Sometimes you have to be a bad child to be a good parent

[ljwrites]

A couple of weeks ago, my husband Mark stood up to my mother-in-law's fatphobic bullying and told her in no uncertain terms not to comment negatively on his weight or pressure him to lose weight. I was desperately proud of him and the enormous courage it took him to assert himself to his mother. I had watched for years while my mother-in-law, a woman I love and admire in many ways, openly derided Mark's weight and badgered him to do something about it. I watched Mark smile and nod through his pain and humiliation, and more than once wanted to saying something but shrank back at the thought of starting a fight. I watched my gorgeous, muscular husband injure himself exercising and feel guilt at what he was eating. I can only guess at the harm to his emotional well-being and relationship with his mother.

After years of this, Mark, who is the gentlest and sweetest-tempered man you will ever meet, finally said enough is enough and told his mother, in a group chat with his family, that she was not to talk to him about his weight again--and if she did, he would purposefully gain a kilogram every time. Was it a perfectly measured and polite response? Hell no. But then again, it is rare for years of repressed anger to explode diplomatically. I know that firsthand; I screamed at my father more than once while struggling to maintain my boundaries, and I am by no means qualified to judge anyone's delicacy in asserting their dignity.

Later, Mark told me the final push for him was when he realized that his suppressed frustration at his mother was leading him to be impatient and rough with our Tater Tot. That's when he realized he had to resolve his emotions at the source instead of taking them out on his small child, who was an easy target for all these unresolved resentments and rage chafing at him.

I instantly saw the wisdom in that. I think a large part of the reason I tend to be more patient with the Tot (I have had to ask Mark more than once not to raise his voice at our child) is because I have been setting boundaries with my father and doing emotional resolution work for years. Most of my rage issues went away after I used Francine Shapiro's (founder of EMDR therapy) methods from Getting Past Your Past, and I shudder to think how I might have hurt Tater Tot if I had gone into parenthood with that bubbling anger. Just about the only thing that can get me really angry these days is my father going on his bullshit again, one of the reasons I have sharply reduced contact with him.

We are told that becoming parents ourselves is an occasion to come to a deeper understanding with our own parents. Certainly when I'm with Tater Tot I think of my parents a lot, and feel bittersweet joy at the fact that I must have inspired as much joy and love in them as my son does in me. I think about the sacrifices they made for me and how much they gave me, both materially and to my development as a person.

At the same time, though, I am bewildered and they could ever think to do some of the things they did. How could they scream at a child they loved more than life itself? How could they hit her? How could they humiliate her and make her cry? How could they push her along a path of their choosing instead of listening to and encouraging her passions, seeing her as she truly was and not the image they had built up in their minds?

I know some of the answers why, of course. Both Mark and I deal with anger and neuroses from our own parents' treatment of us, and Mark found those feelings getting between him and our child. If I had not been further along in my own emotional work I would no doubt have had those moments, too. I don't doubt that our parents were and are subject to the same internal pressures, and that is cause for compassion--but not for compliance. We must do better than our parents, and if part of that improvement lies in distancing ourselves from or drawing boundaries with our parents, then it is our responsibility to do so. Our duty to our child demands it.

So yes, becoming a parent has helped me better understand my parents, but not in the sense that I think they were right about everything. I have come to better understand their love and sacrifices, but I also have a clearer view of how they failed. If becoming a better parent to my child requires that I become an ungrateful child myself, so be it. Both Mark and I would far rather be ungrateful children than irresponsible parents. Our parents, after all, are adults who have made their choices, while our child looks to us for everything and is absolutely vulnerable to our every whim.

No matter what Mark's outburst might mean down the line between him, his mother, and his family, I entirely support the courageous step he took for his mental health which ultimately makes him a better caregiver for Tater Tot. I think we honor our parents' legacies not by obeying them in all things but in obeying the innate call of love, health, and compassion. That is the legacy we hope to pass onto our own child, and if he becomes "ungrateful" in his own time I hope we will have the humility to examine ourselves and our actions before blaming him.