While I'm not a parent myself yet, it's something I've been considering quite a bit. Since so much of how we interact with the world is rooted in childhood, one can't go forward in this life without first assessing a bit what happened. I don't mean you need to dwell, but there are certain things we say, attitudes we hold, and even coping mechanisms we resort to we inherited or learned from our parents.
After spending quite a bit of time doing that, I have to say,
Somehow, a lot of young people seem to have got this idea that the fact that their parents tried their best wasn't good enough. I don't think all parents try their best. My dad didn't try at all. So I don't think you need to say "Oh, in the end, they're still your mum and dad" if they were cunts. But a lot of parents, you know, did try their best.
As I grow older myself and I approach a point in life where I hope to have children, it's becoming glaringly apparent to me that nobody gives you a handbook. Nobody tells you how. Were I to read only parenting books for the next few years, then have a kid, I'd be bound to still make a lot of mistakes. Even as I tried my best.
And it's challenging this view that seems quite popular in a lot of mental health dialogue that parents should be held accountable and pilloried for not knowing better. Or for doing what was considering good parenting in their generation. In a world that seems pretty intent on destroying the idea of family and alienating us from our roots, yeah, I'd say it's a safe bet this is an organized, concerted effort that's now telling young people to "go no-contact" with their parents because they weren't perfect. What these kids don't realize is the wealth of stability, of support, of community they are cutting themselves off from. And that's frightening.
They say you gain a different understanding of your folks when you become a parent. As I mature and approach (hopefully) that, I'm starting to see some truth there. It's very easy, after all, for us to now judge our parents harshly. Because not being parents ourselves, we hold a somewhat privileged position, that of only being victims. As you know, I don't like playing the victim.
So I've tried, in my effort to grow and put some potentially not good behaviors to rest, to asses and understand how certain events in my childhood shaped my attitudes. Without becoming hung up on them, without viewing my parents or my grandparents as evil or careless or mean or anything like that.
In this seeming race towards which one of us is the most fucked up, we seem to have foregone the value of kindness, of love, of being wanted, protected, cherished. Many parents do that in the way all people do - imperfectly. A little muddy, sometimes. A little weird. But that doesn't mean it wasn't there.
Again, it's not always the case. Not every parent tries. And I think it can be very harmful, trying to ascribe feelings to a parent who doesn't have them. I spent years hoping that somehow, in his way, my dad loved me. I don't think he did. I don't think he's capable of that, and while I have compassion for that as a human being, I have chosen to cut contact with him. It wasn't a light decision and I'm sure it will have its own repercussions, as I grow older. Which is precisely why I think that we should carefully consider, as children, and learn to distinguish between types of parents.
I know families in such situations. And it's heartbreaking because you know the parent loves the kids, and the kids choose to walk away because the parent couldn't love them in quite the way that kid might've needed or wanted.
There is a fine line between our projections and hopes of love and the reality of that love. When we're single or just begin dating someone, we tend to project a lot or fantasize about what coupled life will look like. And as we all know, it almost never looks like that. It can be worse thane expectation, but also so much better, but in different ways.
The difference is, the idealization and fantasy part is an individual task. Whereas a relationship, any relationship requires external input.
So what should a parent be equipped with? I've been wondering that. 'Cause I realize when my own time comes, I won't have it all. Not by a long shot. So I'm trying to boil down to basics. Figure out what I must have to at least hope to make a decent go of it.
I think a good parent has and inspires integrity. As I watch the world unfold, I realize what a treasure it is that @ladyrebecca raised me to be steadfast, to respect myself and what matters to me. To be proud of my name and my self, to know that I am someone worth something in this world. And that I have the strength to make my own way, to defend my freedom and my rights and to fight for my dreams.
I think a good parent is curious. Holds space for growth, both theirs and a child's. Curiosity, of course, can take many forms. It can mean a parent who reads, who sees documentaries, someone who's actively learning about the world they're in, not just existing on auto-pilot. As we grow older, more tired, and acquire more commitments, many of us forsake that curiosity and become cynical and automated. I think having that sort of parent teaches you to be a bored, interestless adult.
Finally, I think good parents need love. I know it seems obvious. Sorry, it's a true cliche. I think a child needs to be loved and know it is loved to have a chance to prosper and grow in this life. And I think love is at the soul of all other important elements in a parent-child relationship. A child needs to feel protected, safe, like someone's in charge and looking after them. Those come from love.
The rest? See as you go, I guess. Parenting is a lifetime deal once you get in. To assume you'll have every tool or quality that will require mapped out when you first have a kid is mad. But as long as you have good basic resources, I think there's room to build, and hopefully improve.
Oh, I think a good parent also listens to their kid, in order to grow with them. Even when it's scary. But I think that's bespoke to the curiosity and love parts. Again, I am lucky that @ladyrebecca listens. :)
As it happens, this week's Ladies of Hive question jived with some of my own thoughts on the matter, so here we are.
Parenting transcends mere stages in life; it represents a profound designation entailing the monumental responsibility of instilling high moral values and shaping the succeeding generation for a prosperous future. In this regard, what do you consider to be the three most pivotal qualities or traits that parents must possess in order to effectively fulfill this vital task?
What do you think?
Quite an insightful take on about the prompt question.
Some parents do not try their best but most of them do. That's true. As children we have a lot conflicts about their attitudes, behaviors and decisions. At that point we are unable to understand the position of our parents.
It is woeful to see children abandoning their parents with the thoughts of being mistreated by them. The thing is that parents are as much human as we are. They are imperfect like all others. They may make mistakes. It is unwise to keep on judging them on the basis of mistakes they made and be forgetful of all the sacrifices and support they gave for us. Even the things that we evaluate as mistakes might not be the mistakes but the best actions they could do in the given circumstances. Children should be taught to forgive their parents the same way parents are preached to be forgiven.
Parents should be loving. Yup that's a cliché. However, I have come to the realization that not all the parents love their children. Parenting can never be conducted without love. It would become a burden of which one wants to get rid of.
Thanks for sharing this insightful piece with us, !LADY.
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I agree with everything you said! We're all people, at the end of the day. And thank goodness for that. Thank you!
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!LADY
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I am not only a parent, but also a grandparent, and I think you have written many truths in this post, even though you are not yet a parent. The three main traits you listed are certainly important ones for a parent to have.
I know my parents made some mistakes along the way, but they did the best they could with the knowledge they had. I know their own childhoods were not perfect, but I believe they improved on what they grew up with. I, too, have made mistakes with raising my children, but they all seem to have survived and are responsible adults. Some of them are finding out now how tricky parenting can be.
You are right about reading parenting books. They can be helpful, but when the nurse lays that little newborn on your tummy, it doesn't come with a handbook, and every child is different. I felt very unprepared to me a mother, even though I was 28 and married, but I figured it out as I went. Good friends and supportive family were a big help.
One of the biggest compliments I've gotten is when my youngest told me recently that her friends in high school and college thought we were the cool parents, because we treated them like people. I don't know how we could have done otherwise!
Thank you for the kind words! I don't think we can ever truly be prepared. Just seems like such a vastly different experience from anything else we might've don in the past. So yes, learn as we go.
What a wonderful compliment, indeed! It's a great treasure in a young person's life to have a parent (even if not their parent, just a grown-up) who sees and recognizes in them that maturity.
I think you might enjoy reading @selfhelp4trolls post https://hive.blog/hive-181017/@selfhelp4trolls/my-unresolved-desires
It' goes in a similar direction (at least my associations with it)
...after reading both of yours, I fancy a little coffee round of talking 😊☕️ but until then I just leave it at that, and send some love!!
Oh goodness, that was an amazing read! So felt that. Thank you for opening my eyes to it. I'm definitely down for a round of coffee and talking. Always. Maybe someday <3 Love back to you! Hope everything's good in your journey.
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I pretty strongly relate to this. What I have realized is that my father was born in the Great Depression, and his parenting skills and expectations came out of that time. He told me once that I had a shirt on my back, food in my belly, and a roof over my head, so his job was done. Since those things weren't givens for him, growing up on the mean streets of the Midwest during the Depression, he was baffled by my lack of appreciation for them. But I grew up in a village surrounded by wilderness, where the lessons I learned about living there were very forthright and stark: apex predators feed themselves, and weakness made you food.
I have eventually come to terms with the fact that I fell short in every way of his expectations of me. His childhood deprivation taught him to value social expectations, because society delivered every blessing of civilization, while mine taught me that nature provided everything necessary to those tough enough be inedible. The cliques in school based on vanity and appearance created power from skills I did not value, and the institutions of government and school were organized bullying I was determined to withstand.
I didn't give my father any reason to love me, and actively scorned everything about society he valued, so I can't blame him one bit that I was unlovable. The harder he objected to my ferality, the more feral I became, uncompromising, and unwilling to be ruled by anyone or anything. I never gave him any option to love me, although I had no idea at that time because I was so unsocialized, so feral, and, to my understanding, had to ignore anything that created social compliance or suffer intolerable subjugation to those I considered vain bullies.
You can imagine my surprise when I became a father and my own kids excelled socially, despite I homeschooled them on a compound innawoods. It was ultimately that experience gained as a father that enabled me to understand my own father's disappointment in me, and to forgive him for my unlovability. He really had no idea what he was doing by leaving me to learn from the apex predators of the Alaskan wilderness how to not become food for apex predators, which left me incapable of cliqueing up and going along to get along in society, left me unforgiven and defiant, and utterly unlovable. It was seeing from the eyes of my sons how their extraordinary success illuminated my own irascibility that enabled me to value goodwill above all other societal metrics, and that perhaps has allowed them to love me despite myself.
Learning that whatever happened to me was my fault has shorn me of vulnerability, rendered me incapable of plying victimhood and benefiting from sympathy, and left me unable to be ruled while I breathe. I learned from parenting my sons that we are born the persons we are, and parents can only provide some guidance as we forge our own destinies. Just as our parents are more or less able to love, we are more or less lovable. Sometimes there's just no place to meet in the middle, at least for me and my father.
Thanks!
That was a very interesting read. While I don't think children need to give their parents active reasons to love them or to justify their existence in that way, I definitely understand where that view's coming from. It seems that you were simply attuned to such different worlds that indeed, meeting in the middle became impossible. Such a good way to phrase that.
But that's solely with him. With your Dad. No one is unlovable period. Unlovable to all. :) I don't think so, at least.
Honestly, I feel there is a kind of mentality that comes with parenting. When you have a child, no one needs to tell you how to be a good parent because we all know the right thing to do as adults or as parents even if there are no manuals for it
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Yes, some parents really do not try their best and I see some of them specially in this generation. I remember a couple who were applying for marriage certificate and they need to attend pre-marriage counseling. I was the one who was incharge to conduct the pre-counseling. Yes, they had to answer 3 pages of the pre-counseling session wherein we discussed after. Off course 100% they wrote good answer. But I asked them, what is there next plan after marriage since they will be having a baby. They said, they will let their parent take care of their child in the province and continue their study in the city.
They don't even bother to tell how they will do their best to take care of their own child. they already planned to obligate their parent to do their responsibility as parent... So sad...