What do I know of parenting that can be of value to you? In 13 years of being a parent, the one advice I can confidently give is that the only way to know what to do is to follow one’s instinct. How does one do that? How does one find the instinct to be followed?
Instinct is like a whisper that needs some silence and lots of patience to be heard. It is definitely not something that can be forced, and that’s a great parenting lesson. Very little can be forced. In fact whatever is forced normally falls right back where it started, like a spring forced into submission and bouncing back to its original shape with even more of a resolve. That doesn’t mean that parenting does not involve teaching or disciplining or guiding the child, but force simply never works in a positive way. Parenting, for me, has been more like following the curves of a flowing brook, flowing along the brook, following its natural journey, while gently correcting its path with a little nudge here and a gentle push there. The hard part is to learn to flow alongside. To find the right pace, to allow the brook to flow naturally and not flow in directions that will please you. The child will be quick to learn what pleases you and will try to follow that to win your approval. That is a child’s foremost and deepest emotional need, probably one of the first needs to arise as soon as awareness sets in. And it’s enough to confuse their minds into making ‘pleasing you’ the goal of their entire lives, forgetting their own callings.
So the idea is to fall in step with these little souls rather than forcing them to fall in step with us. Parenting, in short, is course correction for the parents, and it’s not easy. It’s like a self help book which offers live practice every moment. It’s the best self help book but only if one becomes aware of the learning opportunities it offers. Like any path to self correction, parenting first brings attention to the self, an awareness of the self. With this awareness one finds the instinct, and experience teaches one to trust it more than anything else. This process can be a deeply spiritual experience.
That is what it has been for me and that is what I would like to explore here. While sharing experiences and ideas to uncover and discover the adventure that is being a parent. It is a relationship like none other, with an intensity of love and fierce protection rarely felt elsewhere. The joy of bringing up a soul is unparalleled. Right from the wonder of the little body growing inside, to the teenager growing taller than one self or running faster than you ever could. The wonder of new eyes seeing a moth flying for the first time, to a growing mind that suddenly knows much more about the animal kingdom than you remember teaching. It never ceases to amaze and excite.
Keeping this wonder in our hearts, let us begin to understand a little more about this journey called parenthood.
A mother and yoga practitioner, lover of books and seeker of silence & solitude. 1st Jan 2021
