The Responsibility of Parenting

A couple of days ago I came home from Norway where I was giving another Conflict resolution training to students at the Red Cross Nordic United World College. Working with eager kids from literally all over the world is such a breeze and immense inspiration for me after loads of workshops and trainings given in the business environment. With the absolutely serene nature around being a cream at the top.

On the other hand, it always brings up quite some memories and emotions from within me. Not only does it strike me that my kids are already of this college age (therefore I am not as young as I like thinking I am), during the training and working on questions of needs, free choice, inner conflicts, inner obstacles, lack of self confidence etc, students come in touch with some deeper realms of their beings. And when they come to see me in the breaks to share some intimate problems they have, seeking empathy and support, I am always touched by the fragility of us, human beings, on the one hand, and with the amount of burden they already carry around with them at their age, on the other.

From a certain point of view it is really sad to see how deeply they (and all of us, of course) were shaped by the countless influences from their social environment, starting with their parents, families, schooling system and the culture as whole. As Foucault would have said (I guess), the individual is so utterly manufactured within the discourse of the culture and social environment that we can hardly speak of anything like an individual at all.

From the day 0 our children are left at the mercy of all almost omnipotent adults around, bossing them around and pre-shaping them, willingly or unwillingly, in all sorts of directions. And this process continues on a daily basis, for years after years, forcing them to hyper produce strategies to emotionally survive.

Now, the scary part for me right now is the fact that I am shaping my kids as I write this – and have been doing it all along the way. Thousands of to me seemingly unimportant events and hundreds of those that even I can see as important have left piles of scars and wounds, without me even being aware of them. From their most early childhood my words and my silence, my actions and my non-actions, kept creating certain confusions, fears, pain and so directed their inner emotional life in certain directions. Yes, I also have given them love and support and respect and all of that, as much as I could and probably above average, however this does not change the amount of the painful impact I have caused. And does not provide me with much comfort.

Couple of months back when I realized the amount of love I have, completely ignorant of that, withheld from my kids, my heart almost fell apart. All those years have seemingly rushed by like a tornado and soon they will be leaving home, off into the world and into their independent lives, with all the luggage they will be taking away and having to struggle with for the rest of their lives.

Little did I know about the responsibility of parenting when, many years ago, the idea of having a child or two seemed like a very nice, easy and romantic one.