Adventures in Parenting

The hardest job in the world is being a good parent, and yet it is a job that comes with no training. Alas, children are not born with “how to” booklets attached to their ankles. Parenting is also an opportunity for adults to heal their own childhood by learning from their own children. Unfortunately, it also offers us an opportunity to repeat with our own children the mistakes of our parents. If we do not learn from the past, then we are destined to repeat it. One of the biggest burdens for parents is feeling guilty for their shortcomings, mistakes and inadequacies. These feelings are often based not on the reality, but on what the individual perceives he or she has or has not done. The feeling of guilt can be passed down through generations as a maternal or paternal legacy.  

Becoming a parent is a thrilling and often scary prospect. Most parents share with each other their dreams and fears for their children. They feel they could do more for their children, but are ill prepared. They are surprised at how different their children are from each other: “My first child was so easy, calm, happy, not demanding.  But my second child hit the deck running. He seems to be learning everything at a rapid pace, and we are having difficulty keeping up with him.” This scenario has also been stated in the reverse: the first child was the challenging one, while the second child is more calm and even able to help the older sibling. The point is: Each child is unique, although all children progress through archetypal stages of human development.  

The major factors to be examined include on one side, the essence of the individual child: Who is the actual person revealed in the child in front of us? and on the other side, the child’s karma (destiny), the imprints of heredity and environment upon the makeup of that child. Thus we see that understanding each human being and his or her life is not a simple task. Many of the reasons we are who we are can be traced back to past-life experiences imprinted  into the karma of this lifetime. 

What I see is just the covering. 

The most important is invisible.¹

 —A. de Saint Exupéry (1900–1944)