Tag: raisinggirls

  • Raising adults

    Raising adults

    Just like we don’t blame the fruit for the tree from which it came, we can’t blame our children for their character before they reach an age of self-awareness and critical thinking.

    If we find the fruit of a tree to be lacking in sweetness, we pay attention to the tree and what it needs to produce better fruit.

    We don’t try to sweeten the fruit itself.

    We first need to consider why it is that our intended outcomes for our children in character and values are not what we wish for them, before we focus on disciplining them towards compliance.

    When we feel compelled to resort to harsh disciplinary measures, we need to realise that we lack the influence that we need to have on our children for them to want to adopt our values and principles.

    The problem to solve is then to figure out why they’re not connecting with us as parents, rather than driving them further away by treating them harshly.

    Our insecurities as parents, coupled with cultural norms that discourage emotional availability between parents and children, result in a focus on being dutiful towards our children, while dismissing how much they need to feel seen and appreciated by us.

    Seen and appreciated through sincere, meaningful, emotional bonds, and not through participation awards, or through buying them stuff.

    But we can’t give what we don’t have. That’s why we need to understand ourselves better when we find that the outcomes we wish for ourselves with our children may not be what we hope to achieve.

    When the village holds more influence over your children than you do, and if that influence goes against your value system, life as a parent becomes a struggle.

    That struggle can only be alleviated by demonstrating, through action and not words, why what you want for them is more beneficial for them than what the village around them stands for.

    That’s when you need to pull them closer, not increase the fear of consequences if they don’t do what you expect of them.

    Give them an opportunity to learn from you how life works, so that they don’t learn it from the village instead.

    Raise adults, not children.

    #raisingkids

  • Allow them to learn

    Allow them to learn

    Sometimes, out of concern, we try to protect those we care about from mistakes that they are inclined to make.

    We become the buffer between their bad decisions and the consequences thereof, so that they don’t find themselves in harm’s way.

    This show of concern or compassion is good, as long as it doesn’t become their crutch in life, or ours.

    If we’re not careful, we may give them reason to believe that they’ll always have a soft landing, or someone to bail them out.

    By protecting them from the consequences of their decisions, you also prevent them from growing to appreciate why they should trust your advice and support.

    However, choose carefully when to allow them to fall, because you don’t want to set yourself up for regret if there are long term consequences.

    Focus on opportunities where the outcome or the impact can be contained or minimised.

    The point is to allow them to learn from their decision making process, and not to maliciously prove a point that they should trust you more.

    Always be focused on the benefit that you want to create for them, and not on the satisfaction that you need to feel when you point out that you were right.

    Connect with compassion, not malice or bitterness.

    This is especially true for parenting teens who are more inclined to demand control of decisions in their lives.

    Not everything that they get wrong will hound them for the rest of their lives, so choose instances to teach such lessons based on the effort required for them to make right what they got wrong.

    And sometimes, you’ll be surprised at how what you thought you needed to protect them from was actually beneficial for their growth.

  • Celebrate the dead. Discard the living.

    Celebrate the dead. Discard the living.

    Ever notice how often people are revered when they’ve passed on, but the same people were neglected, ignored, or even treated badly while they were alive?

    Sometimes the reverse is also true. The one who passed on may have left a path of destruction in the lives of those around them, but because of their social standing or their role in their family, they’re revered to the point of exaggerating their good while dismissing the impact that they had on those who were victim to their ways.

    Some would have us believe that it’s because we must not disparage the dead. Which is true. We shouldn’t.

    But does that also mean that we must exaggerate their good to the point of diminishing the damage or harm that they caused?

    The reason we do this is not out of respect for the dead, but more likely because it draws attention to our virtue.

    It’s easier to demonstrate such kindness towards the dead, because they have no expectation from us to follow through with sincerity or commitment towards how important we say they are in our lives.

    If we were truly committed to establishing good, we would place as much emphasis on remedying the harm that they caused, while remembering the good that they did.

    If we don’t, we end up revering the dead to the detriment of the living, thereby reinforcing the harm that the deceased caused, and further oppressing those who are already struggling with the impact of the harm done to them by the deceased.

    That’s how we enable generational trauma.

    That’s how we create more harm for the victims of those oppressors who have passed on.

    That’s how we become part of that cycle of harm.


  • Claim your humanness

    Claim your humanness

    My daughter looked quite distressed when she asked me this question over the weekend.

    “What drives people to be so cruel to animals, like skinning them alive, or abusing them for profits?”

    The first thought that came to mind was this. We only lose our humanity when we feel less than human.

    The truth is, we only lose our humanity when we believe that we are defined by what happened to us, rather than what our choices were in response to those trials of life.

    Watching her grappling with the reality of who she is versus how others have treated her and betrayed her trust in her short life is grounding me in ways that I never thought possible.

    I swayed from anger at not knowing how to be there for her, to self-pity for not being a good enough parent, to a quiet albeit sad patience, knowing that all I can do is allow her the space to come to terms with the harshness of life in a way that makes sense to her.

    As her father, I fear that she may outgrow me in the process, which stirs up the self-pity and anger, but just as soon, I regain my composure knowing that by giving in to either, I will only create a self-fulfilling prophecy if I insist on inserting myself into this precarious space in which she finds herself.

    So my test in her test is to be consistent and available while she finds her way through it.

    The struggle of single parenting is grossly underrated.

    And the struggle of a single father raising a daughter even more so underrated.

    Through it all, there was another battle just beneath the surface of the ones that I thought were important. That is, the battle to claim my humanness in the face of exactly the same kinds of betrayals and cruelty that I had faced, which are echoed in the struggles that taunt her.

    And it’s through recognising this deeper battle within that I realised the root of my anger and self-pity. It is the need to have my sincerity and effort accepted by one I hold dear, so that the lessons learnt at the hands of brutes and hypocrites will allow me to give that which I did not receive.

    Also, it is my need to protect her from the demons that have so often derailed my efforts in life. I want to protect her from that which ravaged me when I was her age.

    But I can’t. No one can save us from the journey that we must take to discover the beauty of who we are.

    The only thing we can do is remind them that giving up midway through that journey is never worth it. Because once you emerge from the other side, there is a depth and breadth to your humanness that would otherwise have escaped you, and would have left you empty and wanting in your efforts to connect with the beauty around you.

    The irony being that the depth and breadth that is discovered further isolates you from those who distracted themselves through that journey, rather than embraced the pain and the education that it offered.

    A beautiful patience and a courageous perseverance is needed to hold on to your humanness in an inhumane world.

    Photo credit : Adobe Stock