to learn how to do what we have not experienced; what we didn’t even know was unexperienced. It is, quite simply, to see the child for who they are. Not for our dreams, not for our fears, nor our desires, needs, hopes. Not for the good things they do, or for the bad, but simply for who they are, their own unique, little self.
The most pronounced single-standing word in the world is the word for mother, followed by father, and, of course, yes and no. Do you know what the most pronounced word in a two word sentence is? WATCH! “Grandma watch!” “Mommy watch me.” “Daddy look at what I can do.” Children want to be seen – they don’t need to hear ‘that’s good’ or ‘that’s bad.’ They just need to be watched. “Watch me,” they plead, “be the mirror that lets me see who I am.”
Parents who are always giving judgments shade that mirror. Parents who never stop to look force children to find other people to be mirrors. But the greatest injustice is the parent who does not reflect at all - the one who sees the child only as an extension of self. This often happens with very young mothers. They see their children as possibility, or as a reflection of their own success or failure, but never as a living, breathing, crying, little soul in its own right.
Parents do this in so many ways. A child cries – the parent declares there is nothing to cry about. The child is scared and the parent says that’s silly. Children are their feelings. It is the only sense of self they know. They do not identify themselves by their roles but by their emotions. Every diminishment of feeling is a way of telling the child that he is not real. There is little else to the world for a child than their present sense emotion - that’s why the world is so intense for them. That is why time moves so much more slowly. They are the most present beings on earth.
Children don’t spend their lives creating and maintaining an identity to know who they are, they just live and feel – high on the merry go round, dashed over the lost ice-cream. Every time a parent says you don’t or shouldn’t feel that, the child loses a little piece of who they are.
Imagine if someone told you again and again you weren’t something you thought you were. Do you know what would happen? You would begin to question it, to question your place, your purpose, your perception, yourself. We do that to children all the time and never think twice.
Parents spend too much time focused on a child’s potential – you could be great if you would just study more; or on their failures – you should have known better. “This is what you are not but could be; this is what you failed to be.” A child can only think, “Well, what does that make me now? Where is the mirror to see myself? I’m jumping rope and all you can say is you’ll do that better if you hold it differently. I’m just asking that you watch me jump rope. That’s all I want. Just to be seen. Just to know I exist. In your eyes. In this world. Just to know I have a place. Any place.”
We don’t do that for children. We are so wrapped up in what they reflect on us, we forget to see them as themselves. We take away their feelings, their sense of self and then wonder why they don’t have the motivation or will power to succeed they way we want them to. Once you have sustained your child with food, water, shelter, and love give them the greatest gift you can give, not your approval or your pride, but the reflection in your eyes of a being worthy of your love, no matter what.
Sherry,
Hadn't read your writing for long... and I just have to tell how much I like this piece.
I believe that breeding children is both rewarding and very challenging. Mistakes parents make are obviously numerous, but like you pointed genuineness and love yet find their way. Personnally, though I am convinced that my parents didn't necessarily make the best choices for my sister and I, I am equally convinced they always meant the best for us, and tried as hard as they could to get it somehow.
Errare humanum est...
Maybe we should let go of this wish we often have for 'perfection'? There is no such thing as a perfect parent nor a perfect child. All of us are simply human beings, with our own failures and difficulties. Of course children are not meant to succeed where their parents failed, but to find their own way however far it may be from their parents lifestyle and their wishes for them. Still I believe that parents do and probably forever will harm them at times while meaning good. This seems to me like a natural process through which as kids we learn to overcome difficulties, and most importantly we realise that our own parents are, after all, simply human and fallible. It is also for their own flaws and frailty and by knowing how much they have and do struggle with themselves into becoming better beings, one step after another, that I LOVE my own parents.
Posted by: Steff | July 24, 2008 at 03:05 PM