Stopped at the border

Several months back, one of my kids decided to take a trip with her (then) boyfriend to visit his parents in the States. She had just gotten her passport, and she was excited about meeting his folks. Everything was fine ... until they reached the border. 

The standard questions revealed that she had no job or schooling to come back to ... and the border guards promptly kept her on the Canadian side of the border while allowing her boyfriend through ... and they wouldn't let him come back to Canada. They told him to go home. 

In five minutes, her plans were foiled in spite of both of their protests. The rules were the rules; she was a risk of immigration fraud and they were sending her back home. She called us from the border ... and we hopped in the vehicle and traveled the 7 hours to get there and pick her up, and the 7 hours back were spent in pretty much total silence. It took her weeks to get over that incident.

Rejection. No matter what the source is, it hurts. 

It hurts even worse when the rejection (or even a perceived rejection) comes from someone who is close to you: a family member, close friend, or respected leader. 

Sometimes, though, the rejection isn't really a rejection at all; it's simply a border. A boundary. 

I've been learning about boundaries the last four years or so; before that, I wasn't even aware they existed and was extremely offended if someone prohibited me from entering a certain portion of his or her life. After all, I let the people I love to walk uninvited into my life, so they should do the same, right?

Wrong. I was wrong to not set up boundaries and protect my own space, and it was wrong of me to assume that they should be as dysfunctional as I. 

I'm still learning - learning to set limits with people, and learning to respect their limits as well. Someone expresses a need for me to change something about the way I do things, and in most cases if I know the reason, I will usually accommodate. 

Sometimes, though, that learning has a few speed bumps. Like last night, in a discussion with a family member, there was something that she asked me to change about my cooking, and I reacted. BADLY. I felt personally attacked and rejected and I lashed out! Then she decided to rub salt in the wound by telling me that I had hurt HER feelings, that my insensitivity (MY insensitivity??) had disappointed her, and then by proceeding to tell me what my reaction was going to be to her assessment of my character as well. 

And she was right. I was furious! 

After she left, I started examining my reactions. They'd been so intense - and what we were discussing was nothing to be that intense about - so I had to wonder what was behind them. In essence, I was looking for the deeper meaning underlying why I was so upset. There had to be more to it than just the surface issue.

Photo, "Businesswoman Asking To Stop"
courtesy of imagerymagic at
www.freedigitalphotos.net

It took me a while to find it. What I discovered was a whole belief system surrounding food, what it meant, (not just sustenance, but love), how I believed family members were supposed to react to something someone prepared for them to eat, and about a tremendous load of what psychologists call "performance anxiety." I had compartmentalized it; I'd found ways around it, like cooking two separate meals for the people in the house or taking things out of the bowl or pot for her use before adding other ingredients that she either didn't like or couldn't have. But this - this was the last straw.

At the heart of it, I felt rejected. I'd already made so many changes to what I cooked, how I cooked it, and even WHERE I cooked it, to accommodate this one person's needs. And now this. It was the tip of an iceberg of accumulated perceived rejections, the existence of which I'd not even been aware. So, naturally, my reaction was not just about the tip of that iceberg, but about the whole thing (even though I wasn't consciously aware of it).

To me, it was the same thing as having my love rejected. And as the saying goes, "Hell hath no fury...." 

To her, it was "only one thing." She didn't understand my reaction and was hurt by it. To me, it was "every last thing." I was wrong to react the way I did, lashing out like that. Human behavior sometimes baffles me - especially my own - but it proves I'm human!

And sometime today, I'll have a talk with her, tell her I'm sorry for lashing out, and explain what I was thinking. 

As for my belief system about food ... hmmm. It's tied into how I was raised, and into my own brain systems surrounding reward and punishment. It took a long time for me to develop these beliefs.

That will take a little longer to fix. But at least now I am aware of it. That's progress.

Parenting is not an Olympic event

I was reading an interesting and thought-provoking article posted on a social media site today about parenting. Specifically, it was about how we in today's society are making parenting harder than it was for our parents when we were kids. 

This is something we've noticed often in the last twenty-odd years. It's almost as though parents today are afraid of each other and / or trying to outdo each other in an effort to not be seen as "bad parents." 

When I was a child, only the rich could afford to put their kids into sports, or get them more than one Christmas present, or have birthday parties for their kids, much less make them into themed ones. We were fortunate to get ONE birthday present. And I remember distinctly that my first, last and only birthday party was when I turned 11 years old. (After that fiasco, I cared nothing for them, and still don't.) Now, parents are having full-blown birthday parties for one-year-olds. And they are totally stressing out over them.
 
Seriously?  Those kids are never going to remember their one-year-old birthday party. So the parents go crazy over something so ridiculous as whether they have enough helium or whether they can find the right color Spiderman outfit for the wall decoration. 

I'm sorry for the crickets in the background ... is that the sound of total indifference? 

Memories can be made without going
over the top...

I'm not saying we shouldn't have birthday parties for our kids. Far from it - making a big deal about the anniversary of the day they took their first breath is a worthwhile endeavor and making memories surrounding times like that can really be the stuff of strengthening relationships .... as long as we don't succumb to the "keeping up with the Joneses" mentality perpetrated by parenting magazines, social media, and sitcoms, to name just a few.

I think that we have seen so much in the media regarding the trouble kids can get into through neglect or boredom, that we are paranoid about letting them have any time to themselves. So we go overboard! Every moment has to be scripted. We keep them entertained because - God forbid - they might think of something to amuse themselves that isn't in "the plan". And who knows? that might mean they'd end up in juvenile hall. It is fear and fear alone that keeps us dreaming up new and exciting things for them to do.

But isn't that the point? I know ... I sort of fell into this trap when my kids were small. I found myself sucked into the myth that they had to have something with which to occupy themselves every moment of every day, and before long, they couldn't make a move without checking it with me first - and then I complained and told them that I wasn't their entertainment director. 

Or was I? 

Yes, I did it to myself. I made myself indispensable. I forgot that my main job as a mother was to get my kids to the point where they could be independent from me. Yes, I could support them; yes, I could be there to talk to. However, the cry of "I'm bo-o-ored" needn't have filled me with so much panic. 

I eventually (possibly too late, I'm not sure) learned to say, "You know what? I am sure that you can find something constructive to occupy your time." When I did, that's when I discovered that these kids had talents that I didn't even know about. One excelled at baking. Another developed a penchant for video editing - like for Youtube! Slowly they have learned ways to amuse themselves in socially acceptable ways. And just as slowly I have learned that I don't need to cow-tow to the tyranny of "Should."

And my obsession with controlling everything they did, thought and said got to the point where they actually resented me for it.... and with good reason!

Years later - I had to apologize to them for that. Talk about humbling!

I used to spend my time berating myself because I wasn't as "natural" a parent as the mom up the street who had her two kids organizing their own yard sales at the age of seven and nine. (Mind you - I consoled myself with the fact that all they were learning was to be mercenary and take advantage of their same-age neighbors by foisting their own cast-offs (most of them broken or tattered) to their friends ... for money.) Or, I compared myself to the mothers who were constantly gushing about their kids and about how fulfilling motherhood was. Yeah, I was seriously doubting my suitability for the career of being a mom because I didn't feel like I thought I "Should." (Oh puh-leeze. Now I know better!) 

It's still a sore spot with me - especially when I hear people talking about their parents or their kids like it's the one thing in their life that gives them ultimate fulfillment... as if those who don't feel that way are somehow defective. 

Parenting is not an Olympic event. There are no winners and losers. You can do everything right and your kid can turn out wrong after all. You can do everything wrong and your kid can turn out right in spite of it. 

This is not a competition; it's life. We don't need to be afraid of each other or envious of each other. We need to realize that everyone has the right to have feelings, whatever they are, and everyone has his or her own take on how to raise a child. 

Acceptance and support goes a lot further and carries a lot more weight than condemnation or judgment. After all, we're raising the people that will eventually carry on where we left off and who will pass on their values and skills to the next generation. The last thing we need is to be competing with each other over something that our kids don't even think is important. Or won't remember!

They're not going to remember who gave them what, or how much something cost compared to something else someone else gave them or anyone else. They are not going to care how many organized activities they've had when they get to be adults. What will matter the most to them is whether their mom and /or dad gave them the one commodity that seems to be the most lacking in our busy world: their time - in paying attention to them, to what mattered to them. It's way easier to let someone else take over the responsibility of spending time with our kids when all they really want is OUR attention. When it all boils down, that's what remains. Kids need to know that they are important to US.

I think the most profound commentary I have ever seen about parenting was summed up in a "Family Circus" cartoon I saw once.  It said, "Parents can give their children things ... or time. Time is better!"