I Just Told My Kid to F*ck Off.....

I just told my kid (in my head, not out loud) to fuck off and leave me alone.  Oh yes, I did. 

There’s nothing that will make you (or me) madder than a 4 year old; and there’s nothing that will make you (or me) feel more love for anyone on the planet than a 4 year old.  Fuck.

I can’t control her.  I don’t want to control her.  I want to control her.  Sometimes.  I don’t want to control her.  Most times.

What I really want to control, is how I feel.  Because it’s the only thing I can control.

I can try to assert my authority on her.  I can make her do what I want.  I can bully her into a corner and say, “because I said so”.  She is smaller and younger than me, afterall.  ……But that’s not the way I want to parent. 

I can make all kinds of rules from my out-of-controlness; from my needing or wanting to control her, but that’s not what I want to do either…although I think I do when I’m in the middle of a “situation” where all I want to do is scream and make her behave the way I want her to behave…cuz it’s just sooooo much easier and manageable when she does.

Adults, in general, have learned to “perform”. 

We’ve been taught to be nice and we’ve been rewarded for being polite and patted on the back for cooperating and eating all of the food on our plates.   We’ve  acclimated to what was expected or demanded from us as children (mostly) and we behave modem automatic.  And certainly, it feels better to love, to cooperate and to be nice (mostly) than to say “fuck you” in the face of someone.  But…..

We also “act” nice, rather than feel nice.

We also “act” polite rather than feel polite.

We do things; we say things, we be ways…because it’s the “right” thing to do.

We are responsible, because we should be and we were taught to be.

………

Our 4 year old hasn’t learned that.  And I’m happy about that….mostly.

I want our child to feel nice and to be nice and to feel cooperative and to be cooperative because she’s inspired to and not because she has to be because I told her to be.

I want her to integrate into her classroom and I want people to like her; but not because she’s always the way someone else wants her to be. 

I don’t want her to act appropriately because it’s what someone else wants.  I want it to be her desire, in her own way.

  

I want her to be authentically her; cooperative or not. 

Nice or not.

Polite or not.

Bold or not.

Aligned or not.

And I want her to let that be ok.

And I want to let that be ok; no matter how it reflects on me.

I want her to reach for what feels better to her; not to someone else…even me.

And while that makes for what seems like more complicated parenting, I feel that in the long term, she’ll be more guided by her own terms, rather than from others.

I don’t want her to behave in ways that people need her to just because they need her to.

I want her to first, follow her guidance, regardless of what I, or anyone else wants her to be doing in the moment, and be inspired from that place.

I want her to know that it’s not about controlling the people or the conditions around her; it’s an inside job about how she wants to, and chooses, to feel.

I know…it seems like parenting should be about telling your child what to do and having her do it. 

It seems as though you should want your child to behave in public so as not to disturb other people.

It seems as though as a parent, you’re the boss and your child should listen to you.

It seems as though you want your child to be liked and to behave because that reflects on you.

It seems as though you should control your child because you’re older and wiser and damn it, it’s just easier if she does whatever you need or want her to do.

But…at what expense?

Is that really “teaching” her anything?

What if she’s here to teach me?

What if she’s here to be uncontrollable so that I can finally “get it” that it’s not about controlling other people, even my child, but rather, it’s about knowing that I can control how I feel regardless of who’s doing what?  Regardless of what’s going on around me….

Because isn’t that really all we can control????  

This is my 6th post as part of the #braveblogging project by Illana Burk, makenessmedia.com

No bullshit.  No tactics.  No upsells.  Just expressing bravely.  And fuck fear :)