I have been wanting to write about a part of my journey with my family but waited till the expressions took the form it needed.
As a mother who is divorced from the father of ‘their’children, the toughest part for my journey has been to walk the balance of instilling a sense of dignity and self respect in my children wrt their sense of their father. A person has to play many roles, he was my husband, then he became the father of our children and then he became my ex-husband, and then he became someone else’s husband and father to another child other than ‘our’ children. Through all this, it is often hard to uphold a sense of love that is not attached to any of these roles, and I have struggled too and sometimes still do to keep these roles aside and free from ‘his and my’ story. I have always wanted my children to grow up with a sense of their own wrt their father and not be influenced by my ‘disappointments’. I have often seen in life that a human being can succeed as a father, but fail as a husband, a human being can succeed as a mother but fail as a wife. I am not using the words success or fail to judge myself or others, but to point out how the popular narratives judge.
Yes, my children will probably form their own narratives in their heads and hearts about their mother and their father. But my intention and work is to try and instil a sense of respect for both the father and mother in them, not so much for my sake or his sake, not so much to save our own ‘asses’, but so that my children feel a sense of dignity and self respect for who they are and not judge themselves for not being part of the popular narrative that permeates my extended family, many friends, society, culture. It has been my intention and work to support my children to create a loving relationship with their father irrespective of how his and my dynamics have been or are. Without expecting them to be greater than their present selves, without expecting them to love beyond their true feelings, without expecting them to respect beyond their authentic sense of respect for their father or me, without having to suppress their sadness, anger or grief, I try and work as much as I can to support them to create a sense of abiding love.
I don’t do this to save myself and their father from uncomfortable feelings that we need to face when our children are troubled by difficult emotions wrt ‘our different kind of family’, but to support them to face their discomforts and to support them to accept that their lives are different from a lot of people, to support them to walk with their head held high in trust and self love, to embrace the differences and to try to see that they don’t grow up in anger and a sense of lack owing to their father and mother having chosen a different kind of life than the popular narrative.
And yet I live with a sense of uncertainty that their lives will unfold as they are meant to. I try today as much as I can from my authentic self and honest intentions. I am grateful that their father is open to conversations around this theme and is increasingly willing to cooperate to ensure that the self respect and dignity of ‘our children’ is placed top priority under these different and often difficult circumstances.
I slip so many times in anger, sadness, sorrow, unfulfilled desires. It is so hard to not project them on the children and so hard to not draw them in. I do bitch with my mother, my sister, and I do so not in hiding. But I walk this path of razor’s edge (hoping I am mindful enough) in the hope that my children will grow up with a deep sense of self respect and grow up in love, and not to be thrown off by popular narratives and yet be joyfully open to embrace the narratives that come into their lives.
Children already know! 