“I HATE YOU MOMMY!” A child’s shrill shout blasted down the isle at Target. “Yes, but mommy loves you” came the soft gentle response. The cart glided off to another isle and the last thing I heard was the child saying softer this time, “I’m mad at you, mommy.”
As parents, we absorb all that our children try on. Emotions, thinking, and behaviors all are thrown at us to see how they work. As parents we soak up the feelings and mold them into digestible units to be fed back to the child, much like regurgitated food from a nesting bird. It’s demanding and its no wonder that as parents we don’t always do it well. Hopefully we don't get the “I HATE YOU” salvo, when we are having a bad day.
Parenting for me has been the single greatest thing for wrenching me away from my ubiquitous self-centeredness. One of the first warnings come as an infant, when they throw up all over you. You clean up and keep loving, even if it is through your anger. (This is observed by a dad. Moms seem supernaturally unruffled when they get thown up on.) We watch our children try roles on, we give them feedback and then we let them go to make sense of all the lessons they have been taught. This is the work of love.
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