PARENTING

The all-important question is: Are you able to fulfill the function of being a parent and fulfill it well, without it becoming a role?

Part of the necessary function of being a parent is, of course, looking after the needs of the child. However, when being a parent becomes an identity, when your sense of self is entirely or largely derived from it, the function easily becomes overemphasized, exaggerated, and takes you over.

Then giving children what they need becomes excessive and turns into spoiling; preventing them from getting into danger becomes over protectiveness and interferes with their need to explore the world and try things out for themselves. And telling children what to do or not to do becomes controlling, overbearing.

A mother or father who identifies with the parental role may also try to become more complete through their children. “I want you to achieve what I never achieved; I want you to be somebody in the eyes of the world, so that I too can be somebody through you.

Be aware also of your own unconscious assumptions or expectations that lie behind your old, habitual reactions to them. “My parents should approve of what I do. They should understand me and accept me for who I am.” Really? Why should they? The fact is they don’t because they can’t. Their evolving consciousness hasn’t made the quantum leap to the level of awareness yet. They are not yet able to misidentify from their role.

“Yes, but I can’t feel happy and comfortable with who I am unless I have their approval and understanding.” Really? What difference does their approval or disapproval truly make to who you are? All such unexamined assumptions cause a great deal of negative emotion, much unnecessary unhappiness.

Many children harbor hidden anger and resentment toward their parents and often the cause is in authenticity in the relationship. The child has a deep longing for the parent to be there as a human being, not as a role, no matter how conscientiously that role is being played. You may be doing all the right things and the best you can for your child, but even doing the best you can is not enough. In fact, doing is never enough if you neglect Being.

How do you bring Being into the life of a busy family, into the relationship with your child? The key is to give your child attention. There are two kinds of attention. One we might call form-based attention. The other is formless attention. Form-based attention is always connected in some way with doing or evaluating.

“What’s the next thing we have to do?” This question pretty much summarizes what family life is like in many homes. Form based attention is of course necessary and has its place, but if that’s all there is in the relationship with your child, then the most vital dimension is missing and Being becomes completely obscured by doing, by “the cares of the world.”  

Formless attention is inseparable from the dimension of Being. When you look at, listen to, touch, or help your child with this or that, you are alert, still, completely present, not wanting anything other than that moment as it is. In this way, you make room for Being. In that moment, if you are present, you are not a father or mother. You are the alertness, the stillness, the Presence that is listening, looking, touching, even speaking. You are the Being behind the doing.

To love is to recognize yourself in another. The other’s “otherness” then stands revealed as an illusion pertaining to the purely human realm, the realm of form. The longing for love that is in every child is the longing to be recognized, not on the level of form, but on the level of Being.

If parents honor only the human dimension of the child but neglect Being, the child will sense that the relationship is unfulfilled, that something absolutely vital is missing, and there will be a buildup of pain in the child and sometimes unconscious resentment toward the parents. “Why don’t you recognize me?” is what the pain or resentment seems to be saying.

For parents to do whatever is required of them in any situation without it becoming a role that they identify with is an essential lesson in the art of parenting that all should learn.