Trekhprudny Lane

The last few days have been so much better, in terms of parenting. I am starting to believe that if you want to do better, badly enough, then you will, by sheer power of wanting. I am straining to find the patience I need and I am finding it, though I was not before. I am determined to give the girls something better, and that gives me strength. 

For one thing, they will always know my love is unconditional. I will never withhold myself as a form of punishment for them, manipulating their access to affection (and eroding their self-worth) just to try to change their behavior. It's easy to use oneself as bait, but the strategy will eventually backfire. Eventually you teach your children not to trust and not to rely on you. 

I must also become braver about letting them see the whole of me, warts and all. My instinct is to hide any vulnerability, even before a three year-old, but who will show these girls how to be human if I feign omniscience and perpetual certainty? How will they accept and learn to love themselves (as children, as adolescents, and as adults) if I do not let them see how I'm feeling my way along too, regardless of age? They've got to see me struggle, they've got to see me, at times, undignified. I can't disappear behind a curtain to do the heavy lifting. They've got to see me sweat.

A. will help with this. He never thinks to pull rank; he just doesn't see family that way. Parents as human, and humility as an honor rather than a disgrace: in his home, those weren't such revolutionary ideas.