Imperfect Catholic Mama

A rainy and cold afternoon where I couldn’t take my daughter out to the park had us at the local indoor play center. This place is amazing! It has a large and small bouncy castle, massive treehouse/jungle Jim, and an awesome itsy bitty village! This village is a couple Streets’ of all the places a little town should have: A post office, fire station, grocery, bakery; you name it!

Every time I go there I reminisce about my childhood and the hours of imaginative play and fun that were had. I also yearn to be 7 years-old again. I would have had a BLAST at this little village with my friends and siblings, and even by myself with my dolls and stuffed animals.

However, being a parent is a call to do just this very thing. To return to our inner child. And this invitation is not just for the benefit of our children, but also for our own benefit too.

Parenthood is an invitation to self-improvement.

Ask any parent and they’ll tell you that parenthood will challenge you in ways you never imagined. It will bring up everything from your past and challenge you to acknowledge it and grow from it. All those emotions, challenges, and memories that you shoved down will be brought to the surface sooner or later, if you are intent on parenting from a place of self-improvement and growth.

Every single parenting book I’ve read in the last year (which is a getting to be a lot) has had many things in common, but the biggest one is that if you want to teach your children to self-regulate and to accept their emotions (rather then stuffing them in the proverbial backpack to be carried around until they explode) then YOU need to self-regulate and accept your own, as well as their, emotions.

Kids learn from watching and imitating us. Not our words alone. If our words do not agree with our actions, kids won’t learn how to self-regulate, conflict resolution, problem solve, etc. This means we can’t just tell them how to behave, we have to show them. And we can’t show them if we don’t know how.

Thus, parenthood is an invitation to acknowledge the child inside us. The one who stuffed their hard emotions in their backpack, the one who avoided conflict and did whatever they had to to maintain “peace”, the one who needs to know that all emotions are valid.

No parent is perfect, and thus we all have something from our childhood that’s going to come up in our own parenting. But this doesn’t have to be something we fear. We can take that invitation to see the inner child that needs some love and attention. And in giving our inner child that love and attention, in acknowledging what we are feeling in the moment and having empathy for ourselves, we are working towards doing that all for our children.

I decided one day that I want my child to feel safe to share ALL her beautiful feelings with me, and that I want to express empathy regardless of how big and hard those feelings are. But if my default with my emotions is to dismiss, shove down, or run away from them, then that will be my default with my child’s emotions.

Simply acknowledging what I feel allows that emotion to by released. Being mindful of what I feel allows me to feel it, but not act on it, as Laura Markham says in Peaceful Parent, Happy kid. And that allows me to acknowledge what my child feels. To help them put a name to it and release it, rather then stuffing it in their backpack to be carried around.

Parenthood Is an Invitation To Play

Few things bring me more joy then watching my child smile, giggle and have a good time. And she does this more when I get down and play with her. And so do I. Making us all happier and fostering our relationship.

As I sit in that itsy bitsy ville I yearn to be a child again. And I can. I can join my child in her play: I can be the postmistress delivering the mail; the grocery store owner ringing up the groceries, the customer at the bake shop. Sure my 1-year-old doesn’t yet engage in this imaginative play, but one day she will. And if I want to get down and play with her in 7 years, then I need to start getting down and playing with her now.

It takes effort to get down and play with them, but it is always rewarding! I stop looking at the clock, waiting for my husband to get home, my child stops driving me crazy, and we are both happier. Enjoying the time connecting, laughing and being together.

A Return to Childlikeness

This invitation to our inner child becomes very prominent once you become a parent. I’ve not had to address so many emotions or had such a desire to be a child before becoming a parent. But that invitation is still calling to those who aren’t parents.

Whether you are single, married, expecting, or have several kids, this invitation is there. Before you can express empathy and love to others you need to start with yourself, because your self default will become your outward default.

Whether or not you hope to be a parent one day, you improve all past, present, and future relationships, by treating yourself with the empathy you want to show others, and being mindfully present to your daily activities. Accepting your hard emotions allows you to accept others and while the dishes can’t tell whether or not your mind is present, your child sure can.