*Perspectives: On Parenting - Part 2

(If you missed it, here's Part 1)

*Perspective: A way of looking at a situation.  I'm a daughter, sister, friend, wife, mom, aunt, and employee.  
I don't claim to be an expert on anything nor have all the answers to something.  

Please bear that in mind as you read my perspective.  Chances are good it will differ from your own.  

It's okay to have different ones!

To be a parent is to experience love and heartbreak in ways you never thought were even possible.  A kind of heartbreak I experience is when "Mama Bear" wants to defend her cubs from the hurt that has been dealt them.  Another kind of heartbreak is when your children push back at you for attempting to raise them to be responsible and lovely human beings.

I never thought about parenting before I became one.  Some parents I know had thought about it beforehand.  Some had decided they wanted to do things just like their parents did or exactly the opposite of their parents.  Some decided to do a few things their parents did.  But I never thought about it.  I never thought about what my parents did or didn't do so along with my hub I just parented how my gut and my God led me.  My hub and I never really discussed parenting either. Most couples discuss parenting styles so they know if they are on the same page or not but we never did.  We just parented.  And it has truly been by the grace of God that our redheads are really wonderful and unique human beings.  If they are at all like me they are version 2.0 while I am version 1.0.  There are parts of me that are envious of them, sometimes I say I want to be like them when I grow up. 

But both girls, in their own unique ways, have pushed back at our parenting in the past year or so.  Until this past year, in fact not until last week, did I realize that parenting teens is triggering some issues I dealt with long ago. I have found myself anxious, fearful, uncertain, frustrated.  This is not my typical parenting personality.  But with the push back we have received I find myself in a place I haven't been in a very long time. 

My spike in anxiety levels is symptomatic of classic people pleasing.  Hey, we all, myself included, want our kids to like us. But the reality is sometimes they aren't going to.  When the girls were younger, before Middle School years, I didn't allow my desire for them to like me affect my parenting or me in any way.  I had no problems if they decided not to like me for a minute or two.  I think mostly because it truly would only be a minute or two.  But then the moments of not liking me stretched out and the tension it created was uncomfortable.  People pleasers, in recovery or not, don't like tension.  The temptation to smooth things over was always present but until the fine art of negotiation began I never gave in to it.

In the past year or so our oldest has started negotiating with us.  It's one thing to make an appeal, it's another thing to negotiate.  And after months of this I can't take it anymore. It has sucked the very life out of me.  I dread any communication I have to have with her that I know she won't like and will push back on. At times, because of her insistence, the hub and I have compromised - we give in halfway and really to give in halfway is to give in all the way.  I believe we have done it because we don't want our daughter to be mad at us or not like us. But the reality is, at some point she's going to be mad at us and not like us.  We have to find a way to be okay with it and, as my sister-in-love said, continue to "get up in her grill." We have a responsibility to our children.  Whether they know it or not, whether they like it or not, they need us to stand our ground with them. 

I feel the weight of parenting on my heart these days.  And I feel the weight of my own struggles that parenting triggers.  Each time the hub and I decide a talk with one, or both, of our children needs to be had my heart feels about 10 times heavier than normal.  My anxiety rises and threatens to override my "Mama Bear" gut instinct. That's right.  "Mama Bear" fights for her cubs, defensively and offensively.  Not only do I fight for them when their hearts have been wounded by others but I fight for them when their hearts are being threatened by choices they are making and I know will wound them at some point.  "Mama Bear" and I aren't always going to win the fight but we need to at least show up and when I allow my people pleasing anxiety to interfere in the fight then I, and my daughters, lose. I'm incongruous. I happen to know that my gut instinct is always spot on so when I make a decision opposite it I am doing nobody any favors.

So on the nights I'm not laying there in the dark heart racing with fear over their emotional trauma, I'm laying there with heart racing over the disservice I may do them if I give in and don't stand my ground.  I utter prayers to God for wisdom and discernment.  I've asked, consistently, that if either one of my children are doing something that isn't right or trying to hide something from us then God would expose it so it could be dealt with.  I struggle internally with my fears of my children disliking me, being mad at me, distancing themselves from me.  And lately this happens more often than not.  It's been a hard and challenging "year" of parenting and the internal struggle with my issues combined with the external struggle with the oldest has exhausted me.  I am worn out, run down, living a black hole life.  But "Mama Bear" and I need to keep showing up for the fight for their hearts.  In the end it doesn't matter how worn out and run down I get, their hearts are worth it.  I just hope that someday my sweet redheads realize that.