In my case, my mom lost faith in feeling protected and loved herself when her husband, my Dad, was MIA three months into their pregnancy with me. She felt alone, betrayed, angry, depressed, helpless to be connected to the love and wonder she had experienced with Bill that she rarely knew in her family, as the youngest of four children in a family with much physical poverty and confused communication. She wasn't able to cope with being a single mom, and had no resources to comfort or help her deal with being a widow, and losing her husband without certainty he was truly dead.
This for me meant I did not feel safe and protected, emotionally my mom had trouble bonding and being there for me. Happily my grandmas could see I needed a love and attention that my mom rarely could muster, but I had no one consistent caregiver in those early years, and learned early on that love was very conditional, and I needed to be a "good girl" and hold inside my own tears and loss to help this new family survive. So while I was not beaten nor yelled at, there was real neglect that even today affects my ability to trust other people are really there for me in a loving, consistent way.
Yes, we all need to learn ways to be our own best friend, and give ourselves the parenting we did not have, and we also need to feel deep within we are worthy of love, worthy of the support of kind and caring people in our lives today. So if we had little touch and tender words of encouragement and comfort in our early years, or love was intermittent and conditional, we have unmet needs in our adult years that need attention without the overlay of shame or guilt.
It has been so precious to watch my daughters be raised by parents who consistently and deeply adore them, and have given them the tools to be self-confident, resourceful young women who handle disappointment and setbacks with way more ease than I do even today. Their sensuality and emergence as young women were celebrated and respected, not denied or repressed. They have great self-discipline, but also spontaneity and openness to keep trying new things. Fun has been important in their lives along with learning, having a huge circle of supportive friends, and supportive parents when they've faced tough times. I have learned there are better ways to parent than what I learned mostly from books, and trial and error. Happily the degree of neglect and inattention I felt as a child was not what my sons experienced, as it was a passion, a drive, in me to be the best mom I knew how to be, even in the context of an unhappy marriage. And I have had a few long-term supportive friends who stood by me when my life felt impossible.
Whatever the abuse we knew as children, we now do have tools to make our own lives better, to be open to giving and receiving the love we did not get in our early years. We have amazing role models if we knew mental, emotional, physical, or spiritual abuse; gender, sexual, and racial abuse are still widespread, but so many people are waking up to more caring, open, accepting ways of interacting with others who have suffered childhoods, and sometimes adulthoods too, that feel overwhelming to them, and unimaginable to us. We do need comrades with compassion, courage, the willingness to rise above our pasts so we can be more fully present for ourselves, for our loved ones.
Enough for this new day. My intention is to be gentle and kind to my own inner child, and take some time out to ask her what she needs today. It was so precious to watch my son Neal offer cuddles and warm words of wisdom and encouragement to his young daughters when they needed it; they have helped open his heart, and I see a much healthier family unfolding with the clear love between Neal and Adrienne as together they are committed parents, able to handle the many challenges in their lives right now with patience, grace, courage, and tools they both are open to learning and sharing as they share their love and warmth with these precious girls in their lives now.
Time to wash up, get dressed, welcome this new day! Grateful for all the love in my life now, and my own openness to wonder and cherishing special moments with new and old friends!
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