My daughter – MY (inadvertent) teacher!

The thing about parenting is that it has very little to no bearing on what’s going on with the parent – parenting is a process that continues, no matter what.  It doesn’t wait around – at least not longer than what it requires for you to have your “cookie and milk” moment.  How you choose to parent – now that’s another story – but you are a parent even after your child is grown and feels like he/she no longer require parenting.

I say this to say that life has so many different challenges which adults (parents) must face on a day to day basis; to help us with these challenges are a myriad of self-help tools created by “gurus”, who have designed a multiplicity of exciting and not so exciting techniques to help us make it through each day.  I find, however, that, as hard as we do try, we don’t always reach for the right tools at the right time.  Apparently, life can be way simpler than these tools and books that these gurus have “manufactured” to help us function as human beings, but more specifically as parents – parents who experience so many other interactions that have some degree of impact on how/when we parent.

Lately, I have been preoccupied with the idea of forgiveness and the role it plays in my life as a parent.  The questions I have been asking myself and those close to me are do we really TRULY forgive, when we say we do?  Do we really know what it is to forgive in the first place?

Approximately one year ago,  I suffered the end of a friendship with someone I considered a close family member; someone with whom I shared the core of me; a “friendship” that lasted 10 years.  To say the least, the pain from this WAS like no other pain I had ever suffered, and I was literally bewildered by the extent of what had happened.  That being said, while I have been able to function since, and have restored some amount of order in my head space, I am not totally myself since this devastating blow.  It has been a VERY difficult thing to deal with, in the sense that I have allowed it to affect how I relate to the many other amazing people in my life – people who are loyal and true. Even though I harbor no hate toward this person, I cannot imagine speaking to them ever again.  The thing that troubles me is that I don’t even care to.

Thus, the question I ask myself is, “have you truly forgiven that person?”

What does this have to do with parenting you might ask?  A lot – that’s my answer; In fact, more than I will delve into with this particular post.  In any event…

How can I be teaching my daughter to forgive if I don’t know how to truly forgive?

The issue of forgiveness is also important because I do buy into the argument that forgiveness is not about the other person, it is more about the individual doing the forgiving; and I want my honey bun to always make the right choices in this regard.

Many of you may recall a couple posts ago that my daughter went through a series of being bullied and how devastated it made her.  It had gotten so bad that she didn’t want to go back to school, and rightly so!   Long story short: today, however, my daughter harbors no ill will, and has, from all indications, forgiven – totally forgiven – the children who have been guilty of causing her unbearable heartache.  The reports she gives in more recent times are reports of her being kind to them (and them her), and I have witnessed her being very kind and pleasant to them.  In fact, she is, for the most part, back to her “normal” self – she is now “cool” with them.  In other words, she has forgiven (the bullies).

While I am generally proud of the human being she is and is on her way to being, in that specific moment, I was in awe of her and admired her resilience and tenacity and willingness to forgive.  Now, some of you gurus may argue that she forgives this easily because she is a child and is experiencing her experiences with innocence… well, while that may be true, she still has forgiven, and that is the point I am trying to make.  She has forgiven because I have been instilling in her the importance of forgiveness. She has forgiven, because she is still a baby who forgets quickly – a baby who doesn’t know how to “hold it against you”.  Do we lose our ability to really forgive once been contaminated by the evils of the world – aka ADULTHOOD aka LIFE?!

Am I a hypocrite, because I, unlike my daughter, have NO interest in saying hello and “being cool” to the one who hurt me?  Even though I harbor no ill will and have 93% gotten over the hurt, have I truly forgiven?  As a parent, do I need to practice EVERYTHING that I preach in order to be a “good” mom?

As adults we always think that we know it all, because we have “seen” it all; but we can learn from our children.  Life can be a lot simpler than we make it.  My grandmother would say “young bud (bird) nuh know storm”; that is true, yes, but sometimes all it requires for us to have a better day is to practice the art of forgiveness – true forgiveness – just like the “young buds” that we are parenting. If only it were that easy huh?

The truth is, after the storm has cleared and the dust has settled, this will have been something that happened once upon a time. I do relish my experiences (good and bad), because of the lessons that I take from each experience.  So honestly speaking, I wouldn’t trade any of my “heart breaks” … older and wiser – a beautiful thing that is!  If nothing else, these adult experiences (pains and pleasures) make for great life’s lessons to pass on to my daughter.

In the meantime, I still aspire to be like my daughter…. think about it… there IS a lot we can learn from our children….

Peace be with you as we uncover and confront the truth about parenting….