Role models and figuring out what love is (and isn't)

December 15, 2003

All the talk about role models has got me thinking. It took me

having children to realize that I wasn't raised properly, with true

love.

My gut feelings toward my children were so full of love. (Actually,

somehow or other, my " role model " has always been God. I always was

a perfectionish, hee-hee. Feeling extremely alone, I somehow just

learned to pray and pray and pray - and that helped me to have an

image in my mind of what love really looks like.) But, I began

immediately to be criticized for my " spoiling " parenting style. So,

I shut down somewhat my natural gut instinct toward kids, which is my

biggest regret in my whole life.

Anyway, when I treated my kids the way I had been raised (because I

thought I *had* to or I would ruin them by spoiling them), I just

couldn't stomach the look of fear/sadness/anger in their eyes.

That's when it struck home for the first time that I had to figure

out a different way of parenting. That's also when I became

depressed and all my repressed feelings came out in full swing.

But that was the first time it really sunk in what my mom had done.

I saw the look in my kids' eyes and thought to myself, " I must be

doing something wrong. " I realized that when I had looked at my mom

with those same eyes, she had no compassion for me. She simply

thought I was so wrong, so " bad " . I just can't stomach a person who

can look into the hurt glaze of a child, and blame the child for

being selfish or rebellious, or whatever. Even as an adult I had

looked at her with those same eyes, or communicated in words that

same hurt, and she still doesn't feel any compassion or warmth toward

me (only pity). She still blames me. My hurt is my own fault, never

hers.

So, I learned what real love was by default, by realizing what

*wasn't* love. I could accept that my own hurt was my own fault (as

my mom taught me), but I couldn't accept that my children's hurt was

*their* fault, and that's when it finally clicked for me.

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