One of the BIG challenges to being a parent is facing those tough, uncomfortable, inquisitive, personal questions that eventually come from our children. While when they are young, it may be elusive questions like “Where does God live?” and “Where do babies come from?”, as our children get older, the questions become more sophisticated and force us to take a good, hard look at who we are, what our own belief system is and what we stand for…
I don’t think that any other life experience forces us to face our flawed, inconsistent humanity in the same ways that parenting does. I realize this is just my opinion, but I don’t care if a person has had two decades of the most expensive therapy around, being a parent pushes us to see our dark sides, the depth of our devotion, experience unconditional and troubling love, and all sorts of other life-altering and expanding experiences that nothing else inspires.
So, when our kids ask us about our mistakes, our heartbreaks, our failures and call on us to confront our personal flaws, we are truly in uncharted waters–our kids are daring us to be impeccably honest and transparent and that can be incredibly tough! We all work so hard at putting our best face forward and work to be “better people.” The last person we want to see our raw, flawed self is our child–and, yet, that’s just what the occasion calls for.
Since I’m still in the thick of things, like most of you, I’m not sure what the eventual outcome of all this pushing, pulling and parenting is. I’d like to think that by having the courage to face the tough questions, I’m giving my kids a chance to truly know me as a complete person and that I’m participating in the lessons and opportunities for personal growth that parenting offers. To be honest, I’m not always truly thrilled about this. I much prefer my fantasy image of myself as the cool, collected, perky mother to the raw exposure of the “real me” that my kids’ prompting and probing has produced. But, at the root of things, they deserve my honesty, and they deserve to expect that I will be able to rise to the challenge and dig in to face those tough questions.
See Also: Letting Go of Guilt and The Fantasy Mom or Dad