Radical Changes

Hi friends,

Recently, because I don’t have anything else to challenge me, I began wondering what radical change can I make to my parenting.

My kiddos are in a tough spot right now. Their mother (moi) is undergoing some rough chemotherapy and we’re in the process of moving house. Everyone is stressed. The biggest way I can help them is bring something radical into their existence.

In my reading around the subject, I came across this sentence in Miki Kashtan’s Reweaving our Human Fabric:

I have a visceral aversion to imposing my will on others.

And I thought: I don’t.

But what would it look like if I did?

I’d be having a lot of discussions around needs with my kiddos. More than I do now. As much as I try to bring needs into the conversation, need-talk would be constant.

The biggest radical change I am making which may be self-connection or it may be chemo imposed, I’m not sure, is that sometimes when the children are pushing me to the limit of what I can hold (which is massively reduced during chemo) I kind of melt into them. It’s a vulnerable place to be because a part of me thinks getting vulnerable means the children are in control. Egad!

But it’s really a place where I lose my defenses and I just say, “I’m so sorry, I’m done. I don’t have the energy to give you what you want.” Whether that be ten more minutes of monopoly or a presence while they are complaining.

This is alternative to me losing my cool and getting big and scary. And I end up being a darn mummy, or a nasty mummy. Or simply just “horrible”.

Being horrible is a small comfort as it’s a teensy indicator that I’m not being permissive. (A label that I’m sure several people do apply to me because I don’t punish them or speak sternly so they do as they’re told. Oh well.)

And I also thought, hmmm, there are times when I WANT to impose my will on my kids, as icky as that idea is to me. I don’t expect them to take themselves to bed and leave Daddy and me to have a conversation on our own. Yes, when they are older and want nothing to do with us. But at eight and six, they still very much want to stay up and talk with the adults. Crikey, sometimes when we think they’re in bed, and Dad and I are having a conversation, a little voice pops up with a clarification question on what’s just been said.

“Why, Mummy? Why did you say that to Daddy?”

And, I am not imposing my will at bedtime without considering their needs. They are tired at bedtime. They need help to move through the transition to bed. That’s what we do - we facilitate the transition so they move into sleep mode feeling care and love and support.

But I also got to thinking, when are there times when I impose my will that I don’t actually need to? It’s more often than I’d like. Definitely more often than necessary.

What are the times that you impose your will and you don’t really need to? I have found it alarming noticing all the times that I do so. Alarming and interesting. Curious. How do you find it?