I grew up in a household where my parents were the authority. Whether it was reality or not, my perspective as a child was that they were never wrong, and that they knew it all. They were loving and good parents, and also the standard of knowing and rightness.
As I became a young adult, their humanness emerged, or rather, I was able to see it for the first time, and it *shocked* me. I wasn’t entirely sure what to do with it. I didn’t know how to engage with this new and unfamiliar presentation of themselves to me – “I don’t know. I’m trying to figure it out. This is hard.” So I just … didn’t. For a long time I went with avoidance instead.
It’s been 14 years since I realized, laughably, that my parents are, *actual real human beings just like me*. And since raising my own human beings, this experience has altered how I wish to be seen by them.
I hope my children know that all the answers are not contained in another human, but in themselves and their divine connection and in the experiences this life is here to give them.
I hope my children know that I am not an expert, but that I am made up of the same stuff they are – the curiosities, the disappointments, the mistakes, the desires – and that I’m living mine out right beside them.
I remind them that this is my first time raising an Everett. And an Isla. And an Obie. And I’m absolutely not gonna get it right every time. And there’s so much room for apologies.
I show them my humanness deliberately. When they tell me about something hard in their life, I try to say, “me too” or “I’ve totally had that same thing happen”, before I hand out advice.
It’s radical parental vulnerability that will lead to radical parent-child connection.
When you let your child see you, as a whole, human, fallible, and powerful being – they will see themselves the same way. They will give themselves grace. They will want to talk to you – like *really* talk. In you, they will have what we ALL want- someone who doesn’t always get it right, but who does have an ability to get it. ✨
