Recently I spoke with someone close to me about another person (I’ll call him B) and his interactions with her grandchildren that were problematic and concerning for her. At some point in the conversation, I shared with her some faults I had perceived in B’s childrearing in the past.
Later in the day, my words came back to me. I felt uncomfortable about my words that judged B’s way of parenting his child. Why did I feel it would be helpful to share my negative perception of him (and his wife)?
I have to say that I don’t think I was trying to be helpful at all.
It feels, looking back, that I was attempting to gain attain additional closeness with the person I was speaking to by aligning against someone else. This is a pattern I experienced in high school that was toxic and mean-spirited.
The conversation and my part in it kept returning to me, and I eventually reached out to my close friend and shared my self perception, apologizing. This didn’t really accomplish much, but she understood.
And I recognized a behavior within myself that I want to change.
I realized, after further thought, that this was a direct reflection of something that had occurred in my past. A friend of mine didn’t approve of my parental choices when I was having challenges with my oldest daughter in her teenage years. She kept telling me that she would lay down the law and correct the situation. I was more lenient in my response, trying to allow some freedom to my growing daughter. My friend (who had no teenagers) did not let up and eventually got 2 other friends involved with her opinion. Eventually she arranged a meeting and she told me that they (collectively) could not support my parenting any longer. I walked away from that meeting after that first sentence and she actually ended our friendship then next day, which was deeply painful for me.
Shortly afterward, in sharing my experience with another, I was told firmly that my children are my children to raise. That the spirits who come as children to us have come to us in clarity of choice, knowing what they will contend with in us, and what kind of parents we would be likely to be, who we truly are. I liked her words, because they exonerated me from doing wrong with my daughter. I felt I stood on more solid ground with this concept.
But now here I am, on the other side of the fence – speaking judgmentally toward B. Not even having the courage or integrity to speak to him myself about it. Never having said a thing to either him or his wife as I witnessed, with some level of discomfort, parenting “errors” over the years. And I spoke to others about them back then – others who knew the family and who may have been influenced by my thoughts in a negative way.
All of this feels terrible. I would like to be a different person that the one I have been in the past …as recent as last week.
I know we all grow and change. I don’t feel it would be helpful or kind at this point to share the way I behaved in relation to B. All I can really do is recognize this behavior within myself and make a different choice in the future.
To be clear, B was not harming his child. He was simply making a different parental decision than I would.
I have more to say about changing patterns.
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8 hummingbird way 