Parenthood is a very tough journey. - And this is something which we need to know.
Behind the scenes of all the laughter, joy, or remembering the little milestones of our little ones, are countless tears and frustrations.
I always deemed my son a easy little boy to handle. I observed him and view of other children I have seen, he is definitely accommodating, charming and 99% smiling all the time.
Every single morning, I wake up to his beautiful, big, wide smile. He is friendly to people. He observes people and places with al ot of curiosity and charm.
However, there will always be days in his journey of growing up which frustrates me on how I can teach him better, behave better. Scream lesser, spill water off tables lesser, sleep more, cry lesser etc and the list just goes on.
We are always mostly so overwhelmed by the day to day whats-not that we really do not have time as parents to reflect on our teaching methods or parenting ways.
We react to our children in return to their irritating behaviours or annoying noises with screaming, vulgarities, or even violent acts. We only tell them to not do this, not touch that, be this or be that.
We forget that we were once a baby. A child, a immature teenager. We forgot that we hated the 'abusive' methods of our traditional parents and we see our parents' ways of parenting in our direct mirror image.
My son has inspired me.
In order to help him grow, I need to take the effort to engage him, talk to him nicely, and at the same time, give him the space to play and fight. Scream and shout. Throw things and pick them up again. And again, and again.
He makes me be childlike even more, by enjoying his toys, playing his boring games over and over again; reminding myself that babies learn through entertaining repetitions.
He made me ponder over my temper, my impatience and my desire for instant results for personal gratification. He compelled me to rethink over my expectations of him versus his current capability to match that level of expectations.
I have to struggle between vehemently correcting his behaviour or understanding that this is his phase of life. Am I spoiling him or am I just being too strict a disciplinarian.
Am I building him or destroying him?
I often have to ask myself.
Children are very smart aliens. They are creative and genuine. We need to cherish this. As parents, we need to reflect constantly and move alongside our babies' growing phase. We cannot parent like how we just want to be. We need to parent the way we want them to be love and taught.
When you become a parent, you learn to care lesser of things which used to irritate you. You spend lesser time micro-managing nonsensical things. You try to be more effective and efficient because you have alot on your plate.
Parenthood can be a lonely journey. All parents seemingly go through the same shit but really the situations are very different. This is really just due to the fact that we are all unique individuals on our own. Communicating with your spouse, or speaking to a good friend who is also a parent can help strengthen your parenting journey.
In learning parenthood, our children really do either make us better person or worst as a individual.
You are not alone in this journey, it is just a difficult self-reflecting one. But if we put in enough thoughts and efforts and change? We will reap good of our labour.
Parenting? Be prepared for a new you.
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