Did My Child Chose Me As Their Parent?

Spirituality

May 8

There are people who believe we choose our parents at a soul level before we are born. If that is the case, why did my LGBTQ child choose me? The answer to this helped me relax as a parent and feel less overwhelmed.

Pat Windom in the Soul Path Parenting podcast “Soul Groups, Past Lives, and How Children Choose Their Parents” contends that “the purpose of multiple lifetimes is to have all human experience. So over the course of centuries, we choose lives that will give us all the colors, that will give us both genders, or now multiple genders, that will give us high and low intelligence, that will give us wealth and poverty, that will give us every conceivable human experience.”

My child is autistic and transgender. If what Pat says is true, they (which is the pronoun my child prefers) are definitely after “all the colors” of human experience. As you can imagine, they have had a rough go of life so far. The idea that they chose me to be their mom somehow brings me tremendous relief and moves me to tears. Instead of beating myself up for not being enough of a parent to this extraordinary soul, I was able to step back and think, “wait a second, if they chose me, there must be a reason.” Somehow after that thought, the reasons seem to show up:

I have worked in this lifetime to be a safe, non-judgmental space for people to tell the truth. Obviously, this would be helpful to an LBGTQ child in our culture.
I was raised by parents who were not religious and did not pass on a lot of shame-inducing dogma around sexuality, so I did not pass that on to my kid energetically.
Being a highly gifted kid myself, I find it easy to engage with my child’s intelligent autistic side and, as a result, perhaps they feel more seen.
I am someone who is curious and rebellious about gender norms and shackles. From infancy, I was intentional (not perfect) about not pressing certain toys or clothing on my child according to gender. Perhaps this is what they knew they needed in a parent to fully explore their gender.

If you really look, what is it about you that makes sense as to why your child chose you? Obviously, this is not a question limited to LGBTQ and/or high needs kids.

I know we can be hard on ourselves as parents and I invite you to take a deeper look. Is there anything about the geographic or cultural place you chose to live that makes sense? Your family background? Any quality that you have that would attract an LGBTQ soul? Are you particularly inclusive? Protective? High EQ? Open-minded? Stable? Non-traditional in some way?

If your answer to these questions is a resounding “NO,” and you more often than not feel you are the “wrong” parent for your child and possibly even angry about it, consider that this is the journey you chose. Perhaps whatever is at the heart of why you feel this way is exactly what you came here to transform.

On the flip side, what are the issues that you brought into this lifetime that your LGBTQ child is also dealing with? Perhaps one of the reasons they chose you is so that you could complete these issues together in this lifetime?

According to Pat Windom, “We’re coming into a lifetime, and we decide – okay, this lifetime I am going to work on self esteem, let’s say, because that’s a big one and a lot of people need to work on that one. And so who in my star band, that is, who in my karmic group is going to be able to give me the best running start, if you will, to be able to do what I need to do.”

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO SOUL PATH PARENTING PODCAST

Perhaps the person who will give them the “best running start” is someone who can relate to what it is they want to work on. Maybe it is no accident that I myself had huge self-esteem issues when I was young as well as a hatred of my body (never thin enough, shapely enough, perfect enough, etc.).

These are the very same issues my transgender child struggles with. They have low self-esteem and have told me they “hate” their body. Coincidence?

What are the things you struggle(d) with that are the same as your LGBTQ child that you had to settle for yourself or are still working on settling?
In these moments, take a step back and consider that the problems your LGBTQ child is experiencing is exactly what they anticipated having to deal with in this lifetime and exactly why they chose you as their parent.

Consider also that because they chose this lifetime they are equipped to handle it and so are you. It’s possible that you do know what to do because you were specifically chosen for this job. Trust yourself. Trust that you are the perfect parent for this situation and that even if you don’t know what to do maybe that is why your child chose you – because you don’t purport to know everything and it is that very quality that they needed to be able to do the work they came here to do.

Author: Shannon Harrison

Shannon is a therapist, former school teacher, and mom. She is the co-author of the book "Sweet Spot: Leveraging Your Talents in Leadership and Life" Currently, Shannon writes about the areas that align with areas that she is passionate about...letting go of the energetic ties that keep us down, personal evolution, and true self-expression.