I'm not sure what's harder, being a parent or being a child. And I don't just mean whilst a young child. Navigating the ever changing relationship between ourselves and our parents/children is difficult. The boundaries are as shifting and as changing as the world we live, because the world we live in is the same.
I generally feel I live in a different world to my parents, not a different time, an actual different world. I know I live in a different world to my three year old daughter and I feel it's my job to keep it that way for as long as possible.
The old cliché is that you understand what your parents were on about when they spoke of the love a parent can have for a child when you have children yourself. Whilst this may be true it may not always come in a warm glow as you finally understand an accept your parents love as you bask in the all consuming version of it for your own children.
Often it can shine a light on the cracks, the deficiencies, the fallibilities, the humanity of our own parents. There is something evolutionary about this. I already hope that if my young kids decide to have their own one day, that they are better at it than me. I hope that for all things, I hope they are happier than me, funnier than me, better looking than me, wealthier than me, because, of course, I want it all for them (no pressure girls).
Through our ages and stages of life our relationship with our parents and children is pulled and stretched like a rubber band. Sometimes twisted, sometimes relaxed, sometimes holding things together, often risking snapping beyond repair and often pulling us back together simply by its nature.
I'm struck that as it's something so many people seem to 'just do', the suggestion that working through family dynamics in a manageable way should almost be easy. For many of us, it either works or it doesn't. And if it doesn't we will accept the relationship for the way it is and allow it to shape our lives accordingly.
But what if we didn't just accept it? What if we actively tried to work on it and make it work for all of us? Not everyone may be willing to come to the table but those that do and may be willing to consider change, a new way of doing things may just have some impact on the others.
It's not easy. That first step of actually voicing discontent with the status quo is hard and fraught with risk. Finding the right person to guide you through that process and help you discover ways to unlock doors long closed can itself be complicated, but an impartial guide in these things can be invaluable.
How much of 'family life' right now is how you would want it to be? Is your relationship with your parents or your child/ren as you'd always hoped? If not, what are the conversations you would have if you could? What is stopping you from having those? And how open are you to change when it presents itself to you?
When things are tense taking a different perspective, a perspective maybe held by your parent or child, and really sitting with it, can give us a chance to reassess our evaluation of intent and meaning by that person. This can help us have the same old conversation in a different way. We need not compromise our views or our position but we may seek to alter theirs with more care, compassion and empathy, understanding the cost and being grateful that they will pay it for us.
If my parents do live in a different world to me, it's maybe unkind to ask them to spend time in mine as much as it is unreasonable for them to expect me to be able to apply the rules of theirs to my own. If we can understand this together then we can better understand the all new world we may leave behind for my children and maybe do a better job still of our relationships with them.
Families can be hard, it's what often makes them worthwhile. They contain dualities in relationships and actions we find less often in other areas of our lives. Opposite and contradicting emotions or decisions can both be right (and therefore wrong) at the same time. The urge to hold each other close and let each other go in the same instant can so often be overwhelming.
Sometimes, slowing things down, separating the thoughts and hearing each other again can make all the difference.
It comes with exposure and with risk. It requires trust and patience.
Sometimes slowing things down and hearing ourselves can really help too.
Often we can do both things at once, because we allow it of each other because we have allowed each other to be, in that moment, both parent and child, to be family.
Sometimes we can just hold them close...
...and let them go
