WHAT MY KIDS TAUGHT ME
I have never had a different language for my children. I rarely censored what they heard or what they saw. I never shielded them from where I hang out, like bars. Zack was 17 or 18 before he ever uttered even a "Damn", at least in front of me. By the age of six Carlos had broken every sound barrier. They're both so very much alike and so very different. I couldn't love them more. They're perfect.
Recently, someone commented that they liked the fact that I am super affectionate with Carlos and that I always validate him and tell him I love him. Children constantly need to be reminded that you love them. Right now Carlos thinks I hung the moon. But later, if we enter the stage of development where there is competition and acrimony, I trust that our love will get us through it.
Parenting is a cycle of "them" becoming "us" (and vice-versa). It seems that this whole process of development of the self becomes entangled in the crunch of living in the vortex of the lives of the people we call our family.
Dysfunctional families and communities, economies, etc. might make it worse, but it seems to affect everyone. The people that loom largest for us are the ones we spent our early life with, the ones we have shared all of our important first moments with, at a time we were "less significant".
Carlos is at that age where he really is enjoyable. He is no longer completely reliant on me and he is starting to make the bridge between child and adult. It's very interesting to experience the development of his self. He is pleasant and witty and sensitive and a complete pleasure to be with. And, of course, that makes the impossible happen, you love him all the more. He is still quite young but the intellectual connections he makes are quite fascinating and he makes me want to be around him for a long time just to see where he will go.
It's a bittersweet thing, but his guile, although still underdeveloped, is beginning to materialize. His ego, his need to assert himself, is not yet at the point but it might just be a natural progression of the self the he will break away from his parents by demonizing or ridiculing them. We are still important to him in a real sense and not just by the birth history he shares with us. I hear him repeat things from my discussions with others, things that I hadn't realized he had even heard. I am still his authority for the truth. He thinks I am "a famous lawyer". He is proud of me. His mom and I are the suns in his solar system.
But, that is part of the development of a child, the development of self and the first ones we react with are our parents and siblings, the ones we are most comfortable with, the ones we think we understand the best, the ones that disappoint our expectations first, that make us do things that we don't want to do, etc.
When one becomes the parent the cycle makes the turn from one's inner centered self-development to the altruistic act of helping another. Zack's birth was a "Trinitron," instant-on, 100 percent, love event, experience. I credit his birth with putting me on the path to making up with my mother. I had a rough childhood and somehow she had become the foil for my self-pity.
It was only after Zack's birth that I realized that she was who she was and was no better prepared for dealing with all of the problems in her life merely because she was my mother. These weren't the superheroes of my infantile ignorance. They were people. My mother was a peasant girl living in New York. My stepfather was a homeless child born within the Spanish empire.
I stopped blaming my mother for all of the issues that I had going on with me and started giving her credit for loving me, for being my parent. For climbing the hills with the heavy loads and bringing all of us along, on her back. From there I grew to understand the same thing about my father and then I even grew to know the same thing about my stepfather.
Zack is an adult now and I get the feeling that the roles are reversed, the cycle runs anew. All I can do is try to show him I love him, suggest things he might do differently (at this point I can no longer impose my wishes on him), be there when I can for him, and live my life. I tell him that I'm trying to correct the mistakes that I made with him in dealing with Carlos but I'm probably just making new mistakes.
One thing I know, now, though - my mother knew I loved her even before I started making amends with her. These guys know I love them and I know that they love me. We get so narcissistically wrapped up in our universe that we forget what we only learn later, when we have our own kids, when we experience true unselfish love - theirs and ours - that there is no one in the world that you love as much as your kids. That is the lesson our kids teach us and that we learn as parents.
(October, 2000)