The resistance is real

Those who say that you understand your parents better the minute you become a parent yourself, are not wrong.

I have only been on this journey for a few years and I understand certain actions of the people who raised me. Dr Daniel Amen once said that “God gave us parents until our frontal lobes developed.” This means that God puts us in our kids’ lives so that we can nurture and guide them until they are mature enough to make their own decisions. But it gets very difficult to do because kids have their own minds. Even though they are our babies, they came with their own personalities. 

As parents, before we even have our kids, we already imagined the lives that we want for them. It’s difficult not to do this, because they came from us and we want the best for them. So, the minute they get her, we try our best to fit these kids into the frame that we already created for them. And it probably works when they are babies, but the minute they can speak, it often feels like there is a constant struggle between the idea we have of them and the choices and path that they decide to chart for themselves. Sometimes, it is frustrating to see the will power in these kids.

Now, I look at my little girl and how much sway she has over everything, how insistent she is on certain things and the boundaries she pushes. I take it all in and I think back at the people who raised me. How frustrated it must have been for them at the time, for me to be so audacious to even think of doing things my own way. Even though I see a lot of my mums’ influence in my life now, I had to create my own path to adapting that wisdom to my life.

I just hope that I am firm enough to guide my kids on the right values, but patient enough to allow them to adapt to the way that fits their own person. I hope that I understand my power to truly create the lens through which they see the world, but also hold space for them to step outside in their true self to view it from a different perspective.  

These are not easy things to do. 

I just hope we open ourselves up to learn ways to do it.