A few months ago, someone asked me what I would do differently in raising our child from the way I was raised. It seems like an incredibly difficult question to answer. I didn't know how to sum up my upbringing so neatly, view it with enough detachment to see all of its holes and crevices, and then be astute enough to present solutions to those holes and crevices. At 39, I feel as if I am just beginning to understand some basic things about myself. I also feel reluctant to judge my parents and their parenting through the norms I've adopted growing up here. It seems awfully unfair and narrow-minded.
But I'm not sure how to reconcile the family I had growing up with the family life I want to create for little T. To think about this clearly, I need to be able to see my past with some objectivity, but I don't know if that is even possible. Maybe at the end of the day, there is no such thing, and all I have are clashes of values and subjective choices -- and I have to simply choose as best as I can based on my current context -- which then creates additional anxieties about unexpected future shifts that may upset my paradigm, as it happened to my parents. Or maybe we don't even really have choices in that way, and we are largely the by-product of the environment in which we grow up, what we have around us. Are any of us really capable of detaching ourselves from our cultural/social norms, instead of just bouncing around within it?
So instead of trying to figure out answers to questions that I can't answer, I've been spending my time just hanging out. Meeting with friends for lunch. Going to playgroups and swim class and music class. Shopping for little outfits for our little guy who's growing in spurts. Preparing his meals.
Immersing myself in the day to day feels like a relief somehow. Watching the little guy chew on his tractor and then flop on the green one-eyed monster and then bang on the music table, cushioning him when he's pulled himself up against the ottoman and suddenly lets go in a free-fall, pulling him to my chest when he cries out rubbing his eyes. Letting him bounce up and down in the Jumperoo as his feet thud and thud against the hard wood floor and his arms flop up and down while he squeals and giggles. Wrapping his warm little body against mine and feeling the supple, dimpled chub on his arms and legs. In those moments, I feel content, as if nothing really matters. And in those moments, I think, maybe this is the way we're meant to parent.
