One of the things I’ve realized in the past few years is that my parents were very skilled at parenting. That is, I didn’t even realize how wonderful their lessons were until I became a parent myself and found that much of what one has to do for a child is second nature to me mostly because of my parents’ love, patience, and wisdom. Not that I knew or know what to do in every circumstance! Still, I had absorbed their tender ways unconsciously, and found that I–though not originally aware of any capacity to love children–was capable of a kindness and focus with my children that was unlike anything I’d ever been able to conjure up for another person. I am infinitely grateful to my parents for this, as I realize their simple loving attention allowed me to be a person who can in turn love my children, my partner, and myself. Though you can’t benefit directly from my parents, I’d like to share some of the things they taught me–their simple “life hacks”–with you.
Being loved is the best apprenticeship for loving someone else. Recognizing someone else and paying attention to him or her– the very particular individuality of that person — is the basis and beginning of all intimate relationships. Our capacity to recognize the other and love wholeheartedly grows out of our experience of being recognized and loved as a small child.
As a child, I loved my parents but was obviously not mature enough to appreciate their childraising skills. By the time I started having kids (in my thirties), I was filled with apprehension. I worried about not knowing what to do, and how not knowing meant that I was unprepared to be a mother. I bought books while pregnant and tried to prepare materially for the baby’s arrival, but what I really worried about, were the simplest things: changing a diaper, nursing, knowing what a baby cry meant. Fortunately, the nurses in the hospital where my first was born were not only not condescending, but happy to teach me the basic “how-to’s.” And not long after that, I felt upheld by a confidence that kicked in due to the ocean of love that filled my veins for my wee girl. Apparently, the years under my parents’ roof had instilled great resources from which to draw upon for this mother-child relationship. Within hours I realized that this love (which seemed gloriously alive, like a radiant mantle that was sheltering us) would bear all difficulties, would drive me to care for this babe in arms better than anyone else. Love would expand to fit and encompass whatever trial or situation arose. My parents’ voices, their pauses, their tender responses, these filled my mind and ears and eyes and gave me the scaffolding to love and support my newborn.
Many years later, I realized that I was able to apply this caring model to myself in my darkest moments. My parents’ words and ways helped me to love myself. Alone in my home for the first time in my mid-fifties, I found some serious life hacks that are akin to those comforts or fixes that my parents gave me as a child in their sweet wisdom, as they loved me as well as they knew how.
One of the first and simplest took the longest to learn. It involves grace and prayer. However, because I did not believe as my parents did, I resisted understanding that praying isn’t about the prayer as much as it’s about praying and the pray-er. In other words, the essence of praying isn’t about how its done, or where, or with whom. This prayer is not about orthodoxy or religion, though it can have bells or incense or kneeling, as you will. It just isn’t sanctimonious or concerned with the “right words”. More on my mother the “prayer warrior” next time!