The relationship that we have with our children evolves over time. If we have had a conscious birth, the bonding between mother and child begins instantly. In many cases, a mother establishes a relationship with her child while she is still in utero. The earliest months, though often fraught with interrupted sleep and sometimes fussy or colicky babies, are for the most part, a joyous time. Parents are thrilled as each milestone is reached – smiling, crawling, walking, and talking. As a child approaches the toddler stage, her individuality and personality begin to come forth. During adolescence, the parent’s role is one of guidance and discipline. When the child reaches puberty, they can often become strangers, even to themselves. Slowly, but surely, they begin to navigate their way into adulthood. When the child heads out on their own, either on to college or their own apartment, or even marriage, the parent must let go. Their role of guide and protector has come to an end. Depending on those formative years, the ongoing relationship between parent and child will either begin to mature, or deteriorate into estrangement.
Oftentimes, even while raising their own children, parents are still growing and learning, themselves. It has been said that nearly every family is dysfunctional, but that is a modern term much too readily applied to anyone who is facing challenges. The truth is, life is hard. Parents want to shield their children from pain and difficulty, but it is those very difficulties that help them to grow. I have learned through the years, and I might add, often the hard way, I cannot fix the messes that my children have created for themselves. I have come to realize that simply loving them and praying for them and being a listening presence, is the greatest gift that I can give them.
Helping my children to grow into healthy and happy adults was one of the most difficult tasks that I have faced. The rewards; however, have finally arrived. In this unexpected revelation, I realized that I have helped my daughters to hone their own special gifts. I had always tried to heed the wisdom of Kahlil Gibran, from The Prophet: “…You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth…” In recent years I have come to know my daughters as friends, as soul sisters among my other women friends. It has only been recently and now that my daughters are becoming grandmothers themselves, that I am able to have deeper conversations with them. Subjects that never would have been broached with them in the past are now out in the open between us. They have taught me that I no longer need to harbor the shame or guilt that my mother’s and my grandmother’s generations took to the grave. We can talk about spirituality, god, gardening, politics, men…
When they were babies, our hearts and souls connected as tiny seeds in the soft, warm earth. Now after years of nurturing those seeds, we can raise our faces together, towards the sun.
