PARENTS

WHAT IS A PARENT, ANYWAY? 

Don’t toss out your first answer and move on. Stop. Be still. Go blank. Take a breath. The answer is blowin’ in the wind. 

No man owns the seed. No woman the egg. All share the common understanding of one soul. We are born in relationship. No islands. Children everyone.

I harm a child when I call him or her my own. Stop. Be still. Go blank. Take a breath. The answer is blowin’ in the wind. The very action of claiming ownership is tainted. “My” baby. Look into it. The idea makes the child my property and that naming is mere illusion.The child is her own being. Illusion makes a parent. And that answer blew in on the wind just now. Parenthood is illusion.

Adults need to care for the child to prevent harm. Try. Try it. Cannot be done. And the pain of it is too much to stand. So we escape the fact. We invent a Father’s Day and one for Mother. We flatter each other with “you are a good parent”. All illusion, and, as such, untrue.

One time this writer accepted a position with a firm for money. On the first day at work he was told by a supervisor, “The law requires we have an officially designated safety coordinator and as new man we have decided to appoint you.” I replied, “I know nothing of safety coordination”. “Do not worry. It is only necessary to give a name to the proper authorities” was the supervisor’s reply to that. I did not toss out an immediate answer and plow ahead. Instead, I stoppped. Became still. Went blank inside. Took a breath. The answer blew in on the wind. It was, “I do know that happy, content, satisfied people are the safest people and love makes that happen. So, my task was to love these people.  I did just that. I loved my co-workers and they came  to love me back. Instead of signs crying “DANGER!  I took every opportunity to remind them how wonderful they are and how valuable how appreciated and how fortunate to be alive.” So simple. That just might be good advice for anyone stuck with the tag “SAFETY COORDINATOR” since it is impossible to imagine a thing wrong with that. I just would carefully add “love them as they are, without one alteration on my account”.

The wind says it is time to address a common misunderstanding. It has been my experience that every human who accepts a role of authority over even one other forgets the “love” part of the equation from time to time and really forgets the “acceptance without one change” part. A good place to find material like this is in relationships between adults and teenagers. It is rife with material for study. At 14 my daughter asked to come live with me. Her mom and I had been divorced since Shannon was a baby. My ex-wife told me she could no longer handle Shannon. I was thrilled to have her live with me but…at first she was prone to take off and not return until long past my expectations. Feeling mistreated, I vowed each time that upon her return I would give her the lecture of her life and demand she change! However each time when she did appear the memory of the lecture left my consciousness completely and all I wanted was to hug Shannon and welcome her back and love her as she was without a change of any kind on my account. In fact, I heard my voice tell her, I know you know what is good for you, Shannon, and trust you to do that for yourself.  She seemed not to believe that could be my real response at first but as it continued she gradually relaxed into the love. In a short while, Shannon and I became so close I did not believe it could happen to me and she never has ceased to trust me nor I her right up to this day some 30 years later.