The vulnerability of Parenting - Terri, Grounded Parents Group
/The vulnerability of Parenting
My oldest is now 14 years old, yet I still vividly recall a conversation with another new mom when our children were both around age 2. She summed up our mutual feelings about being new parents so well.
“No one told me it was going to be like this, she said. You’re told you are going to be tired and work hard and that you will experience unconditional love, but nobody tells you about the fear!”
She was right. There is an aspect of the parenting experience that is not made evident in advance. When you become a parent, there is love, there is joy, there is tired but there is also a new, almost constant, presence of low-lying fear.
Why does nobody talk about this? A cynic would say it’s because they wanted others to suffer like they are so the ‘society of parents’ keeps this closely guarded secret so that you only learn of it once you have joined the club. I am not a cynic nor a conspiracy theorist, so I don’t buy into that.
I’ve come to appreciate that parents do talk about this fear, but it is not always labeled as such. It’s there when parents speak of not always knowing what to say or what to do. It’s there when parents wonder if they are doing it right. It’s there when parents ask themselves ‘what happens if…’. In exploring these parenting moments closely, there is a fear underlying each of them: fear of being a bad parent, fear of making the wrong decision, fear of saying the wrong thing, fear of sounding like our parents, fear of letting go of control, fear of them getting hurt, fear of letting them fail.
The emotion of fear is all about the future and the future is unknown. As humans, we do not like unknowns, they make us feel insecure and at risk. As parents, we like unknowns even less since the unknowns pertain to our child, whom we have been charged with protecting.
“Being a parent is to let your heart walk outside your body.” – Elizabeth Stone
At the root of that fear and at the root of many of our parenting worries is actually vulnerability. This is the truth of parenting that is universally felt but so often goes unnamed.
Dr. Brené Brown is the foremost researcher on vulnerability and defines vulnerability as any time we are experiencing risk, uncertainty or emotional exposure.
Vulnerability in parenting is:
sitting with a child who is sad or disappointed and resisting the urge to “fix it” for them
leaving a child with a childminder for the first time
letting your child try a new class, activity or school
giving your child permission to navigate their way somewhere alone
watching your growing teens make their own decisions
setting boundaries with your children
letting go of expectations you had for who they would be or what they might do
Just about every action we take as parents has an element of risk, uncertainty or emotional exposure in it. We are responsible for the growth of another human and their life. Life is inherently full of uncertainty and growth is all about taking new risks. As our children navigate through their lives, they will experience the myriad of emotions that come with that journey. When our children feel an emotion, we parents feel it in triplicate. We feel with our children, we feel for our children and we feel for ourselves as parents. This is emotional exposure on overdrive.
Parenting is inherently a vulnerable experience that we embark on without any guarantee of success nor any end point. We won’t really know if we were successful for more than 20 years, if ever!
So why do we do it? It’s not because we have been dupped by the ‘society of parents’ before us. It is because deep down we understand that parenting, like life, comes with no guarantees and that the vulnerability we will face is at the root of fear, but it is also at the root of love, joy, connection and belonging. Without vulnerability we would not be able to access all that we desire most from parenting.
This parenting thing is a complex experience of relating to another human in a way we relate to no other. Appreciating that fact is already useful awareness but a healthy dose of self-appreciation will also go a long way, because, Mom and Dad, you have been hoisted into vulnerability. You are facing risk and uncertainty and that generates fear however it is that same vulnerability that allows you to experience unconditional love.
There, we said it, we called it what it is. Parenting is full of joy, love and vulnerability but no life worth living exists without each of those things.
Bio:
Terri is a certified coach, trainer, facilitator and a co-founder of Grounded Parents Group, a sanctuary of personal growth for parents. She believes in embracing slowness in our lives and living and leading with courage. She is a certified Daring Way™ and Dare to Lead™ facilitator delivering programs based on the powerful research of Dr. Brené Brown. She brings to her work, 10 years of experience in the international pharmaceutical industry. She started her career in the fields of clinical and public health genetics, educating medical professionals and supporting families impacted by genetic conditions. Originally from the US, Terri has lived in both Europe and Asia and is currently based in Switzerland with her husband and their two sons.
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