on the up side

It's a funny kind of up side, and might not sound like one, unless you're an ACON. 

My oldest son is hitting the very beginning edges of puberty. We're not dealing with body odor and hair in strange places and long showers and such yet, but oh, the mood swings. It's bringing me back to when I was his age, and emotion was JUST SO INTENSE, out of the blue. Gotta love those hormones.

I spend a lot of time lately feeling like I am totally failing at this mom stuff. The pre-teen challenges make me feel so, so, SO out of my depth. Babies are easy. You change their diapers and snuggle them and feed them and carry them around and their needs are met. Preschoolers are a little more challenging but you can still keep one step ahead and figure out strategies for handling the tougher days. And there are oodles of books and websites and people in general out there in the world handing out information about little kids and ideas for how to live with them. But this. THIS. I have no idea what to do with preteens and teenagers. I have had no role models for how to be a great parent to a teen. There are very few books about interacting with adolescents and guiding them in a way that jives with how I want to raise my kids. I am SO lost.

Suddenly, kiddo numero uno is very, very, very aware of people all around him. People who can see what he's doing. People who can hear everything he says. People who might be JUDGING him. I can see little adolescent insecurities getting their nasty goblin fingers around his guts. And I know so well, having been that age once myself, that there is no amount of logic that will convince him that other people are not paying close attention to him. That it really doesn't matter what you wear, that you can just get over being insecure and not care.

He and I were in a children's clothing store the other day. This store carries a comfortable brand of underwear that kiddo #1 has been wearing for years. Recently, I have retired some of his underwear because they are worn out or too babyish (airplanes and cartoon moose are a definite no-go now). So I suggested that we pick up a package or two of new ones. He immediately started looking angry and upset.

Me: "what?"
Him: "I don't need any underwear."
Me: "Yes, you do. You don't have enough pairs and some are wearing out."
Him, between his teeth, getting pissed: "I Don't Need Any Underwear."
Me: "We're buying some. You prefer solids, right? No stripes? I know you don't want the other patterns."
Him: "MOM. I Don't. Need. Any. Underwear."

By this time, he looked really mad and he was starting to tear up. Apparently buying underwear is a big deal. I didn't know it was a big deal. Besides, he needs some. I ignored him and went to look through the rack. They were missing his size, so I asked a saleswoman if they had any in the back. She went to look. I turned back to kiddo #1 and his eyes were wide with RAGE and brimming with tears. I was irritated with him. He does need new underwear. He was being unreasonable. What's the big deal? It's just underwear!

What I wanted to say: "OH. MY. GOD. Will you GET OVER IT?!?! NOBODY is looking at you. NOBODY is paying attention to you. NOBODY CARES that your mom is buying underwear for you. It's JUST UNDERWEAR. THIS IS NOT A BIG DEAL."

What I actually said: "Honey, almost everybody buys underwear. There's nothing embarrassing about it. Even that saleswoman probably buys underwear, and sometimes she probably asks people for help. It's not a big deal."

Less than perfectly empathetic, eh?

The saleswoman came back and told me that they were out of his size, so we left. He was fuming. I suppressed the desire to roll my eyes.

But then, as we walked to the car, I suddenly got it. It IS a big deal to talk about or be seen buying underwear in public. Not to me, but to him. This is his reality. And I am not going to be able to logic him out of this. There is not going to be a convincing argument. Because he has hit that age - the age at which everything is embarrassing, especially if your parent is doing it. Oh, god. Are we there already?I thought back to being his age and embarrassed, and said what I think pre-teen me would have wanted to hear: "I'm sorry that that was so embarrassing for you. It didn't occur to me that it would be embarrassing."

After getting to the car, I checked in with him to see if he was still mad. He was, so I waited a while, and after he had cooled off, this is what I said: "So, I'd like to know how I could do things differently so you're not so embarrassed. Right now you don't feel like you need underwear. Sometime in the future you might need new underwear. What kind of plan should we make so that you can let me know what you want, but you don't have to feel embarrassed?"

I realized that my kid is in the perpetually-embarrassed stage, I apologized to him for not getting it, I thought about whether or not it's absolutely necessary to ask him in public about underwear (it's not) or to shop with him for it (also not). There are other ways to do this, ways that respect his right to be an awkward, self-conscious pre-teen. He will grow up later. He will, one day, be a twentysomething guy who can walk into a store and buy a pack of underwear without a care. Ok, maybe it will take him until 30. But it'll happen. Right now, this stuff feels hugely important to him, those feelings are very real, and I can recognize his feelings for what they are without getting my own panties in a bunch about it.

I'm sure I will embarrass him again in the near future, and again, and again. I'm also sure that there will be times when I'm not willing to change what I'm doing, and he will be forced to deal with his own embarrassment. But there will also be lots of times when I decide that I can give the poor hormonally-addled, frontal-lobe-growing, mortified kid a break. Because I have the ability to empathize and show compassion. And THAT is the up side, my friends. 

free to disagree

Dropping in to quickly share a thoughtful Facebook post from The Peaceful Parent Institute.

I love how free my children are to give me honest feedback about what they do and don't like. I love how clearly lacking in inner conflict they are when they express frustration that's resulted in some way from what I've done/said, not done/not said...the next time your child is giving you feedback that's a little bit hard to swallow, try to hold that you're giving them a HUGE gift of allowing, supporting and validating their feelings, their right to have "negative" feelings in close relationships and a right to explore, identify, put words to and express those feelings.

You can read the rest here.

parenting resolutions for the ACON

 

 With the start of a new year coming up, many of us are thinking about who we want to be in 2013. For some this means a plan to diet and exercise, or to accomplish a specific goal. For me, new year's resolutions are more about touching base with my core values than a to-do list. I started calling it a "mission statement" a few years back, and make an effort to check in with it from time to time, to see if I still value the same things, and to remind myself of my intentions.

I wrote the following two years ago, as part of a post about coming out of the FOG, but I think it can stand alone as a mission statement for parents who are also children of narcissists. I'm considering printing it out and hanging it up somewhere where I can see it more frequently.

I will be myself. I will work to overcome the anxiety, fear, and shame that shackle me. I acknowledge the heredity and upbringing that contributed to these issues in the past, and take responsibility for handling them in the present time.

I will not fraternize with people who do me harm, physically or emotionally. I will not subject my children to such people. I will continue to build a community of reciprocal relationships with friends and family members who play actively positive roles in our lives and who show a willingness to work constructively together in times of interpersonal struggle.

I will not allow any person to bully and intimidate my family via threats of legal action.

I will be a compassionate witness for others who need to share their stories and come out of secrecy, whether it is about abuse or any other personal trial. I will express my gratitude to the friends who share their struggles with me in order to let me know that I am not alone.

I will work hard to be a truly loving parent who understands who her children are as people, who will respect their rights, who rejects control-based parenting advice with its negative views of the nature of children. I will listen to my children's concerns. I will acknowledge my mistakes and apologize genuinely to them. I will not shame them or withdraw love from them when who they are is at odds with who I am. I will not use my size, experience, or age to oppress them. I will exercise patience, self-restraint, compassion.

I will expect my husband to confront me and support my children when I harm them. I will support them when they believe that he has done something unfair, or when I witness him doing something hurtful. We will work as a family to encourage an atmosphere of respect for all members, regardless of age.

I understand that my children may choose their own paths. I will work to be open to their criticism and understanding if, despite my intents in this time, I fail to play a significantly positive role in their lives. I will accept whatever relationship they wish to have with me in the future. I do not own their bodies or their minds, now or ever.

If you are a parent, what is your parenting mission statement, and how is it affected by also being an ACON?

simple truths

If you wished to be loved, love.

 Lucius Annaeus Seneca

How does this apply to your world? I would say that it's great advice for most of us in our daily lives, and also great advice for the narcissists we know, even though they are probably incapable of  everfollowing it. It's a good reminder to us, though, that we do not have an obligation to love narcissistic parents or spouses. Our feelings for them reflect their feelings for and treatment of us.

Note that the statement does not indicate any guarantee of being loved back. It only indicates that loving a person is one basic (and, in my opinion, essential) part of what it takes for somebody to love you  back. It's a good parenting mantra, actually. Most of us who have children do wish for them to love us, but we need to remember that if we wish for their love and not just something based in fear that might sometimes look like love, we must act loving toward them.

breaking the cycle

Once I read that breaking the cycle of abuse takes three generations. I don't know how they arrived at that number, but the idea that changing family dynamics is a gradual task that more than one generation must shoulder makes sense to me. Each person can probably only improve upon her upbringing but so much. And if the goal of completely breaking the cycle is to produce an intact, healthy family, that suggests a healthy extended family, and clearly a first-generation cycle-breaker cannot offer his or her children healthy grandparent relationships. It will take time.

Sometimes I wonder - which generation am I? How effective can I be? My mother's father was a pathological narcissist, and I know that she wanted to be a better parent than he was. She succeeded, but not by much; while she avoided some of the specific harmful behaviors that he committed, she kept the same controlling mindset, the same scornful view of children and their needs. Without a change in philosophy, how could she truly break the cycle?

When I started my parenting journey, I was still fairly enmeshed in my family. I accepted my mother's childrearing beliefs and most of her practices. I thought that my beef with her was limited to my adolescence and the occasional irritation in the present. Philosophies like Unconditional Parenting and gentle discipline seemed ridiculous to me, irresponsible, "lax". My son and some chance meetings with more open-minded people taught me differently.  With time, exposure to people who parented differently from my parents, and lots of reading, I came to have a different understanding of who and what children are, and how adults can relate to them.

Is that enough? I can tell you, I struggle with being a compassionate parent. My first instinct is often to feel angry and to criticize.  Author Naomi Aldort would call those "old scripts" - the way you've been conditioned to react, even though it's not consistent with who you want to be. With time, that's changing. I'm a much kinder, more thoughtful person today than I was ten years ago. But young children don't wait for you to heal yourself. They're here, soaking things up as they happen. I was not as kind a parent to my first child as I have been to my third child - and even with the third, I have trouble staying engaged and not sending them the "mommy's too busy doing her own thing, don't bug me" message. Did I change too late? Have I changed enough?

Will my kids' first reaction to their children be less irritated than my own? Will they have imprinted different reactions and behaviors than I did in my childhood? Will they have better emotional tools at their disposal? Are their children going to be the third generation, the one that grows up with parents who can access empathy easily?