Living through my child

I love my kid… I love her from deep inside my cells…so it stands to reason that I want, with all my heart, for her to be happy.  What I am starting to reflect on is how much my own definitions of happiness, my own life wishes, my own insecurities, affect my parenting.

As a child, I wanted friends…lots of them… I wanted to fit in, to be liked, to feel ‘cool’ and to surround myself with people who would unconditionally, reliably, want me there for them and in turn be there for me.  My experience was, however, more that friendships ebbed and flowed…sometimes I felt surrounded by love and laughter, and at other times I felt deeply alone and lonely.  I feared that loneliness and as I became an adult I worked double-time to try and avoid it.  I relentlessly gathered people, hoping sheer quantity would secure me against ever feeling alone… I worked over-time, to the point of exhaustion, to keep friends in my life as regularly and as richly as possible.  I bent myself in knots to be what I thought they wanted me to be… so that I would never feel alone.

And yet, I have often felt lonely and deeply alone. 

I watch myself now, in my parenting, and my fear of loneliness niggles at me… I fear it for her and now I see myself working over-time, this time for her friends…organising play-dates, throwing elaborate parties, building friendships with other mothers… All so that she will never feel alone.  And reflecting on this I realise that I have to stop.  I have to step back.  If people like her, as a person, its unnecessary.  If people don’t really like her, as a person, its futile. 

My fears, my insecurities… not hers.