Parenting Without Going Crazy

HEART TO HEART by Liew Chin Leag@ Kumara Bhikkhu, ven.

From time to time, people come to me for advice on parenting, despite the fact that I have zero parenting experience. It suggests that they’ve gotten pretty frustrated.

I try my best, but eventually I realize that the best for me is to draw from my experience of being parented. So let me start by telling you about my mother. (I’m sure she’s going to freak out when she reads this.)

My Mother as an Exemplary Parent

My mother has never read any book or attended any course on parenting. Yet, she has been an amazing parent. She has never spoiled or overprotected us. In fact, as soon as I was capable of doing certain household chores, she had me do them. She has also never made us feel small or like a failure. Neither has she ever been controlling. She is authoritative without being authoritarian. For example, when she learnt that I bullied my brother, she was sure to make me see that what I did was wrong. But I’ve never felt that she was controlling, or that she loved me less.

Amazing, isn’t she?

It amazes me even more when I consider her childhood. When she was just one year old, her mother died. Her father lived till she was in her 20s but was mostly absent, and was moreover (in my mother’s own words) “a gambler and womaniser”. You might say she had a bad childhood.

After her mother’s death, she bounced among houses of relatives on her mother’s side, till she was old enough to be schooled, which she was—as a live-in janitor-student. 

When she reached secondary school age, she and her sister lived with their eldest brother in a rented room. During that time, she had to help out in housework and run errands for his tailoring business. Three years later, he had enough money for them to move into a house. All went fairly well until he got married. His wife made things uncomfortable enough for my mother and her sister to move out and take shelter in someone else’s house again.

When she told us these stories, she never seemed bitter about them. She seems to have taken all that in stride.

Having read much about how one’s childhood influences one’s adulthood, I have been amazed at how someone with that kind of childhood, someone who was hardly parented, could become such a good parent. How’s that possible?

Eventually, I have to conclude that she must have a great deal of innate wisdom. I have no other explanation.

You Need to Be Wise

Now back to parenting advice. In short, you need to be wise.

I believe a lot of parents get into parenting problems because they don’t really think for themselves about what works and what doesn’t. With little or no awareness, they just do what their parents did, or the complete opposite of that, because they hated it. My mother naturally never had that issue as a parent. Her condition forced her to think for herself. In other words, she had to rely on her own wisdom.

Our childhood has a profound effect on us. We came to this world not knowing anything. As such, we depended on our carers—who for most of us were our parents—to introduce us to this world. Compared to them, we were nothing. And so, we naturally we looked up to them, expecting them to know better. And usually that’s the case, but parents may also know wrongly, and act wrongly.

Due to our ignorance as little children, we couldn’t be sure whether what our parents did was wrong or right. Yet, no matter what, we had to live with them, and with what they do. In that situation, we in our ignorance naturally formed ideas that agree with our experience. E.g., if our parents criticized us a lot, we would then naturally form ideas about ourselves that agree with their criticisms.

Then, when we become parents, we still carry those ideas, and act them out in the way we parent. For example, my father was very critical towards me and my siblings when we were young, and through my mother I learnt that he himself, besides his siblings, was much criticized by his father too. I don’t think he was aware that he was doing what his father did, and I don’t think he was aware how hurtful it was, because he has forgotten. Yet that didn’t stop him from acting that way, because he still bore the ideas formed in his mind when he was young.

Revisit Your Childhood 

I’d like to invite you to try revisiting your childhood, and see if you can find a connection with what you’re experiencing now as a parent. Chances are you’ll find something. When you do, you may feel like you are at that age again, complete with any unpleasant feelings felt then. Try to let it be, reminding yourself that feelings are just feelings, thoughts are just thoughts. If they are overwhelming, just take a walk till you feel somewhat settled.

Just doing this itself would be very helpful. But if you can’t find anything relevant, that’s okay. More help is on the way.

Have you ever seen yourself reacting to things beyond what is called for? I have, and whenever I manage to really look into it, I’ve always found that it’s based on an unresolved childhood issue. The behaviour happened because something in me got triggered. To be free from repeating that behaviour, I have to undo that underlying issue within me.

I believe this is the same with parenting issues. They are actually childhood issues. By undoing our childhood issues, we undo not only our parenting issues, but a host of issues plaguing us as adults.

There’s too much to say on the how here, so let me recommend you this book: Reinventing Your Life by Jeffrey Young & Janet Klosko. It’s a readable and very helpful book by two psychotherapists, introducing the concept of how our childhood schemas continue to affect our adult life, and provides specific proven steps on how to be free of them.

Earlier, I suggested that you revisit your childhood to find a connection with what you’re experiencing now as a parent. If you can’t do that, this book will likely make that possible. I highly recommend it.

It will require you to change certain behaviours that you’ve gotten used to. Please don’t underestimate the importance of this. If you can’t change at a physical level, what chance have you to change at a mental level? And if you find your mind resisting even the idea of changing that, make a deal with it: say, “Let’s try for just one month and see.”

Much Work to Be Done

To be frank with you, there’s much work to do. But let me assure you: You will feel grateful each time you notice improvements. You will be glad you made the effort. You may even think, “Why didn’t I do this earlier!”

Not only is there much work to be done, some of it can be dreadful. So, there may be occasions that you simply don’t want to continue, and that’s okay. Take a break, but don’t quit.

Old patterns are quite self-perpetuating, and so are not easy to undo. Therefore you need to be persistent in your efforts.

Conclusion

Sometimes parenting can be hellish. But the hell is in your own mind. You have the power to take the hell out of it. So, will you do it?

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of citra.guru editorial team.