Miki Dedijer

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An invitation to lighten up

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Children are full of spirit, passion, life force, vitality. It overflows.

The world is new! The body amazing. Puddles are endless fun. Strawberries! The fur of a cat. Hard edge of a rock. (Ouch!) Tears. Up. Look. Sunlight through a fall leaf. The ocean waves.

Your child can point you to where you’ve grown stiff from age, routine, habit or lethargy. She reminds you of where your lust for life has atrophied. She shows you when you try to fit the universe in a square box, its sides made from logic, rationality, science and certainty.

Here’s her invitation: mom, dad, loosen up, get limber, lighten up. Do something ludicrous and lustful. Let go. Let’s play.

Be a hero and heed her call. Throw away your watch, and watch what you throw away. Let the dust rats run past you and hide behind the open door.

Step out of line, ditch a deadline, get offline, and join your child in a riotous tumble with the divine.

One-liners: parenting in a single sentence

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“It’s only a mistake if you don’t learn from it.”

My son spoke this sentence today. We were stuck with the car in an icy ditch. Foolishly, I had tried to reverse uphill on a crust of compacted snow and rain. There was a lot for me to learn here (and model too!).

He’s heard me speak that exact sentence a dozen if not hundreds of times in his little life. It’s a one-liner we often use in our family.

You’ll have some one-liners yourself, I’m sure. Take a moment to think about a few. What do you say again and again in certain situations?

Here are a few common ones: “Practice makes perfect”; “Don’t cry over spilled milk”; “Easy come, easy go.”

You may or may not agree with these. Perhaps they underscore values that are different from yours. But whatever you consider an essential teaching for your child, make sure you can boil it down to a single sentence. With a handful of one-liners, you can then drip-feed your core family teachings throughout childhood.

Redundancy emphasizes importance.

Releasing expectations so your child can grow

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Suddenly your child is not who you think she was.

She used to seek your presence then suddenly she is more remote. She was once a calm and content child and suddenly she is unruly, wild and angry. She would fall asleep without a fuss and now she refuses to go to bed at all.

Our children change. As parents we cannot hold them prisoner to who we think they are. We must learn to let go of them, again and again.

Being a parent is a lot about knowing how to let go of your expectations, so you can welcome the child you have not yet gotten to know.

Our children develop, grow, mature. There is a pattern beyond the specifics of our own child, a sequence of developmental stages.

It helps to know these stages, to become familiar with the possible changes, and help orient to the early growth cycle of the human being.

Once a year–perhaps around your child’s birthday–take a moment to learn more about what typifies a child of her age. Learn what is happening in her body, in her heart, her mind, her soul. See where you feel she is.

You will find it easier to let go of your expectations. Your child will be less of a stranger to you. And you will feel the excitement of meeting her fully in her next stage of growth.

You are not a father, not a mother

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You are not a father or a mother.

You are not a carpenter or a yoga teacher or a gardener.

You are not a role-player, a work-title, a position or a label.

You’re a spider. A fool. A rain drop. You are a nebula. A becoming. A being. A part of a greater whole.

Easy to forget when you’re on your belly looking for a lost sock under a dusty bed.

But important to remember for the health of your family.

When we confine ourselves to a role or define ourselves by the position we hold in a family, we exclude all else that brings us joy, insight, expansiveness, vitality.

When we see ourselves primarily as mothers or fathers, we too easily forget all the many other ways we adventure through life, all the many other ways we relate.

Confined to a parental role, we become rigid, inflexible, limited and quite likely grumpy and disgruntled.

Our child notices, watches and learns from us not what it is to be a parent, but what our ways are saying about being an adult human.

So for the sake of your child, for your family, for yourself, don’t lay yourself down at the mercy of parenthood.

Offer yourself the space to be fully human–create a home where you see yourself, your child, your partner not as a fixed position but personhood in a flux.

Feel the excitement, the curiosity, the possibilities in a family beyond roles. Just for one day, go a bit crazy and try something surprising that is beyond reasonable or the clearly sensible.

Loosen up your fixed positions and stale habits, by switching roles and trading chores. If you’re a father call yourself a mother. If you’re a mother, call yourself a father. Disolve wherever you’ve become stuck in your respective tasks, expectations and everyday patterns.

Make it a fun day full of playfulness and serious insights.

 

Withhold or flow

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Family energy stops flowing when you withhold your inner life.

You might want to hide your endless worry from your overworked wife. You’re secretly fuming that your husband has left his underwear on the floor again. Or you hesitate to show your joy on a day that your partner is in pain.

When you withhold, you put your whole family on hold. Even if you don’t share what what’s going on inside of you, your energy is in the room.

It’s confusing, not least to your child. They sense these things like a scented breeze, a vibration, an unease. When you suppress your inner life, your body says one thing and you say another. A child can’t make sense of it. Or your partner.

Planning family-time before anything else

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Work comittments easily take precedence over family-time.

Not without conflict though. Someone in the family will eventually feel left out, or ignored, or excluded.

If communication is unclear, there might be anger or withdrawal. Or, god forbid, the leaden cloak of supressed anger.

Let’s bring our family-time back to the center of our lives.

Here’s one way: once a week, sit down and go through the calendar together as a family. See when in the coming week you want to set aside time for the family, or when there are shared obligations to attend to.

When those times are agreed on and blocked out, you’ll know what remains available for work.