I’m an Imperfect Parent. And That’s Perfect.
Written By Marsha Austin
This morning as I was helping my four-year-old daughter, Lexi, get ready for school, she asked: “Where’s daddy? Why isn’t he taking me to school?”
“He’s at his office,” I explained.
“Can you take me to daddy’s office after school?” she asked. “I miss daddy. I want to be with daddy.”
My heart sunk at this simple exchange, probably very common in most households where there are pre-school-aged children. Not because I truly believe that my daughter loves her father more – on any given day she will refuse his attention and only want “mommy” and say she misses me – but because I carry guilt for not being a “good-enough” parent.
As Amy discusses with Certified Conscious Parenting Coaches Dinuka Ranasinghe, Inez Natalia, and Juliana Gomes in Episode 40: Parenting Myth #4: Good Parents are Naturals, I’ve fallen into a common trap many parents do: thinking I should instinctively know how to best parent my child, and when I don’t, thinking there’s something wrong with me.
LISTEN TO THE SOUL PATH PARENTING EPISODE HERE
Lexi triggered my guilt over the time we spend together in the afternoons after I pick her up from school. I had hoped and imagined that I would treasure this daily time together, happily indulging in playing imagination games like dolls and fairies, sitting together quietly reading books or painting at the easel.
What typically happens instead, is that she quickly loses me in what she’s talking about and imagining. She seems to be babbling nonsense that I can’t follow. Her incessant chatter, as painful as it is for me to admit, annoys me and strains my nerves. She is very physical and wants to throw all the pillows from all the furniture on the floor, climb the bookshelves and jump from the rafters – literally – into “pits of lava” and other super loud, physical games that I never recall playing or enjoying as a little girl.
She has almost completely ignored the little play kitchen we got her when she was two. When she plays “princess” it’s more like a gymnastics meet that turns into requests for me to throw her in the air and judge her “tricks.”
And, this is the worst-feeling thing about it all: sometimes I look at my own child and think to myself, “Who are you? I don’t even really like you right now.”
Painful. I have felt downright terrible about that dark, secret thought. I also knew that I was pushing my daughter away. She gradually wanted to play on her own after school, and not engage with me, which made me sad.
As Ranasingh illuminates so powerfully, “My child came along and swept me off my feet and really showed me that, ‘no, I am my own individual, and don’t show me you know it all’.”
LISTEN TO THE SOUL PATH PARENTING EPISODE HERE
When Lexi asked me to take her to her dad’s office after school, it was like a confirmation of my “bad” parenting. She clearly was becoming more attached to her father, who is a super physical extravert and loves nothing more than romping around – the more boisterous four-year-olds in the room the better.
In contrast, some of my favorite moments with my daughter are when she’s fallen asleep on my lap and I just hold her and sing to her in the quiet evening hours.
Dr. Shefali Tsabari pinpoints this terrible feeling in her book, The Awakened Parent.
“When the gap between our fantasies and reality becomes too wide, it can feel as though our world is crashing down on us,” she says.
Needless to say, I was epically relieved to hear her say, “It isn’t a given that parent and child will naturally like each other, let along enjoy each other. Genes don’t carry such a guarantee.”
“What if their temperament clashes with ours? And “What if they aren’t like we were as children?”
LISTEN TO THE SOUL PATH PARENTING EPISODE HERE
Other parents ask these questions? I was amazed. I had been brought up to believe my child would be aligned with me in every way, and I would naturally know how and what to do.
I now saw that not only could I let myself off the hook for my reaction to my daughter, but, I had an opportunity to stop making her wrong – overtly or subtly – for being who she is. I could let go of the frustration of trying to mold her into my perfect vision of what my little girl should be like. I could take the pressure off of myself to teach her how to be, and simply accept who she already is.
Ranasingh, in Episode 40, asks us to consider, are we parenting from our own agenda, or what is actually right for our child in the moment.
My daughter obviously needs to be parenting in a different way than I was parented, because she’s not me. I’m not my mom. And that’s ok. (For some of you that might even be a big relief!)
That’s what’s naturally perfect – not me or my parenting.
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Author: Marsha Austin
Marsha is an award-winning journalist, content marketer, entrepreneur, and mother to a preschool-aged daughter. She loves diving deep into spiritual practices, while maintaining a light heart, and self-effacing sense of humor.
