S
Signorina
Guest
I subscribe to Dr. Joshua Coleman ( author of When Parents Hurt: Compassionate Strategies When You and Your Grown Child Don't Get Along) newsletter and this was the one I received today. I am not sure I am ready to stop trying with my difficult child - but it's a good reminder that to me that I need to separate my own self worth from my difficult child's perception of me. Easier said than done. And I wanted to share in case it helps someone else.
WHY IT SOMETIMES MAKES SENSE TO STOP TRYING
One of the things that parents have to decide is whether they have it in them to keep trying or whether it's better for their mental health to throw in the towel. Sometimes, and this is important, what might be better for our adult child isn't better for us; and at this point of your lives, you get to decide. And that may well mean deciding not to continue to work on it. On the other hand, sometimes letting go actually creates a better space for a reconciliation to occur.WHY IT SOMETIMES MAKES SENSE TO STOP TRYING
I find that this is particularly confusing terrain for mothers who are socialized to put themselves last and to always keep trying.(BINGO! This is the line that hit close to home)
So, if you're on the fence, let me start by saying maybe you shouldn't try. Here is the case against trying:
- Maybe it costs you too much psychologically.
- Maybe "trying" means having to remain open to someone who just dumps raw sewage on you every time you encounter him or her.
- Maybe trying means that your self-esteem gets constantly put up on the auction block for the lowest bidder which happens to be the one person whose opinion you care the most about-your child.
- Maybe it's too hard to keep trying because the rejection from your child reminds you too much of how rejected you felt by your own parents or family. And you just don't have that much to give because so much of your energy goes every day to trying to feel like you have a right to be alive or to have any kind of a life, even before the trauma of estrangement was visited upon you.
If we only let our children decide what kind of parent we are or were and what kind of person we are, we not only do ourselves a disservice, we do them a disservice.
We do them a disservice because we give them more power than they deserve to have.
We confuse them by implying that they have a bigger claim against us than they do.
We enable them by rubberstamping their mistreatment of us