I'm not the parent I want to be

This post's title is almost exactly the same as one I wrote several years ago: I'm not the parent I thought I would be.

I wrote that old article very much as a new parent with very small kids. The values I held then are still there, of course. But now, with kids in mid childhood, I'm more and more conscious of my shortcomings as a mother. And this blog is my thinking out loud space - it's not meant as a place to show off and appear perfect in every way, but a real record of where I'm at. And this is where I am today: feeling inadequate, ill equipped, not enough.

I so desperately want to do right by them

There's never been a time in my life before where I desperately wanted to do something well but kept failing, yet continued on. If I couldn't be good at something despite trying for a while, I'd just give up and walk away. Maths comes to mind... though I was never passionate about that, just had to pass the class somehow. Or playing instruments - I never had a passion to play anything, even though I had a natural talent, and so I never became good at it. I walked away.

Come to think of it now, maybe there's never been anything in my life I've been all that passionate about getting right. My great passion before marriage and kids was (and is), of course, Jesus - but one of the first things I learned in that relationship is that he has so much grace, and when I don't get it right he never walks away; so I am secure in that, I can rest in the safety of his unconditional love. With Mr. as well, I can love him freely and rest in the knowledge that he loves me back; but we are equals, his life and future aren't in my hands to shape. On the other hand, with my kids, I know what it is to desperately want to get it right and the stakes being extremly high - their lives, their future! - and failing often. 

Why does it feel like I'm failing? 

With little babies and toddlers I felt in my element, their needs were simple and straightforward... it was relentless, hard work but I never felt I wasn't meeting their needs. Watching them grow so quickly, being with them as they discovered their world was the most amazing time.

Now though, their needs are more complex and I feel less in tune with those. I guess as they grow in independence, the kids just need me differently and I'm struggling to go there. For example, D(7) often asks me to listen and enter into his interests - action heroes, Minecraft - and I struggle to enter in, to not glaze over. He keeps inviting me in, telling me about it, and I just.... can't. My brain doesn't seem to have the capacity.

With N(9) I feel this distance even more keenly. She doesn't often invite me in these days. Sometimes we do have deep conversations - about the other kids on her Football team, her worries and fears - but generally she seems to have got the message that I'm not going to enter into her world. So she just gets on with it. I'm really worried that when she gets to her teens she won't come to me if she's in trouble, but will try to sort it out herself and keep it away from me! Case in point, the other day she accidentally broke a brand new dressing up hat, and she went to Mr. to tell him in secret: she didn't want me to know. Because she expected me to be angry at her instead of sad with her. This made it very clear that I've handled things wrong in the past - I'm not her safe place to run to, and I recognise that is dangerous. 

If I've learned anything from my own childhood though it's that nothing is forever set in stone: I can change this, and I must. As the adult in the relationship, I have to take responsibility for where we are today and make the changes. I often think of the depth of relationship Our Lady had with Jesus when he was 12 and thought he knew it all... when she asked him to stay and submit to her for a bit longer, and he did. Because he trusted her, because the relationship was so strong that she had the clout to be able to ask this of him. That's where I need to get to with N... and with D too, as we come up to the preteen and teen years.

So what needs to change?

In early 2022 I wrote a post, Reclaiming My Attention - I've struggled with balance in my digital life for many years, since before the kids were born; thanks, smartphones. But what I've come to realise over the past few years is that the issue is way deeper than that. Even as a child, my face was forever in a book. I stayed out of the life around me, living the book adventures in my head instead. I know that if smartphones weren't a thing, I'd be just as distracted and disconnected - just using different means! So the smartphone isn't the root cause, although it's definitely contributing to the distraction I live with on a daily basis... but the real problem is my need, my habit, that I brought with me from a traumatic childhood, to disconnect from my surroundings when I'm uncomfortable or bored or when things feel difficult. When D wants me to watch his Ninja moves for the umpteenth time, yes I might avoid that by pulling out my smartphone, but if I didn't have it then I'd probably have a book or a chore to attend to instead: the problem is that I want to get away instead of entering in, and the means by which I do it is just a superficial issue.

At this point, I have changes to make - I have to turn this ship, particularly my relationship with N. Tinkering around the edges and worrying about my smartphone use is not fixing the root problem, which is that I hide from relationship when it gets messy or doesn't go my way. I must change. Deo juvante.