4 Feb
“The times I feel irritated are really inconvenient times to be a mom. Those are the times I tend to react poorly to even the most innocent of my son’s behaviors. And I worry, am I the angry mom who is impossible to please? Am I setting up my kid for years of self-destructive self-talk?”
I’m at Life & Liberty today trying to work out some of this about Anger and Parenting. Please click the thermal photo above and surf you way over to Life & Liberty to read the rest of my thoughts on this issue.
24 Jan
The parents in Frozen inadvertently fueled the monstrous side of their daughter’s powers.
So, I’m pretty sure I’ve got a whole book in me about Disney’s Frozen because I like it so much and it really gets me thinking. I’m writing a pair of essays for Life & Liberty about what the movie can teach us about the use and misuse of power, but I wanted to insert this between those essays to expand on a problem I have with the parents in that movie.
*SPOILER ALERT* This essay discusses major plot points of the movie including surprising twists to the story. If you have not seen the movie and do not want to know how the story unfolds, do not read this essay.
In my first Frozen essay, Disney’s Frozen and the Misuse of Power, I wrote the following about the role that fear plays in how the main character misuses her powers:
As we get to know Queen Elsa, we see that she has a great struggle within herself that is grounded in fear. Her particular fear is that she will hurt someone with her powers just like when she accidentally struck her sister, Anna, with them in when they were children.
In all fairness, the wacky troll that heals Anna and the girls’ parents feed right into Elsa’s fears. The troll erases Anna’s memories of Elsa’s magic and warns Elsa that fear will make her powers more dangerous. The parents then keep Elsa away from other people—including Anna—as much as possible.
The more Elsa tries to conceal and control her powers, the more afraid she becomes and the more of a threat her powers present. So primal is her fear, that it manifests violently against others—including her beloved sister—in order to protect them from her.
I mentioned the parents in passing, but the truth is that they played a significant negative role in their daughters’ lives by keeping them apart, isolating Elsa, and hiding the truth from Anna.
I suppose it makes a more compelling story to have the girls grow up with this gulf between them. It makes it more dramatic when Anna–who has been shut out by Elsa for so long–stands between Elsa and the sword intended for her.
Storytelling devices aside, it’s pretty terrible to lock a girl away just because of one mishap with her powers.
As we see early on, Elsa’s powers can be used to create the most amazing, fun and beautiful playscapes. She and Anna enjoy the winter wonderland that she creates in the castle ballroom. The accident in which Anna gets struck by Elsa’s powers was because Anna was so absorbed in her enjoyment of her sister’s creations that she misjudged a jump from one snowy peak. It was only in trying to give Anna a safe landing place that Elsa accidentally struck her sister with her powers.
There was no malicious intent in Elsa’s actions. She was not some monster, she was a young girl with an extraordinary gift that accidentally got out of control once.
I understand that the parents were concerned for Anna’s safety. And they were concerned for the safety of their kingdom. I get that, I really do.
But there had to have been a better way. There just had to have been.
I’m not a perfect parent, but I do make a point to honor my kid for who he is. And I try to encourage his best gifts rather than squash his potential at the first sign of struggle.
The obvious key to Elsa harnessing her powers for good was the emotional support she received from Anna and others at the end of the movie. What if the parents had been giving that kind of support all along?
See, to me, that’s a big part of a parent’s job. As kids discover the range of their capabilities, parents are in a unique position to help their kids learn appropriate applications of their skills. Kids can live more fully into the positive & appropriate applications of their skills when parents come alongside them and allow them to practice using them.
I recognize that practice can be messy. There will be risks, missed marks, and set-backs. These are hard, but the best skills are worth honing for the good they can bring to our world.
But Elsa’s parents didn’t allow her to practice her powers. They decided for her that she shouldn’t because they assessed that the risks of her using them were too great. By imposing strict control on her and isolating her they seemed to think they could eliminate the risks associated with her powers.
Risk-elimination, no matter how well-intentioned, is as destructive as it is naive. We can never eliminate all risks and to try to eliminate risks is only to introduce different risks.
People are not meant to live isolated lives of fear. We are given gifts and skills to be used for the good of others. When people don’t get to use their gifts then they are at risk for shame, self-loathing, and depression because of the belief that their skills are bad. And when our abilities are not harnessed and guided for good, then the risks get exponentially greater when our abilities manifest in negative or destructive ways.
And so, by trying to eliminate the risks of Elsa using her powers, the parents in Frozen made the situation worse. Elsa hated herself and her abilities and no matter how hard she tried to stop using her powers, they could not be contained. And not having practiced positive applications of her powers in a loving environment, she did not have the emotional resources to direct them for good.
On top of that, their deception of Anna came with additional risks. Of course, there was the obvious risk of Anna losing her favorite playmate. But beyond that, and I want to tread carefully here because I would not want to crush the spirit of a dear soul like Anna, but the parents never dealt with the risky behavior of Anna that led up to the accident with Elsa’s powers.
Anna was a free spirit and we love that about her. Nonetheless, learning to look before she leapt could have served her well in life. She loved and trusted easily which are admirable qualities, to be sure. But instead of helping her learn to manage the risks of her approach to life, the parents enabled her to remain oblivious to the dangers they posed.
And the risks of Anna’s approach to life were great. Let us not forget that the man who tried to kill Elsa was the man with whom Anna had jumped into engagement after singing and dancing with him for just a few hours. It was not Anna’s fault that Hans was a bad guy, but she was responsible for putting in charge of the kingdom a man she barely knew.
Of course, we know how the story ends and that Anna’s power of love saves the day. So, like I say, I wouldn’t want to squelch this power of Anna’s! But the parents could have been better resources for her as a child by allowing her to see the risks involved in loving and trusting so fully and so readily.
As I say, I realize that the situation the parents created sets up a great story. And this is only fiction. But those parents just bug me.
10 Jan
My son had a fall today and it was a sobering moment.
We had been goofing off when he fell backwards and hit his head. All I could do in that moment was to completely freeze because if I had reached for him as he was falling, the shift of my body would have made him fall harder.
I just waited and pictured the worst in my mind.
You know how they talk about people having their whole lives flash before their eyes? Well, in that moment when my son was free-falling, his whole life flashed before my eyes.
And, of course, what that meant was my entire career as a mother flashed before my eyes. And I thought about all the ways that I have let my child down.
I can never quite decide if this portrait my son drew of me is flattering or frightening.
I’m pretty sure he doesn’t see it that way. He got up and let me comfort him and we both vowed not to try that stunt again.
He was a bit stunned and his head was a little sore, but he was okay. Nothing was broken and he was still alive and able to speak, hear and all that.
The worst case that I imagined had not occurred, not even close.
He was okay.
But I sobbed, uncontrollably.
I sobbed over what might have happened–that I might have lost my child in a fall that I was partly responsible for.
I sobbed thinking about the time when he was a babe in arms and we both fell and I almost lost him then too.
I sobbed thinking about the times that I am cranky or cross with him even when he has done nothing to deserve my bad attitude.
And I sobbed thinking of all the times when I have put him off when he has wanted me to play with him because I just wanted to finish writing or reading whatever I was working on.
And I sobbed thinking about how hard it was for me to bond with him when he was first born because my postpartum depression put such a whammy on me.
And I sobbed worrying if my bond with my son will be healthy and strong as he gets older.
And I just wanted to hold him and pray and hope that we will be okay.
And now, he is waiting for me to finish writing this so we can spend some time together…I want to make it count, because I really do love that kid more than I can say.
5 Jan
There’s this archetypal scene in stay-at-home-mother lore in which the child misbehaves and the mom, at her wit’s end, says, “Just wait until your father gets home!” I want to go on record as never having uttered this threat and I don’t plan to start. Let me tell you why.
First of all, it hasn’t taken my 9 year old long to figure out that his dad is the softie.
Want to stay up late? Remind dad of something he promised to do with you today but hasn’t done yet.
Want a new toy? Ask dad to take you to the store, “just to work on a wish list.”
More often than not, I’m the stricter parent. “Go to bed” means “now” in my way of thinking. And I see right through that “wish list” ploy.
Don’t get me wrong, my husband doesn’t let our son run amok, but in a side-by-side comparison he is more lenient than I am most of the time.
So, if I were to try that “wait until your father gets home” bit on my son, it would backfire. My son would see it for the empty threat it would be and it simply wouldn’t work.
Not only am I resigned to the fact that this kind of threat wouldn’t work, but I am also glad because I don’t want my kid to fear his father or disrespect me.
I want my husband and son to have a healthy father-son bond. This would be impeded if my husband was someone who instilled fear in my child’s little heart.
When I think what “wait until your father gets home” might imply, I shudder at the thought. The threat seems to imply a heavy-handed father who shames, yells at, or even beats the child to get compliance.
I do not want to be married to a man who promotes hostility and fear in the home. I purposefully chose to marry a man who is tender-hearted and nurturing because that is the tone I want in our home.
Furthermore, abdicating discipline of my own child would undermine me as a parent. Especially since I am the one who is on the scene most of the day, I need to be able to set and maintain appropriate boundaries with my son.
If I could not personally enforce standards of discipline, I would be suggesting to my son that I don’t know how to make rules or that my rules are not important. I would be opening myself to disrespect from my child and ultimately this could lead to greater chaos and misbehavior over time.
I believe that whichever parent is on the scene when misbehavior occurs needs to be able to handle it directly. It is not fair to either my husband or myself for us to put discipline off on the other parent.
Last, but certainly not least, I believe that parental threats are a form of aggression and I seek to avoid them. Whether they are empty threats or ones that have real “teeth” to them, any kind of threat is an aggressive form of communication.
When there are so many other, more affirming ways to communicate with my child about my expectations, I’d rather use those. I want to promote a positive atmosphere to encourage my son to make better choices in life.
I’m not perfect. I have admitted in the past that I yell more than I’d like. And, if I’m honest, subtle threats probably make their way into my communication with my son more than I intend.
Aggressive communication is the wide path that is easy to go down, but it leads to destruction. The narrow path of loving and nurturing forms of discipline is harder to stick to, but it leads to life. (For more on this theme, see Matthew 7:12-14.)
So, in addition to all the reasons not to use dad as a threat, I don’t even want threats to be part of how I discipline my child. I pray for the wisdom and grace to be the kind of parent who doesn’t rely on threats for correction.
Overall, we have a really positive home life where each person is loved and respected. I was always raised in a home where I was respected as a child and I want to offer the same to my kid. I do expect compliance to certain rules and standards in the home, but I will not threaten my kid with his own father. There are lots of positive ways to maintain order in our home and I’m finding them to work quite well.
For a good, basic primer on the parenting philosophy I use, I recommend Positive Discipline by Jane Nelsen. (Click the title to see this recommendation in my Amazon store at Life & Liberty. Purchases you make there will help support this online magazine where I am a contributor.)
13 Sep
I wrote on my blog before about my history of infertility and how I lament that I can’t have another child, I lament my broken body. And while that is true, there is more to it than that. I alluded to it a little in that previous post:
Is there still hope that I could technically get the right treatments, eat the right foods and eventually conceive again?
Probably.
See, that probability could be more in reach than I let on. I mean, there are some relatively simple steps with my health that I could take but I am not taking. And partly why I don’t do those things is because there is part of me that doesn’t want more kids.
I wrote once before about my history of depression and anxiety and how that is a factor in why I am reticent about having more kids:
I sunk to rock-bottom depression in my early days post-partum and at some point after having my son the anxiety kicked in…I mentioned before that my history of infertility is the biggest reason why I don’t have more than one kid, but this depression/anxiety stuff factors in pretty prominently too.
So, I’m disappointed yet a little glad that I can’t because I don’t want to anyway because I was such a depressed mess the first time around.
But there is more.
There is the part that I don’t want to tell but somehow I feel like God wants me to work out. There is the plain old reality that I just don’t want to for my own reasons.
I know my great longing is not a secret, because it is all over this blog. I want this blog to be something to serve others, but so often I am absorbed in all my own drama here. So I have already revealed what I really want.
I want to give birth to more speaking and writing.
And I just can’t give birth to that if I am to have another baby. They say you can have it all, just not all at once, and I believe them.
When my son was small, he required so much, so very much of me. From breastfeeding to bed-wetting, the demands were around-the-clock for so many of his younger years. Add into that the hours-on-end of hands-on involvement during the day–I took seriously the caution not to allow screentime until age 3, the advice to not leave a young child unattended even for a moment. So, I spent a lot of time right there with him, shaping his days, playing games, and telling him stories.
I don’t begrudge him any of that.
I just know myself well enough to know that if that was my reality all over again, then I couldn’t do the speaking and writing that I want to do, you know, with grown-ups.
My son is 9 years old now and halfway to college already! And with his advancing years, he is more independent than ever. Now he is reading fluently and can lose himself in a National Geographic while I write a bit. And the older he gets, being a guy and all, the more he wants to spend time with his dad–so that means more time for me to work on preparing for a talk I’m going to give.
My son still needs me, of course. But more of me is freer now than when he was little little. And I like it this way, this me-being-freer way.
So, why do I feel so guilty about wanting what I want and enjoying my freedom?
I mean, all the time, women of “normal” fertility decide to stop making more babies. They could have more, but they don’t. So, why do I, for whom baby-making does not come so easily, feel so guilty for “I don’t want to”?
Maybe it’s not the “I don’t want to” that I feel guilty about so much as the hiding behind the “I can’t” narrative.
Hiding behind “I can’t” has been an excuse to not directly seek God’s will. If I just stick to the “I can’t” script, then I don’t have to know what God wants for my future. If I can’t, I can’t, right? So God can’t possibly expect me to do what I can’t do.
But, what if I stop hiding behind, “I can’t” and just be honest with God about “I don’t want to because there’s other stuff I want to do instead”? What if I invite God into this complexity of emotion, into these layers of angst?
Ah, though, the trouble with that is what if God doesn’t affirm what I think I want to do? What if this whole speaking and writing stuff is just my will, my want?
I wrestle all the time with sorting out my motives. I want to believe that what I want is what God wants. I have an inkling that this other stuff is where God is calling me. I have a pretty clear vision about what that work might entail.
But for me, moving more fully into the speaking and writing entails having that baby-making stuff behind me. And until I stop hiding behind my assertion of “I can’t” and really ask God whether it is okay to not to, then what I actually can’t do is move forward in anything with any degree of certainty.
Lord, I submit this to you. Grant me the courage and confidence to know and move forward in your will. Amen
Jennifer Clark Tinker 