Dear Families,
The Courage to Let Go
“Like God, new parents are miracle makers. When children are tiny babies, we vigilantly monitor everything that goes into their mouths and comes out their bottoms. We make sure they aren’t hungry or thirsty, and we provide constant protection and care. But as our children mature, we need to withdraw from smoothing their path and satisfying all their wishes...By continuing to make miracles on demand, we are unwittingly slowing down the development of our children’s strength.”
~Wendy Mogel, The Blessing of a Skinned Knee
From the first days of parenting we enter a mindset of protection. We research the safest crib and car seat, the toys and gadgets that claim they will spur our children’s development, and the best methods for introducing food and teaching them to sleep. We learn their individual needs—what sounds and motions are most soothing to them, what routines are most effective, and eventually what their unique interests and passions may be. All of this is deeply biological, as our most primitive instincts drive us not only to keep our children safe but to do all we can to ensure that they thrive. This very powerful and important motivation naturally leads to a feeling that it is our job to control the world around our children in order to create an environment that is not only safe but perfectly tuned to their needs. The challenge of this entirely natural desire to keep our children from harm and set them up for success is that, in most instances, it is not actually possible for us to control all of the variables and experiences that impact our children. We can, as a result, sometimes come to feel that our own success or failure as parents hinges on our ability to control the uncontrollable.
Last week, I wrote about the hurdles we encounter in our relationships with children, as we try to determine when they need us to reinforce boundaries and the sense of safety that comes from knowing that adults are in control and when they need to test their own limits and feel the power of their own ability to exert control. However, there is another tension that plays out as we navigate the appropriate limits of our adult control, which is not about the control we exert over children, but rather the control we exert over their experiences and over the ways in which the world around them touches their lives. This is, perhaps, an even greater challenge, for there is so much in the world that we cannot predict, let alone prevent or reshape for our children. Creating a perfect childhood is in fact an unattainable bar to set for ourselves as parents. And yet it can be profoundly difficult and even painful to come to terms with the fact that there is much in our children’s lives we cannot control, and the range of experiences that are beyond the limits of our adult powers expands as our children get older and their lives become both more their own and more complex.
In addition to the impossibility of controlling the many ways in which the world will touch our children’s lives, there is also the very critical need to allow our children the experiences that will ultimately enable them to feel confident and competent in responding to challenges and to the unexpected themselves. For the challenges we all face often feel too big to overcome when we first encounter them, and yet we manage to find our way. One of the greatest gifts we can give to our children is the knowledge that they have within them the strength and the agility to respond to all that life sends their way, good and bad, big and small.
So does all of this mean that we should not try to protect our children or that we should not try to make the best choices for their happiness and wellbeing? Of course not. It is our job as parents to make the most positive choices possible for our children whenever we can. But an aspect of this work is at times allowing ourselves to take a step back rather than a step forward, to let an obstacle rise up even when every instinct may be telling us to clear the path, and to let our children know that we see their frustrations and their fears, but we also see their abilities and their bravery. For ultimately it is not possible for us to be the architects of our children's lives, but we can be their cheerleaders and their partners. We cannot reshape every curve in the road, but we can help our children to know that they can meet whatever may be around the bend, and we can offer our hand when they need to know that they are not alone. For we all need that sometimes.
Shabbat shalom,
Alicia
P.S. Please RSVP here for PLC Night next week. We look forward to seeing you there and learning together about the many ways in which navigating control and power is central to our work with children.