Breaking Generational Chains

One thing about becoming a mom is that it really causes you to reevaluate your relationship with your own mother. I’ve always assumed I had an OK relationship with my mom; we weren’t terribly close, but we definitely had a relationship where we could talk and go do fun activities together. But, I always knew there were lots of generational trauma that we had to deal with as well as many patterns I needed to break.

Recently, my parents came to stay with me for a week while my husband was on a work trip so that I could get some extra help with childcare. My son goes to preschool during the day, so it would really just be some help with getting him ready for school in the morning and then some help in the evening as we all unwind and get ready for bed. These are honestly things I could probably do on my own but solo parenting for a whole week can be exhausting and surprisingly my mom offered to help.

But here is the thing: in the recent years I’ve learned that my mom fits the description of narcissistic personality disorder to a T. There are 9 traits that can be summarized by the acronym SPECIALME:

1. Sense of self-importance
2. Preoccupation with power, beauty, or success 
3. Entitled
4. Can only be around people who are important or special
5. Interpersonally exploitative for their own gain
6. Arrogant
7. Lack empathy
8. Must be admired
9. Envious of others or believe that others are envious of them

My therapist and I discussed how this probably stems from my mother’s innate sense of inadequacy being the youngest of 7 and the least professionally accomplished of the 7. She has learned to cope with that and maybe some other unknown childhood trauma by becoming a bit of a narcissist. Even in my own work as a therapist with clients with narcissistic personality disorder, I could always see through the sheen and see that it is truly a cover-up for underlying feelings of inadequacy.

Nonetheless, her recent visit to “help” with childcare put all of these traits under a spotlight for sure. I won’t go into detail in all the different ways these traits really came to light, but one thing stood out the most to me during this time: my deep need to protect my own child from my mother’s narcissism.

The one example I do want to share is something that made me realize how much her inability to handle negative emotions shaped my own ability to handle negative emotions even now as an adult. We were picking up my son from preschool and my mom insisted on being all up in his face while I was strapping him into his carseat. My sweet very verbal son, who we have taught to advocate for himself and is more than happy to let you know how he feels, told her to back away and give him some space. Of course, not in that many words, but he asked his grandmother to move her face out of his way. She continued to shove her face in his, asking a lot of questions mostly about “did you miss grandma? why are you not giving grandma a kiss?” and after she completely disregarded his request to give him space, my son did the next most natural and toddler-y thing. He tried to hit her.

And naturally, my mom yelled, “No! Say sorry!”

Now, I need to pause and shed some light on how I approach the concept of teaching kids to say sorry. It’s not about teaching kids to say sorry. Kids need to understand how it feels to feel sorry. Otherwise, we are just forcing kids to provide empty lip service. And my child has learned this well. He is SO good at saying sorry when he did something accidentally and unintentionally. But, when he tried to hit his grandmother, it was because his words weren’t working and he was trying to protect his boundaries the only other way he knew how. Why would he apologize for that?

Yes, he should not hit. But, in that moment, he did not feel sorry for hitting her. Kids spend all day in school, having to be on their best behavior, around people who aren’t their family, which is what leads to good ol’ after school restraint collapse. He was asking for space. He used his words. And then he physically set boundaries. And now, he was being reprimanded for it.

I tried to intercede but my mother insisted on him apologizing which did not align with my approach and later on she spent the rest of the afternoon essentially ignoring my son, not engaging or playing with him and honestly, just taking it all very personally. Later after he recuperated and was playing with me, I told him he is a good boy and that we love him and my mom muttered under her breath, that he is not, however, a good boy when he cries.

This triggered me a lot because throughout my childhood I felt my tears were constantly invalidated, that I was punished for having “negative feelings,” that whenever I cried or was upset, that I instantly became a burden for my mother. I have been actively trying to change that with my own child, with every response to his tantrums with setting boundaries but providing love and space to allow him to feel his feelings.

But that’s when it hit me: my mom never allowed space for unpleasant feelings because we existed for her. As a narcissist, she had no capacity for empathy. Children existed to make her feel good. And when we did not do that, we were wrong. Just like she approached my son with, “Did you miss me?” vs telling him, “I missed you!” the relationship she has with my son has always been about her and not him.

So I knew that breaking those generational chains starts with me: it starts with being aware of how I can end the patterns from my ancestors and give myself and my child a new chance to heal. But it also means setting new boundaries with my mom and recognizing she might not be able to change. And can I be okay with the fact that the healing is only going to be with me and my future and that I cannot heal her?

I now recognize that any interaction with her will involve heavy boundary setting, a lot of finding space for me to have self care after interactions with her and overall recognizing I cannot and will not be able to control her own healing.

After she left, I spent the next 4 days in a heightened sense of anxiety. It was exhausting. There is a very necessary emotional cleansing that needs to happen when you are on guard with someone for a week straight.

They do plan to come again for another week for my husband’s next weeklong work trip and I contemplated asking them not to come. But, I think I will because I need the help and honestly, I think it could give me opportunities to work on this. What would you do?

The Lonely Journey of Determining Family Size

I have this tendency to take some things too personally. I’m really trying to remember that everybody’s experiences, opinions and thoughts are really their own. One example of that has been the different comments people may make about how many children they want to have. So many of my friends have already had second-born children or even pregnant with their third. If not, they’re actively trying or planning to have more if they already have one.

One of the first times I took someone’s opinion about how many children to have too personally was after a friend of ours talked about how they’re trying for a second. Their firstborn was maybe barely a year old — they were definitely going for that “Two Under Two.” What really stuck with me when I expressed my own uncertainty about whether we would be “One and Done” was when they responded with, “Well, our firstborn is just such a joy, we can’t wait to have another.”

I should have just been like, cool, that’s what works for them, but no, instead I internalized it and took it personally to mean so you’re saying my firstborn isn’t a joy and that’s why I’m unsure if I want more? I found myself wanting to be defensive, to explain that actually, my child is such a joy and so amazing that all I can think about is having only one and devoting all my resources to him.

But why should one person’s reasons for doing anything negate my reasons for doing anything? They weren’t trying to imply that my child wasn’t a joy. They were literally just explaining their reasoning for wanting a second. Because, if I told someone, “Well, I’m One and Done because I just love my child so much, I feel like our family is complete. I can’t see myself giving my heart to another child.” With my same logic of taking everything personally, wouldn’t the Two Under Two person think so you’re saying I don’t love my firstborn that much and think he’s not enough to make our family? But hopefully, they don’t think that.

Photo by Daniel Reche on Pexels.com

Nevertheless, this is why I have to take a step back sometimes and remember that people can have their own reasons for doing things and it doesn’t negate my reasons for doing or not doing things. Whether that’s having one child, two children, no children, building a family is a very personal thing. Someone’s reason for not wanting to have kids doesn’t negate my reason for wanting to be a mom. Someone’s reason for wanting to have four kids doesn’t negate my reasoning for wanting to just have one. Sometimes you just gotta be like, “Ok, you do you!” What works for one family doesn’t have to work for other families.

I still struggle with these conversations from time to time, mostly because most of the moms I am friends with aren’t One and Done. And I don’t even know if I am One and Done, I just know I’m not jumping for joy to try to have more right now. It makes these conversations super isolating because most moms I am talking to already have a second child or are thinking about it. There’s no room for me to be someone who isn’t sure. And sometimes, being that mom who isn’t sure means that those moms want to give all their reasons why they know for sure they want more. Which is fine, honestly, but I can’t help but feel like I don’t need to know why people want more kids. We already know. It’s the norm. What I need is someone to validate my uncertainty and let me know it’s okay to not know.

Because I often just feel like an odd duck about it, like I’m really alone in this conversation. Sometimes, it makes me think that this is what women who don’t want kids must feel like, that the norm is that every woman should want to be a mother. I never assume women want to be moms, nor do I ever ask any couple when they plan on having children. Conception, fertility, pregnancy, all those things are such personal decisions that it’s really nobody’s business. Becoming a mother is a heavy decision, but just because someone is already a mother doesn’t mean the decision to grow your family size is an easy one.

People often forget it’s not even about the choice to have more or not. Some women may be struggling with fertility and have had multiple miscarriages and simply cannot have another child even if they wanted to. Some women may have had traumatic pregnancies and birth experiences and are grieving that while they would like more, they might not be able to. There are a plethora of reasons why growing their family size is beyond their control and even if some of the reasons are within their control, it’s nobody’s business but their own.

So, I think this is probably the last time I’ll talk about family size, at least, my own personal journey with it, because I just don’t think people around me can really provide me the space and support to talk about it without me taking things personally. I have maybe two friends that I’ve identified that are in this same space with me, but I think at this point in my life, I don’t need to have an answer about whether we are One and Done or not. I think we can just stop talking about it altogether.

A Homecoming Post: Welcome Motherhood

I have not written in this blog in over half a decade. I have not written in general in a very long time. And yet, the yearning and desire to write has been beckoning me on for quite some time.

For a while, I kept trying to write a novel. Fiction, really, maybe science fiction or fantasy. I kept tapping into that part of me that always dreamed of becoming a writer. But, I would write maybe a chapter or two and either lose interest entirely or realize I didn’t really have a story to tell.

Maybe fiction is not my forte. Maybe blogging has really been where it is at.

So here I am, I am back and it does not feel like riding a bicycle. It feels like I haven’t exercised in a long time.

I had a baby and I think that upended my world in the most beautifully tragic way. I know that sounds dramatic, but I never thought I would become one of those moms whose entire identity changes because they became a mom. But it did. My child is 3.5 years old now and definitely no longer a baby, but so much of my life still feels like I’m that new mom with a newborn. That feels really different than my other mom friends who have managed to travel, have overnights without their child, go to work parties, etc. I, however, sometimes still feel like I am in those hazy postpartum days.

But, I absolutely love being a mom. I have always wanted to be a mom and I feel like everything I do feels so natural. I know that isn’t the case for many new moms, but I bonded instantly with my son when he was born. He was so alert at birth, with wide eyes that looked right up at me when they placed him on my chest. It was as if he knew right away this was the voice that sang to him in utero every day since he was 16 weeks gestation. We bonded instantaneously and have been inseparable ever since.

Yet, even if becoming a mom was what felt like fulfilling an ultimate destiny for me, it hasn’t been easy. It never is. I have constantly chosen the path less traveled with my parenting style. While “gentle parenting” might be all the rage these days, I have really committed to it to a fault. And no, gentle parenting is not that laissez-faire permissive parenting that is splattered all over TikTok for other parents to mock. True gentle parenting is respecting your child as a human, treating them as you wish your parents had treated you, but also setting firm boundaries and teaching them structure and responsibility. I don’t just let him eat candy every day or have him watch his iPad endlessly. But I do validate his feelings, I don’t every scream or yell at him especially when he’s having a tantrum — and I never shame him for having strong feelings.

I never sleep trained. I don’t do rewards or sticker charts (albeit we tried with potty training and my kid could care less about it). I haven’t even weaned, which is a lesser known secret (he only nurses morning and night). He co-sleeps every night. We still haven’t successfully fully potty trained him. While these things may feel like he’s being “coddled” he’s also the most self-assured and confident little one ever. He has the vocabulary of a 5-6 year old, he’s already able to sight read a few words, understands many phrases in Mandarin, he can count to 30+ and knows all the planets and knows all about different types of trains and how they work. Coddled or not, he is extremely intelligent and incredibly verbal.

But because I have chosen this road less traveled of parenting, I often feel really isolated in the consequences of my choices, namely how close he is to me which makes it hard for me to do things alone like go on work trips or have a night out. I try to remind myself that this stage is so short — there will be a day where I am wondering where he is all night. He is only 3.5 years old. This is not forever. We will be parents to an adult much longer than we are to a parent of a toddler. He will spend many more years of my life not needing me than he is needing me.

Because he needs me so much, it’s been harder for me to find time to really dive into self care. I have had now 3-4 therapists since giving birth 3.5 years ago but my most recent one who I absolutely adore has somehow awaken something in me that reminds me of the creative individual I am: how I love to write, how I love to sing, play music, bake, cook. What used to bring me so much life and energy was writing. While her first prompt for me was merely just writing down the dreams I have each night (because I am a vivid dreamer who has dreams literally every night) and the power of just writing something down, it reminded me of blogging.

We talked about how we are created in God’s image and there’s a little of God inside us and what better attribute of the ultimate Creator than creating? Whether it’s creating a baking recipe or creating a little blog entry, I suddenly remembered that I love bringing something to life. A story, a recipe, even tending to my garden and nurturing and growing my plants. So it is no wonder that when I literally brought someone to life when I became a mother that it has been my biggest joy and greatest purpose to be a good mother.

So, while I navigate this messy journey of motherhood, may I remember to tap into the other ways that I too am a Creator: writing, cooking, making music. Stay tuned as I return to this journey.