When I started researching Unschooling, I thought that it seemed like a natural and wonderful way to interact with my child and teach her about the world. What I didn't know then and have since discovered is that natural and wonderful does NOT mean easy.
This has got to be one of the most difficult things I have ever attempted in my life - mostly because it means that a lot of things about ME need to change. The journey started with a change in my thinking. The way I look at the world and my daughter has always been colored by the way I was raised - for good or bad. As I've said before, my childhood was full of love. That is one of the best things that can happen for a child. I have always known without a doubt that my parents loved me. But there were very clear expectations of how I was to act and think. Failure to act and think in the accepted manner was met with punishment in the younger years or disgust and disappointment as I got older and punishment was no longer an option. Many people would look at me and say, "Well, you turned out okay. It couldn't have been that bad." But they can't see the places inside me where the wounds are still open and the scars are still visible. And they can't see how each day I struggle with them.
A change in thinking (a REAL LASTING change) takes a long time. So right now I'm daily working on how my change in thinking translates into a change in actions. I'm trying to focus on each interaction with Zoe and to make it a loving one, without judging her or being disappointed if she makes a choice I wouldn't have made. I'm not always successful, but it's better than it would have been a month, a week, a day ago.
I'm a perfectionist. I know - that's not good. It's a result of the expectations of my childhood. Mistakes weren't acceptable. Yelling or spanking or devastating disapproval was the result. And because of that this journey is especially hard for me. I tend to beat myself up if I don't get things right the first or second time. I feel like a failure most of the time. (I'm actually crying right now because it brings up so much pain in me to admit it. It's usually something I hide pretty deeply inside myself.) I don't REALLY think that I'll ever be good enough - for my parents, my husband (though he tells me all the time that I'm amazing), or my daughter. I need to heal. To allow myself to make mistakes. For it to be ok.
Maybe through the process of learning how to let Zoe make mistakes I will somehow understand that I don't have to be perfect either. Even if I don't get that benefit from it, I will at least know that I've done all I can to help her understand that she is wonderful just the way she is.
I don't know why so many of us seem to feel that we have to have everything figured out by a certain age, or by a certain point in our lives. Looking back now, I'm pretty sure my mom didn't have everything down as well as I thought she did at the time. I remember some of my favorite childhood experiences - stopping for donuts on the way to school, eating chips and dip for dinner on the living room floor - and wonder how much of that was actually about my mom not having time to fix breakfast, or being too tired to cook a regular dinner on a weeknight? Looking back from adulthood and realizing that my own parents were phoning things in from time to time has helped me in my struggle to appear to have everything under control at all times.
ReplyDeleteYou've only lived about a third of your life - if you had learned and perfected everything already, it would make the next sixty years or so awfully boring, wouldn't it?
Amy,
ReplyDeleteI'm so sorry you carry those burdens. I can tell you that you aren't perfect. I can also tell you that your lack of perfection doesn't change how I view you. I wish you weren't crying. Not because it makes me sad (which it does), but because I want you to know that you have been a perfect remedy to my bleakness, darkness, and oftentimes hopelessness.
T