I saw a quote recently that said, “It’s easier to build strong children than to repair broken adults” (Frederick Douglass). At first glance this is a beautiful quote. Of course, all of us parents need to work hard to build strong children. I love quotes that relax my soul, however, and this one didn’t. It got stuck inside of me and festered there, until I examined its meaning further.
It seems that, for me, this quote needs a shift in focus. The quote speaks of building strong children to prevent broken adults in the future, but what to do with the adults right now who are feeling broken and are trying to build strong children? If we want to go straight to the heart of the matter, helping these parents learn to self-soothe and self-love would be the best course of action to help them be present, loving parents, and thus prevent broken adults in the future.
Reading this quote, evoked guilt inside of me. I know how to parent my children, but I don’t always do the best job because sometimes there is too much going on inside of me: too much scheduling, too much thinking, too much noise, too much organizing, too much emotional pain. When there is too much, my pot is full and I don’t always have the patience to respond to my children with elegant support. When my pot spills over, I can revert right back to the age of my own children. I can tantrum just like them.
To me, it seems that the attention of this quote is focused on parents needing to be better at building strong children. But I am an adult, and at times, I feel broken. And if I feel broken then I can’t build strong children. This quote would be much more powerful if it focused on the parent; if it relaxed a parent’s soul by giving them permission to care for them self, and encouraging them to look within and learn to meet their needs with kindness.
When my pot spills over, I revert back to the age of my own children because there is still a 5-year-old child inside of me who is screaming for my love. When I am overwhelmed, I become this child. I act in ways I do not want to act.
In January, for example, after a month of unrestricted behaviour, a lot of us try to apply a rigid set of rules to our eating and drinking. Our willpower can be very strong so we tend to be successful for the first few weeks, but then something inside of us starts to rebel. Our restriction, which felt good at first, starts to wane, and the child inside of us no longer wants to be told what to do, so it revolts. It craves. It yells for attention. By mid-February, we act in ways we do not want to act, and the drinking gradually starts again.
Experience has shown me, that instead of rules, if we tend to the child within and give her love by offering her consistent care, listening to her needs, and holding her through her emotions (just like we attempt to do with our own children), then the insatiable need for more (more food, more wine, more excitement, more stuff) is no longer there. In actuality, the insatiable need for more is a deep-rooted need for love. Give the child love, and the cravings subside.
So I hope we take this quote, and our New Year’s resolutions, and rather than enlisting another set of rules that we need to follow to be better, we soften. We approach our self with kindness and love, curiosity and presence. We learn to self-soothe, and meet our own needs, emotionally, physically, and spiritually. We be our own little buddy. We promise to stay, even in times of emotional turmoil. We give our self the loving presence that we needed way back when, and when we make mistakes, we give our self a hug and laugh a little about the challenges of life. Perhaps we can modify the quote to say, “It’s easier to repair broken adults by giving them permission to love and care for themselves, than to tell broken adults that they should build strong children.”
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