Every stage of motherhood is an opportunity to love unconditionally, learn acceptance, be more conscious, become a better human being, all while trying to guide this little person in this path called life.
If you enter it whole heartedly and see it as the amazing blessing and opportunity that it is, then all the changing and surprising challenges that come with it become less daunting. As little kids it’s easy for us to control our children’s environments but as they grow and they are more exposed, and they are becoming “tweens”….well then, you enter the whole universe of peer pressure, self doubt, being more, becoming less. You deal with tears, questions, many more questions that you have answers to, some you don’t – some you are still struggling with yourself. Many others that you understand your child doesn’t need the answer to, just support and guidance so she finds her own way.
It’s so hard to resist the temptation and not go out and try to fix her world, yet I know that these small challenges, self doubts and tears are a way of life preparing her for bigger challenges to come. I know that she has to learn resolve her own life and accept things in her life she cannot change. Childhood is her chance to get a practice run.
So a few nights ago she was a see of tears because she has not lost all her teeth and her friends and cousins’ teeth are bigger then hers. I am looking at my beautiful child, trying to be compassionate, to acknowledge her pain and her experience…yet I am thinking of all the many blessings that she has and that I am probably the “guilty” one for giving her those teeth genes. I ask her questions about her feelings, ask her to interpret her feelings and then I proceeded to go online with her and show her the reality of children in Haiti. Kids her age that lost both parents during the earthquake, kids that were medically treated a month after the earthquake and had maggot-filled wounds; children that lost movement of their hands, children that have very little at all…
We both sat on my bedroom floor in tears because it is impossible not to see the lives these children have and not appreciate our own realities, our own abundance and blessings. I told her that I loved her and that insecurity is something she will always have to deal with but that she will learn ways to deal with them and keep herself connected to reality. Someone is always going to have more, “be” more, be better or not…but life is not a competition, life is about embracing ourselves and sharing our own individualities and gifts with the world. We all have our stories and challenges to face, things that are out of our control, and we must do our very best with what we have and with who we are.
Then I got the sweetest thank you hug from my daughter and we cried a little bit more together…
