Okay I think I've got it. Actually, this is only just now congealing in my brain so I'm pretty sure I don't got it. But here are my preliminary thoughts presented as fact just the same:
American parents spend the majority of their time trying to keep their children from having big feelings. Examples:
- Baby is born. Loving, doting parents do everything in their power to keep child from crying. At the first sign of a whimper, baby is picked up and enthusiastically engaged. Bottle/breast is usually offered, especially if it is at night. Because it's night and nighttime is for
eating being quiet and going back to sleep as quickly as possible without disturbing anyone.
- Toddler wants a treat at the grocery store. Parent says no. Toddler has feelings that come with noises. Parent gives toddler what he wants so as not to make a scene. And makes a note to self to never enter a grocery store without an endless supply of snacks.
- Toddler doesn't eat the healthy dinner that is given to her. Two days in a row. Parent panics because child is clearly malnourished and offers every food available in the house. Success! Toddler eats bread and strawberry yogurt! The third night, toddler is presented with dinner. She immediately throws a fit and then throws her peas. Parent whips out that bread and yogurt in two seconds flat. Baby smiles.
- Toddler doesn't want to get dressed in the morning because he's too busy playing and eating cheerios. Parent talks up the over-the-top fun to be had outside/in the car/ at playgroup/ running errands. It's a no go. Parent waits. Parent attempts to pick up toddler and carry him to the bedroom. Toddler kicks and squirms. Parent waits. Parent attempts to stealthily change toddler mid-play. Toddler runs away. Parent waits. Parent bribes toddler with cheerios. Toddler doesn't like cheerios anymore. Parent rallies and tries to wrestle toddler's pajama shirt off. Toddler kicks and screams and cries with real, actual wet tears. Parent gives up. Toddler stays, mostly, in jammies for the rest of the day (except for one arm.)
- Toddler is using mom as an all-night milk buffet. Mom is increasingly exhausted. Even her vision is blurry. She thinks she's depressed and is considering medication. She's considered night-weaning a hundred thousand times and even tried a handful of times, but oh how that toddler cries. It feels wrong. It feels unresponsive. It feels heartless. It doesn't even feel possible. Mom gives up every time.
- Four-year-old has a tantrum because his socks don't feel right. Parent tries fixing them once. They still don't feel right. Parent immediately gets angry and snaps at child. 'Socks are not anything to have a tantrum about! You're making us late for story time!' Child still feels that socks are worth crying about. Parent whisks child to the car barefoot and ignores him all the way to the library. Or continues to chastise him for crying about something so insignificant.
- Five-year old falls down and skins his knee at a public playground. He cries loudly. Parent comforts him and shushes him and comforts him and shushes him and then points out that everyone is looking at him. 'You're okay. Crying doesn't make it feel better. You're hurting my ears. You're a tough guy!' Child stops crying and snuffles loudly instead.
- Seven-year old middle child constantly wants alone time with parent. But she has three other siblings that make this challenging. Every time parent is engaged one-on-one with her and a sibling enters the space, she rather forcefully tells them to leave. Parent sternly tells child to be kind and that God did not make her an only child. He gave her three siblings, which is obviously even better. Child's feelings go unacknowledged and she if forced to either leave the game all together or play with everyone.
- Eight-year old has hypochondriac tendencies. When her molars grow in, she's convinced chunks of her mouth are falling out. Parent chuckles and says there's nothing to worry about. It normal. When she is going through a particularly sensitive period in her life and has a string of emotional outbursts, parent tells her to go to bed earlier. Clearly she's overtired. Sometimes parent laughs incredulously: 'You're crying about that?!'
- Ten-year old is waiting at the pool for his parent to finish teaching swim lessons. He said he didn't want to go in, but that was before the battery died on his tablet:
'Well, now I DO want to swim!'
'It's too late now. My lesson is almost finished and we have to get home for dinner.'
'NO. I'm going in.'
'I asked you if you wanted to go in earlier. You said no. There isn't enough time now.'
'I'm GOING.' And then he splashes her. With his toe. In her face. Repeatedly. While she's teaching another mother and her child how to swim. She says nothing and he walks away toward the changing room.
'You have to get out when I say! If you don't there's going to be trouble!' she calls after him weakly, a halfhearted attempt to reclaim an ounce of dignity.
A few of these incidents I observed just this week and I'm not gonna lie: I had some big feelings of my own. Some big judgy feelings. And then I looked at my own parenting. Hence a good portion of the examples above.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say big feelings make us nervous. At first this discomfort comes from wanting to be good parents. To meet all of our tiny, perfect baby's needs. To be responsive and respectful. We spend tremendous amounts of energy trying to predict upsets and avoid them.
And then, a switch is flipped in the parent's brain somewhere between babyhood and childhood. The parent is still trying to control emotional outbursts, but now it is out of fear. The child is bigger, louder, far more complex, definitely more volatile. And the parent realizes, more and more every day, that they are less and less in control of this small dictator. Fear often slides into anger.
Child care expert, Janet Lansbury, offers an alternative. Taken from the homepage of her website, she outlines her philosophy of parenting from day one:
When we perceive our infants as capable, intelligent, responsive
people ready to participate in life, initiate activity, receive and
return our efforts to communicate with them, then we find that they are
all of those things. I am not suggesting that we treat infants as small
adults. They need a baby’s life. But they deserve the same level of
human respect that we give to adults. If you asked (and they could
answer), here are some examples they might offer of baby care that
reflect that respect:
This, to me, is what actual respect looks like. As Lansbury says in another article, 'It takes a brave and enlightened parent to remain calm, listen to their baby's cries and offer an attuned, accurate response.' If they are hungry or tired or hurt, of course we respond appropriately. But if they are encountering a difficult life moment, let us trust them to be able to navigate their own feelings while bearing witness them. What an empowering message that sends:
You are capable of hard things.
I see you.
I am in the process of night weaning my one-year old. I've been in this process for months now. But two nights ago it occurred to me that I was missing that second piece. I believed she could do it. But I was not compassionately bearing witness to her experience. The moment I realized that, I stopped feeling frustrated by her lengthy crying and instead felt compassion for this really hard thing she was having to do. I didn't fix anything. I didn't even do anything different, but she knew I knew. I know she did. And it mattered to her. Last night she slept through the night without making a peep.
I discovered a book at the library a couple weeks ago called
The Rabbit Listened by Cori Doerrfeld. A terrible thing happens to Taylor and a succession of animals tell him how he should process his loss. Taylor rejects them all. (S)he doesn't want to be fixed. Finally a rabbit comes and quietly sits next to Taylor, just listening. The rabbit creates the space Taylor needs to process his/her own feelings and come to a state of peace again. It is a book I haven't stopped thinking about.
What would the rabbit do? I ask myself when someone scrapes a knee.
What would the rabbit do? I ask when two siblings are squabbling.
What would the rabbit do? I ask instead of telling my children their own feelings aren't valid.
As a wise friend once said, 'Children don't need to be fixed. They need to be heard.'
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