I look at these photos periodically. What a good-looking family I used to think, won't they be glad I forced them to do this... But lately I've been noticing other things; how they're wearing what I wanted them to wear, had their hair done just so, but most particularly seeing the pained look behind those smiles or even just the brightness of the smile, designed to 'please mum'.
Yesterday I was at an Irish Dancing competition held locally, drawing children from all over the state. The costumes were truly resplendent, saturated in all kinds of sparkling stones and sequins and embroidery, black velvet and other fabrics in every colour of the rainbow. In the foyer there were some secondhand dresses for sale; I noticed one price tag of $250 and another of $900. (That's not $2.50 and $9.00.) And then there were the ringletted head-dresses, special footwear, socks, stockings and I imagine many other items of which I wasn't even aware, that go in to readying a child for an Irish dancing performance.
Very close to me was a mother adjusting her performing daughter's head-dress while reprimanding the younger daughter who also wanted some attention. I knew exactly why she felt it was so important that her child look good and dance well, important enough to shut down her other child, and I reflected on my own lifetime of anxiety as a parent. And as I watched the children on stage I started to recognise how unloving I too have been.
You see, all the children as far as I could see had either looks of intense concentration or a kind of forced or pleading smile, something they've been told to do, or as if to say to the judge (or parent) 'is this good enough?' A far cry from the look of total absorption and naturalness in movement in doing something one loves, like Billy Elliott in the movie of that name.
While I think my own parents put little conscious pressure on me as a child to take up any activities, I myself was of a generation where one often felt negligent if one's children didn't get all the 'opportunities'. Did I want my kids to explore their potentials? Yes, but I can't deny the component of fear that I would be judged by other parents if I didn't involve them in the many available extracurricular options.
I know with my children what happened was that either they voiced a desire of their own to do something, or they were introduced into some activity that we, as parents, had loved and had varying degrees of success (or failure) in ourselves. And it was often downhill from there for them. Looking back I can see that they often lost interest well before we did, that so much of the drama of 'following their passion' was actually following our own passion through them, and where we felt they might be disappointed at a loss, while we might have said the right words to reassure them, what they probably mostly felt was our own disappointment. And I didn't check back to see what was really going on for them.
I was moved by a woman who left the auditorium for the duration of her daughter's performance, saying to me, perhaps a little sadly, 'she doesn't want me to watch her dance'. I admired her for that. I may have done the same in her position but not without feeling resentful at having put in all the effort I had gone to to get my child to that point, with the expectation that the least she could do to repay me etc etc. And that highlights another aspect; that I am actually using my child for my own gratification. That is not what parenting should be about.
And still the question must be asked: why does the daughter not want her mother to see her? If I truly love what I do and feel loved for who I am, do I care who is looking? Billy Elliott 'didn't care' early on in the movie, reacting with anger to his father's disapproval, but later, when his father eventually saw that his role was to support his son in following his desire, Billy's feeling was of a different kind of 'not caring', that of being oblivious to the judgement of others, of immersing himself in the love of what he did and knowing he was loved for who he was.
And is it human nature to turn everything into a competition? I'm guessing that there are no competitions at all in heaven, that everyone is encouraged and helped to do all they love and none of what they don't love, and no one is measuring the outcome. But here on earth we strive endlessly.
While I don't remember my parents voicing any expectations they had of me, my own need to strive started very early in my childhood. I had to prove myself able at something, or rather I had to counter the feeling in me that 'the world' didn't think I'd amount to much. I had kids who I hoped would 'amount to much' because, to tell the truth, it made me feel good when they achieved. But I didn't look too carefully at the alternative; that I felt bad when they didn't achieve.
And it's no good my saying that I felt bad on their behalf, even though it feels a lot like that. All I'm doing when I feel this way is conveying to them at an unspoken level that they have disappointed me, that they have failed me. And even my realising this only lessens the message they receive a little. The onus, then, is on me to do the hard stuff, admit that my feelings of being judged as a failure are my own, and to feel my own shame and grief.
For me there's more in this whole 'helping my child follow their desires' thing. I haven't talked about other ways in which I've gotten in the way, assuming they did have a desire of their own. I've often felt that it was too much trouble, too much expense (even though I could easily afford it), too much taken from time I wanted to spend on other things. Even though I went through all the motions, when my child feels all this coming from me, small wonder they decide they don't really have the desire anymore; far better to keep mum happy.
And if they're brave enough to persist, one sure-fire way I've learned to turn them away from their desires is to insist on regular practice. But that all comes down to my fear of judgement from others again, my need to look good through my child's achievements as I've already mentioned.
It also occurs to me that as a society we judge our mothers very harshly. I judge, I feel judged. Mothers who do not turn out beautiful well-dressed, well-behaved children receive an awful lot of dark looks and negative projections, and so we continue to live in our own cage of fear of judgement, and turn out children who will inevitably grow up the same unless we can learn to feel our own shame and grief.
I've strayed away from the 'competition' thing a little. I'm reminded of an occasion some years ago when our group of friends was talking of our dreams of the future. 'I don't do dreams' I stated, explaining how I felt it worked much better for my immediate happiness to just enjoy what the day brought with my family rather than hanker for a future where I could fulfil my own dreams. But my friend surprised me with the shock in her reply. 'You must have a dream,' she urged me.
And I reflect on why I've taken that position all my life, why I guard against future disappointment by not allowing myself to dream. Was I taught this as a child? How much do competitions do this to us? Few win and most are disappointed, relegating ourselves to the chronic 'not very good' category. Now there's another weight to carry. It wasn't put there by God; I know this intellectually and look forward to the time when I know it more deeply. God made me 'very good' and will always see me as 'very good'. It strikes me that that is how the Bible begins too doesn't it! God made this and that, sat back and saw that it was good, or something like that. And we are God's greatest creation, we humans, difficult as it is for me to believe that much of the time.
And that's about it from me on competitions. I want to finish with the dancing part of it all. I love any kind of dance. I love the shape of the human body and how it can move. Slow and sinuous or fast and choppy or some other variety, there's always balance and I delight in the human ability to move in so many ways. I don't understand the technicalities of Irish dancing. I see a frenetic succession of feet kicking and tapping and stamping while the arms are held rigid by one's sides and then more jiggling movement of ringlets on the dancer's head. At first I thought that this requirement to hold one's arms still doesn't exactly encourage gay abandon in one's body movements, but a moment later it occurred to me that it would have been just the thing in my teenage years at dances, where I never quite knew what to do with my arms anyway. Short of wrapping them round some unsuspecting Adonis...
And on that odd note I'll stop for now.
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