Several months ago I had a discussion with David in which it came up that something that was probably a pretty big stumbling block in the life of one of our children was the relationship this child had with me. I think that any parent of more than one child can understand how you don't click the same way with all of your kids, and with some kids there can feel like there is a vast chasm in understanding. A challenge is that as the adult in the relationship, it's pretty much all on you to figure out how to bridge that gap and figure out a way to support, love, and encourage your child regardless. With this child, I have been able to look back and see so many missteps. I was a young mom, inexperienced, and interpreted a lot of this child's behavior as Difficultness. I wish I would have had the perspective that humans, and especially kids, pretty much do the best that they can all the time, and been better able to see that there were legitimate obstacles in this child's path. This child also had some pretty notable learning challenges, which struck fear in my homeschooling mom's heart. What if I wasn't able to help them overcome these challenges? What if the challenges were somehow my fault for doing XYZ when I should have done ABC? What would they miss out on in life because of these challenges? I set myself to addressing the challenges, but in the process I didn't make enough of an effort to help this child understand that they were loved as they were, that THEY didn't need fixing. My fear and desire to help too often showed up as impatience and worry. I truly tried everything in my power to help and tried desperately to find resources and make the right choices along the way. Wrapped in the fear that I felt, this often made me feel extremely vulnerable to any criticism or suggestion that I might have made mistakes along the way. I was so invested in doing everything I could, and it just had to be right. The stakes were too high. I couldn't fail here. If I failed this child, I was a failure as a homeschooler, which meant I was a failure as a mother and since that was what I had chosen to do with my life, a failure as a human.
As I have worked through some things the past couple of years, I have had to let go of my all-or-nothing thinking about my own goodness and also that of others. I have tried to come to understand that people aren't good or bad. They are just people. And people do good things and bad things. That goes for me, too. Making mistakes is human. There's no avoiding it. But it doesn't make me bad. And trying hard doesn't make me good. To quote a line from the Ms. Marvel show, "Good isn't a thing you are, it's a thing you do." A challenge that comes up is that we can not control the outcomes of our actions, even if we are trying to do good. Our very best bet is to do the actions with love. And I have come to truly see that fear is the opposite of love. Actions done from a place of fear will not have the same effect as actions done from a place of love, even if the actions are identical. I can look at the actions of my parents and see how they come from what they feel is a place of love, but I can see the way that its really mostly fear. Not to say that they don't love me, in the best way they know how, but rather than the fear is so large that their actions are enveloped in it. The strand of love in their actions is encased in fear, and the fear is what I receive and perceive as judgment and worry and a sense of not enough. An action done in love doesn't need anything from the other person. It is enough to do the action. An action done in fear is all wrapped up in the response and the outcome.
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