We Had to Raze the Building

Photo by Robert Stacy

    So. Over the past few weeks, I've been involved in a number of discussions, both online and in real life, about parenting and children and labels and disorders. A couple of these stemmed from this article: How Teenage Rebellion Has Become a Mental Illness: Big pharma has some new customers. Not complying with authority is now, in many cases, labeled a disease. In one conversation, the parent said that all of the answers I was giving were about parenting, that the "disorder" was something that went far beyond that. I can only give my perspective from what we learned when we made the shift from authoritarian, controlling, reward-and-punishment parenting to Seeing Things Differently. I wanted to write about some of this in detail, partly to comb through and lay out what I see as a fundamental shift in not "just parenting", but in how we see life and living and Love -- for myself as much as to answer questions from other parents:

    Parenting is about learning what Love is, so, yes, I think it's the root of everything. When we have a child that challenges us and isn't "easy", it's a gift, because we're learning how to love -- how to let love come through, manifest -- in different ways. An author I like says that "Parenthood is the most intensive course in Love there is." (Paraphrasing Polly Berrien Berends.)

    One reason that a conversation about a shift in how we parent is like careful translation is because when people talk about parenting, or ask "what would you do", it's like they are asking what color to paint the top floor of a leaning building. "You know, this apartment isn't working for us. It's depressing, dark. What color would you paint it?" When we were questioning our parenting and thought that we would be changing "methods", we assumed that it would be like looking through paint chips to pick a different color for the depressing apartment (that was the relationship with our children). What no one tells you -- the real and wonderful cosmic joke -- is that in order to change the "apartment" -- that isn't pleasing you, that just doesn't feel right -- you must blow up the building and start over from the foundation. So, asking me "what would you do" or "what DID you do" is like asking "what color", and the answer is "we had to raze the building and start with a new foundation" -- which turned out to be a new perception of what parenting IS, what Love is, what wholeness is. It wasn't "just parenting", this shift -- it was life-changing, and not something that we could explain easily.

    What I discovered, when we first began to make changes in the way we parented, was that what I thought would be a project, a change in rules or parenting "methods" or "philosophy", was, in fact, a fundamental change in the whole idea of what Love is. I think that from the time we are born, we are introduced to the (false) idea that Love is something that we can give each other or can get from each other, that we can "deserve" or "earn", bestow or withhold. Seen from this perspective, "love" is something parents use to control their child's behavior: You're good, you earn Love, you're bad, and Love is withdrawn. Most parents would say, "Oh, no -- we may hate the behavior, but we will always love the child." But, if you have learned that Love is like currency, something we exchange ie "I Love you, you Love me", then anger feels like the withdrawal of Love.

    What parenting teaches us, if we seek to learn it, is that Love is NOT an exchange. It's way of seeing, a mode of perceiving, not an exchange, not currency. Seeing your child through Love is a way to see them as whole and perfect JUST THE WAY THEY ARE. This is the foundation of the new building.

    As a parent, if we see our child as damaged, as in need of fixing, as not whole and perfect, they learn to see themselves this way. Some of them -- the brave, the resilient, the courageous -- fight the perception of themselves as "broken", and the fight is painful. It's painful to know that the people who are there to show you love and acceptance, to celebrate the wonderful, whole person you are, see you as flawed and in need of fixing. The healthy ones rebel against this. The submissive ones learn to take special care to hide what parents see as unacceptable, as not worthy, and they bury their feelings. And then they have to deal with it sooner or later, start excavating. Or not.

    This a jewel of a passage from Whole Child/Whole Parent, by Polly Berrien Berends;

"'Oats, peas, beans, and barley grows.'
. . . It is written into the very nature of the oat, pea, bean, and barley to grow into fruitful plants. Nobody questions whether they want to do this, or can. So why do we doubt our children? When the farmer sows a nice, round, healthy oat and it doesn't grow well, he doesn't say, "What's the matter with the oat? It must be lazy or sick or emotionally disturbed in some way." He assumes that something is wrong with the environment in which that oat is trying to grow. Then he sets about trying to perceive what is needed."