On Being the Grown-Up

I've been with my current therapist a pretty long time. I don't know the exact length off the top of my head (and I'm not going all the way down to the kitchen to get my therapy notebook out of my purse to check), but it's probably been close to two years.

And we're just now, finally, starting to get somewhere.

I've learned a lot from this therapist, which is why I've stuck it out this long. We've come to dumb, everyday realizations like always offer your husband a sauce with his dinner if he likes sauce so much…even with dishes that aren't supposed to have sauce and it's not realistic to expect a two-year-old to sit quietly on a train, so it's better for your stress level to adjust your expectations. And we've come to core-shaking realizations, like this one:

I don't want to be the grown-up. I want my preschoolers to be more sensitive to my needs. 

But recognizing and admitting these feelings is supposedly a big step.

You see, said my therapist, a parent will usually reflect on his or her childhood and think, "I had grown-ups around me who met my needs. I felt safe and validated. Now it's my job to recreate that environment for my children so they can grow up to be well-adjusted adults."

In contrast, when one of my boys asks me for a cup of milk, I immediately twist it all up and think, "you want me to get you something again? Do you know how tired I am? Do you know how upsetting your noisiness is to me? Look at everything I do for you. Can't you let me just sit down for one minute? Why doesn't anyone ever care about my feelings?"

My therapist told me to step back and examine the actual situation: yes, a three- and five-year-old have a lot of demands, but they are little dependent creatures, not mini-adults. They look to their Mommy to help them and provide for them. Counting on you to help them survive is the only way they know.

Then it hit me: my goal here as a mother is to raise well-adjusted human beings. With that in mind, it would totally behoove me to be there to meet their needs without copping an attitude: to provide milk, food, hugs, a feeling of security and a sense of importance. So they can grow up and look back on their childhoods and remember an environment in which they felt safe and nurtured and validated. Plus, this new attitude might actually be reflected back at me at some point, which would address a host of other problems.

Wow…I have some really heavy stuff to think about. But I'm starting to think I might be ready to be a grown-up now.