Everyone has their own parenting style and I am in no way trying to inflict mine on anyone. A friend of mine sent me an article about an episode of Oprah where a 3 year old girl has shocking issues with her self esteem. She is obsessed with her looks, she is afraid of being fat so does not eat and must wear lipstick to feel ok. I just can’t stop thinking about it. As a parent our roles and influences as parents are so daunting sometimes I lie awake at night in sheer horror, as I am sure all of you have experienced.
As potential parents, we worry about having “babies” because we fear we won’t know how to handle a floppy infant, sleepless nights and diaper duty. But honestly, how many times do you think therapists diagnose severe diaper rash as the cause of emotional breakdowns and depression? What we really need to worry about is how to make our children into healthy adults. As new parents, we don’t immediately think of the things that will affect our children’s emotional health down the road, we think of the needs that need to be met right now, like food, laundry, bath, getting to school on time, not missing a doctor’s appointment, etc.
But our most important job as parents is to make sure they are emotionally well and mentally capable of handling the cruel world out there. We need to ensure that they are well adjusted, confident and filled with knowledge that will make them successful in our society. How do we do that? If I knew the answers I’m sure someone would give me a book deal. No book deal and no definitive answers, I’m just rambling about my own thoughts and fears on this subject. My husband and I were friends for a long time before we became romantic. We were the kind of friends who talked about everything, I told him about my worst fear (not being able to meet “the one” before my eggs expired), my traumatic break-up with a long term boyfriend, my troubles with my girlfriends and how my mom gives me pressure from all sides on everything (as a mom, now I understand). This talk about my mom lead to a very interesting topic, how parents take out their life experiences and troubles on their children. And that was what Dr. Robin, Oprah’s expert, pointed out as the cause for these little girls with self esteem issues. Their moms all have body image issues. They say things like, “I am fat” and “I am ugly” in front of their girls. Not only was it mere words, invariably these moms will unconsciously put into action these values, such as keeping their daughters from eating “too much” to avoid getting fat (I don’t want my daughter to get fat like me) and dressing them in a way that they were not able to dress when they were young (My mom never bought me nice clothes). It is so dangerous to use your kids to make up for your own life’s shortcomings. And that was the one thing my husband said to me one day that convinced me that I want to have children with him. He said that as a parent, he does not want to dump his life on his children. Let me avoid controversy and a lengthy conversation with his mom by saying, his parents are the most normal people on earth and based on how he turned out it is obvious that they in no way inflicted their views and values on him (they are staunch republicans, ultra conservatives and he is going to vote for Kucinich, that’s just one obvious example of their differences). It was this complete and non-wavering common belief on this subject that made me realize what a strong connection we’ve always had. The reason for us not being romantic from the start was due to my traumatic break-up, but that’s another story. Anyway, my point is, this shared idea was powerful enough to break through all my hangups because without knowing it at the time, I wanted to be this kind of mother, above all else I wanted to be a good mother and deep down I knew this is the way to do it. Do I tell my daughters not to eat too much cake? Yes. Do I dress them cuter than me? Most days. But I always remind myself that every decision I make, I make for them based on what is best for them. I want them to be wholly independent and come up with their own issues and hangups, not recycle mine.