When my son was in the second grade, he came home very upset from a sleepover at a friend’s house. His friend, he told me, had a stuffed teddy bear holding a sign. The bear was perched on the bureau in his bedroom, and the sign had the child’s name stitched into it. My son was upset because he told me that his friend shared that when he was born, the bear was the first thing he saw. In this way, he instantly knew that his parents loved him very much and were greeting him with his first toy and display of affection. My son wanted to know why his dad and I did not give him a similar gift to greet his arrival into our lives.
At the time, I didn’t think much of his friend's parents (sorry, that was then), so what I said to my son was this.
“This is what happened. When you and _______ (insert friend’s name here) were standing in front of God waiting to be sent to Earth, God asked you a question. God asked, ‘Which would you prefer??? This stuffed bear with your name on it…or… good parents?? Bear?? Good parents?? (as I dramatically showed the weighing of the decision up and down with my hands)’ Well, ___________ (insert friend’s name here) picked the bear. You picked good parents.”
I thought it was funny, clever, and true. Needless to say, with the lead-up to and onset of adolescence, I have often questioned that kind of certainty about my parenting skills.
Every time after that (and yes, even now), when my son complains about a decision or a rule or anything that his dad and I decide, and he responds with the likes of “that’s not fair” or something similar; I remind him that he picked us instead of the bear.
I say all this as a prelude to the difficulties my son and I have had over the past several days.
Let’s just say that adolescence for kids nowadays, I believe, is extremely scary. My son is a very sensitive soul. He is, at times, terrified of what’s out there in the world. And I, to make matters worse, am terrified for him. He has, until now, dealt with his fear by withdrawing and dis-investing himself from the situation. I deal with fear by jumping headlong into it and trying to figure it out (like a dog on a meat wagon as my father used to say about me). Therefore, when we are called on to make decisions outside of our comfort zones, he goes into extreme withdrawl and I go into extreme immersion. In these situations, it is as if one of us carries a lighted match and in the dry heat of California, the result can only be wildfire.
My son’s father and I planned for him to spend 22 days in an Outward Bound program in August. First and most importantly, our son is royally pissed because he feels we are taking a big chunk of his summer to do something that was not his idea. And, honestly, we are. We are trying to push him outside of his physical, spiritual, emotional, and intellectual comfort zones. We think he could use a little help with that right now. We also think he will have the time of his life.
However, not only is our son furious, I think he is just a bit terrified of what this trip is going to require of him. And, now you know what happens when his match meets my dry woods. Two nights ago, we set off quite an inferno and then fed it with more fear until it felt like the Angeles Crest Forest was completely ablaze.
Our fears were out of control.
And that’s why we chose each other way back when my son’s little soul entered my body.
I am not Donna Reed, and he is not Opie. Yes, there are times when we feel that way, but I think what we are learning is that we chose each other because we are the perfect mother/son combination. Each wildfire can offer us the opportunity to move further into our fears or each one can offer us the opportunity to deepen our capacities for love, tolerance, courage, and being in relationship so that we can move to the next level of our spiritual evolution.
Neither of us necessarily got the parent/child that we may sometimes wish for in some kind of an easy, breezy, beautiful cover girl kind of world, but we definitely got the one we asked for in the world we are living in now.
Do I occasionally sit and long for parental/child interactions right out of Mother Knows Best?? Yes.
Would I trade-in my son or the love I feel for him? Never.
Would I trade what he teaches me for a different experience with another child? Absolutely not.
Does he want a stuffed teddy bear with his name stitched across the sign it holds in its little paws?
I hope not.
And I honestly don’t think so.
No comments:
Post a Comment