We parent who we are
Have you ever heard the saying that when two people live together for a long time, they begin to look like each other? Or that dog owners look like their dogs after many years? I think its the same way with children.
When I head to a school to observe a child, I have most often never met her or him. I have only met the child's parent(s) who have requested I observe the child to get to know her or him, especially as a learner. This information helps parents choose the right school for the child. When I first arrive into the child's classroom, I ask the teacher not to tell me who the child is. I try to identify him or her based on the parent's descriptions. Most often my first guess is right only because I see a facial resemblance with the parents.
In my hour long observation though, as I watch the child, I come away with an understanding of what she or he does and I also find myself seeing the parent in the child. A child will sometimes speak like a parent or smile like one of them. Sometimes she or he walks like a parent. When this happened again this week, it made me pause and ask – what do our children really learn from us?
The question lingered with me into the early hours of this morning. As my boy settled down for breakfast, I worked at the kitchen counter. I glanced at him periodically to make sure he was still chowing down his oatmeal. In one glance, I caught him intently watching my every move. He was still, tranced by my routine at the kitchen counter. It was in that moment that I realized that more than my words, my son is learning from my actions. Now, this is not news. What is more interesting I think is that he is not even really learning that much from my actions. What he is really learning is who I am.
I have since thought about this idea. In the midst of all the rapid, voluminous and sometimes exhausting changes that have marked by boy's growth; in the middle of all those moments when I wondered if he listened to anything I was saying or if he would ever carry some of the values that are so dear to me, he has internalized who I am. I am not talking about my words or my actions. I am talking about the ways in which I experience fear, excitement, joy, relief, peace. He responds with the same kind of intensity, rapidity and excitability as I do. He seeks warmth, closeness and solitude in the same way I do or my partner does. But more importantly, he has imbibed values we cannot teach him explicitly. He is nurturing, loving, madly social. He is impatient like me. He seeks certainty like me. He is tenacious with his curiosity like my partner. We cannot teach him these things. Sure, we have created an environment that we share. We have also shared experiences. He has our genes but his expression of those genes is so remarkably similar to each of our own in the subtlest ways that it makes me think he has learned not what we have said or done. He has learned who I am.
And this is just as well. It reminds me of a statement by Parker Palmer. He said something like this – Teachers teach who they are. I think it applies equally well to parenting — Parents parent who they are. So what does this mean? I think it means we need to worry less about what we say and do. I think it means that in our parenting we need to focus as much on our own internal growth as we worry about our children's growth. I think our parenting is about parenting ourselves and parenting our children. Parenting is afterall, as my partner says, "about reliving your own childhood" and I add, "it is about raising yourself all over again."