Today, my therapist asked me if there was anything I wanted to talk about before we picked up from last time. I said no. Then I said, “Well, maybe one little thing.” And then I talked about it for the entire session. 

See, there was a time, approximately 16 years into parenting, when I discarded the playbook and decided to do something utterly radical: help my children believe in themselves, trust their guts, and follow their own wild, weird, wending paths, wherever they may lead. And this may not sound radical to you. You might be, like, “Yeah, Beth. Duh.” But to me? This girl raised in the Dr. Dobson Strong Willed Child era of parenting? This human right here who thought the only real parenting instruction was in the Bible, listed under “spare the rod and spoil the child?” This little evangelical to whom Good Behaviour and Responsibility and Obeying the Parents and the Church were the only remedies for Such a Worm as I? The idea of discarding all of that was RADICAL, I tell you. Revolutionary. 

And it felt very risky. 

Like, *what am I doing gambling with my children’s lives* kind of risky.

See, when you’ve been promised that, if you’ll only stay with the program and follow the rules and do as you’re told, you’ll raise happy, healthy children into productive adults…when you’ve been lured into that White Van with sweets…it’s brutal to turn away, experimentally, with nothing guaranteed at all. 

 But there was a niggling thought that wouldn’t go away, and a beacon beckoning. “What if?” it kept asking. “What if your kids’ hearts are a better metric than their behavior?” And, “what if your kids’ dreams are a better touchstone than the Rod?” And, “what if their gut is the only compass that points toward happiness?” And, finally, the big what-ifs I couldn’t shake, “What if your kids aren’t worms at all? What if they’re not mired in sin? What if they are good to the core?” All questions St. Augustine and Dr. Dobson would abhor. All questions the American evangelical machine would find reprehensible and a sure path to hell. 

The questions circled and circled, stirred as they were by love, under which fear and shame wither and melt away. 

So, I shifted the way we operated as a family. I took the Big Risk. I put all my chips on my kids, and I slowly (slooooowly) learned to trust them. Their hearts. Their motives. Their needs and wants and wishes and hopes. Abby, my oldest, will happily let you know I became better at it over time. She was subjected to more of the Old Way than her youngest siblings, our twins. They have freedoms she didn’t. They have fewer rules. They get to collaborate where she was forced to follow. To adhere. To obey. It’s not fair, but it’s true. Abby has received an outsized portion of the apologies I’ve offered to my kids because most were owed to her. 

And guess what? My kids are marvellous humans who know who they are and what they need and how to advocate for themselves and others. They know what is good: to act justly, to love mercy, to walk humbly in the light of truth. (A paraphrasing of Scripture by this heathen.) And, oddly, although Good Behavior and Responsibility weren’t emphasized, they’ve mastered those, as well, just intrinsically motivated rather than rod- and fear-inspired.

But. But but but but but but but. There is one of my children who struggles in ways the others don’t. One of my babies who had a rough start to life and experiences significant intellectual and communication disabilities. One of my babies whose autism drives them to confusion, trying to parse an abstract, complex world using a concrete mind. One of my babies who hasn’t grasped the “Good Behaviors” or “Responsibilites” of basic adulthood like regular hygiene. Or keeping their space free of grime. Or completing a task without constant supervision. This child, although living with adult peers, is, I believe, lonely. Isolated. At least a little adrift. And the implications for this child regarding health, happiness, safety, and security frighten me. 

I wonder what I suspect every honest parent wonders: is this my fault? Did I cause this? Was my grand parenting experiment, while beneficial for most of my children, harmful to this one? And then I think, yes. I have failed this child. I am solely responsible for this person. I did this, and now my child suffers and will most likely die friendless and alone, in filth and squalor. I should’ve been more on top of things. I should’ve buckled down on Responsibility, and I should’ve emphasized its companions, Hard Work, Grit, and Follow-Through. What was I doing? What was I thinking? And my “what ifs” for this child morph quickly into “if onlys.” 

Here’s what I have to say about that: thank the Light for therapy, friends. Because these are the questions, the statements–the “maybe one little thing”–I posed to my therapist. 

See, we’ve been talking about compassion and kindness lately. I am working (and working and working and working) on believing for myself what I already know-to-my-bones for you: that I am worthy of love exactly as I am. That my value is never measured by productivity. That “Good Behavior” and “Responsibility”, especially as measured by subcultural constructs like evangelicalism, aren’t values, but are simply false metrics for conformity. That I’m not “lazy”, even when my inner critic decides to regale me with all the things I’ve left undone. That that inner critic, as stern and unyielding as she is, is trying in her own darling way to protect me because, somewhere along the way (probably myriad places along the way), I received the message that failing to produce more, do more, be more, and give more are directly tied to whether I deserve love. Whether I’ve earned rest. Whether I matter. So, when the inner critic doubles down, chastising and excoriating me, she’s endeavoring to shield me from feeling worthless. 

I’m still in the process, in other words, of shedding that OG parenting playbook. I mean, I discarded it for my kids, but I’m clinging to it for parenting myself. And I’m wondering if I did that one child of mine a profound disservice by scrapping it too soon. 

That’s when my therapist grabbed the reins of my runaway horse, galloping toward self-flaggelation. She pulled me back. She reminded me of the big picture. 

She reminded me that I provided for my children’s safety, stability, and basic needs. She reminded me that I created safety for emotions and differences. She reminded me that there are a LOT of factors that contribute to this particular child’s challenges and that superimposing a harsher parenting tactic on top of this child’s trama, their disabilities, their neurodiversity, their executive functioning, so that they might DO *clap* MORE *clap* WORK *clap* and CONFORM *clap* FASTER *clap* perhaps, might, just maaaaaaybe have added to the harm rather than solving any problems at all. She hinted that my inner critic could be thanked for her tireless work attempting to protect me and now my child, but that I have a handle on the sitch and she could maybe take a break. 

My therapist reminded me that I can reframe my fears as just that. “I’m afraid my child’s isolation is my fault. I’m afraid I failed this child. I’m afraid I parented all wrong. I’m afraid any suffering my child is experiencing is my sole responsibility.” Fears can be acknowledged, friends, without being true.

And then my therapist reminded me of some core truths, which I share now with you–TO you, FOR you–in case you, like me, desperately need to hear them today:

You are not the sole factor influencing your child’s life. 

You worked hard–SO HARD–at the hardest job there is. 

You will continue to navigate the impossibly complex landscape of your baby’s life and help them for as long as they will let you.

You will love them for all eternity.

You did a good job.

You did a good job.

You did a good job. 

Waving in the Dark,

 

 

P.S. That job you did? It was good.