Ryan and I were talking the other day about faith, god and spirituality and I mentioned that the two things that have most deepened my understanding of these subjects are parenting and gardening. This is true for many subjects. I have all my best epiphanies in the garden and parenting has taught me more than any other experience in my life.
Just as I believe that a person can be a completely satisfied, whole, and fulfilled individual without.... climbing Everest, volunteering in a soup kitchen, or taking a feminist literature course, while still missing lessons that could only be learned by having one of these experiences, so I believe that a person can be a completely satisfied, whole and fulfilled individual without ever becoming a parent, but there are lessons that can only be truly learned through the experience of parenting. For me, one subject I have learned about from parenting in a way I know I never would have understood otherwise, is shame. Through both passively watching my children grow, and actively participating in the process, I have thought more and learned more about the idea of shame than I think I ever would have without my children. Shame is a powerful motivator. It is also an unhealthy one. We often carry the lessons we learn through shame with us for the rest of our lives, but these lessons come at a hefty price and are usually carried as a wound that never healed quite right rather than a beautiful moment of awakening or a positive turning point in our lives. If I say to you, "think of a time that you were shamed," chances are a moment immediately comes to mind. Probably it is not a positive memory. Probably it is not something you got over quickly. Probably you can think of other ways you could have learned any lesson you learned from that moment if you learned anything at all. Shame often slides into a child's heart when they are small, when grown-ups are always right and so they are always wrong. This hurts... but the pain is often mistaken as remorse, which those powerful giants in a child's life then feed without even realizing what they are doing. So, the pain-not-remorse grows up and becomes an Ugly Thing. It becomes an Ugly Thing that paces around in our heart, growling and bristling any time a flaw is brought to its attention. It gets harder to listen and to say we are sorry. It gets harder to see things from another's point of view. And the funny-not-funny thing is, sometimes we grow up and we realize the point of the shame and that we were wrong all along...but the Ugly Thing has already moved in and resists being evicted. I have noticed that there seems to be a turning point in every person's journey where they have traveled so far from the beginning that they forget what it looks like. They forget what it looked like in the beginning and how they felt and all they have learned since then. They also forget that there was a before the beginning and a before that and a before that. And then they meet someone who is at the beginning or at the before and they are exasperated that the person has to take the journey for themselves. They are shouting back over their shoulder, "I already did all the hard work for you! You should be here already!!" But that is not how it works. We do this with children a lot, don't we? We decide things for them before they are ever born. We decide their religion or their diet or their lifestyle. We decide that they will be homeschooled or that they will go to college or that they will get their ears pierced. We decide that they will be activists, pacifists, naturalists, environmentalists. We decide that they are vegan, paleo, keto, sugar-free, gluten-free, dairy-free, GAPS, WAF, farm free, clean eaters, breast-fed, free range, organic..... We buy them certain toys and clothes. We play them certain music. It is all so intentional. We have such an agenda. And why? Because we've done the work, of course- we have done the research.... we know what is best.... we are raising good humans! It works for awhile. But then one day they are almost nine years old and they just want to buzz their head and eat potato chips and watch the Disney Channel. Or they are 19 and living off McDonald's and really into football. Or they are 25...or 32....or..... It doesn't look like we thought it would look and that is kind of scary. "I already did all the hard work for you!" you want to shout, "You should be here already!" And just like that, you forget your own days of drooling over Dunkaroos and being a bully on the playground, your days of plastering your walls with posters of Blink-182.... and that screaming match you got into with your mom over the JNCO jeans she wouldn't let you buy. You forget all the experiences and conversations and little moments and big moments.... and the one day you stumbled onto that blog about that family... and the year you gave up meat, and the book you read that felt like the author had plucked your thoughts right out of your head and, for the very first time, you did not feel like a total freak... and the skirt you saw at the thrift store that you wore until it was riddled with holes. You forget all the millions of ways you got from who you were to who you are and you forget that everyone has to take that journey for themselves...…… NO, everyone GETS to take that journey for themselves... and you have no right to try and steal that from them. It won't work anyway. We often shame people for being on their own journey. That is futile. We often shame to pass shame we are feeling onto others, to align ourselves with the "right" side, or to alleviate our own discomfort. That is cheap. We often shame to punish someone for or attempt to change someone's behavior. That doesn't work. I am writing this post because I have made a decision for myself. I have decided that I will no longer participate in any action or conversation that is meant to shame another human being for their behavior or mistakes or any aspect of their being. I will not shame my children, or my partner, or friends, or strangers, or myself. It won't be easy and I am sure I will fail...but I can do hard things that are worth doing. This is worth doing. * Not to be confused with conscious conviction. (If you are unsure about the difference look up the definitions of both.)
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
WHO AM I?
I am Michelle: a wannabe hippie in love with a bonafide geek. We also spawned. I spend my days with our four wild, beautiful boy children and I overshare about our life online because I am a Millennial and that is what we do.
|