I Swore I'd Never Say That!

Becoming parents challenges us right down to our bones. Our children evoke deep tenderness and delight and bring out an energy and protectiveness in us that we didn't know we had. But the realities of sleep deprivation and the anxiety of unfamiliar roles and tasks give rise to another powerful set of emotions, as we continually adjust to the lifestyle of being a parent. It's an enormous task, one most of us take on with little preparation or training. Who could have prepared us for our infants' frantic squalling, which brings even those of us who previously ran with wolves to frustrated tears of our own? And the challenge continues for the rest of our lives — from our children's tantrums and their first day of school to dating and college entrance exams.

Through all of this, we may find ourselves regularly revisiting the intense emotions of our own childhoods. We may feel fierce devotion, maddening anger and paralyzing fear in turn — or all at once. These intense pressures can bring out the worst in us, making us impatient, irritable and thoughtless at the very moments we are trying our hardest to be good parents. Careless, harsh or unhelpful things our parents said to us as children may come spilling out of our mouths: "How could you be so stupid!"

Much of the latest research in neuroscience confirms there is a biological basis for the strong emotions we all feel. Because of the way our limbic brain and memory work, our experience as a parent is forever connected to our experience of having once been children ourselves. Understanding this connection allows us to take good care of ourselves and to do the things we need to do, such as letting go of old stressors. Then, when our children experience their own strong emotions, we are better equipped to be there for them. In our work as parenting educators at Hand in Hand, we encourage the use of "listening tools" as a way to help parents be heard and to improve their ability to fully understand their children.

Why do we find parenting so challenging? In our devotion to our children, we may set high standards for the level of care we give them — standards that are incredibly difficult to meet. We may think we are supposed to know how to parent, often telling ourselves things like, "My mother didn't need a parenting class to raise me. I'm a smart person, why do I feel so clueless?" But the daily challenges of parenting are enormous, and we're often not supported well enough to handle those challenges with the patience and caring we desire. We need support. We need energy. We need time to talk, play, enjoy one another, solve problems in our families, share meals together, be neighbors and friends and learn new things. We need time to care well for ourselves and for our loved ones. 

The times when children need our reassuring support and attention are often the most difficult for us. We may feel uncomfortable, edgy or even helpless when children cry. We may find their sudden outpourings of emotion overwhelming or embarrassing. We may think because we are raising children in a "tough" world that we need to train them not to show such vulnerability or abandon. We have strong limits on our tolerance for children's feelings because we may have been threatened, ignored, shamed or punished when we tried to express the hurt we felt as children ourselves. Because those feelings were never heard, our children's emotions trigger the heat from that backlog of hurt we've had to store and manage all these years.