As a Child Did You Soothe the Troubled Brow

Poet and Political Pundit tries his hand at advice columnist

by Rick Hilber

Today, I want to talk about the person in part that I was once.  I had a parent who had rage and anger and disappointment in his manner.  I among my siblings, perhaps not the only one, knew how to soothe the troubled brow.  There was some power in that for me the son who could make his father proud, at least if I could do as he would have done when once he was young.  It’s indeed a convoluted and arguable relationship in which the child parents the adult whose feelings seem to have him, instead of he the adult having his feelings.

What this led to of course is disappointment.  In becoming independent of my father, I sorely disappointed him and even made a point of contesting his disposition on a number of moral issues that to him were key to the very fibre of society and its mores.  Eventually, of course, the tables were turned.  My own life turns down into depths I’d not imagined could be my fate, me who was so balanced, so true, and so deliberate in my self rule.

But it happened.  I had children.  The marriage went south on me, and I wallowed in the mud of personal failure and self-pity.  Then one day my sister Peggy who seemed to have a penchant for having the very temperament of my father, handed me a photograph.  Now, I have six sisters and so why it could not have been another less like my father, I do not know.  Well, unless his hand moved hers to both take the picture and be sure that I had a print for my very own. 

What was in that picture?  It was a picture of my daughter Susan and myself.  On my face, a forlorn expression and downcast eyes, and she standing over me her arm about me giving me a hug.  The impact of the photograph upon me was a slow growth of understanding.  I had become the parent comforted now in turn by the child.  I knew, somehow, I knew that it was depriving Susan of her role as child and allowing her into the role of parenting an adult.  I had no place to hide, and it had a profound effect seeing myself as my sister did looking through the finder lens of a camera back then in 1989 or there abouts.

Can’t say it led to immediate and profound growth.  But loving my daughter as I did, it would not become a rerun or a replay of one generation into the next.  I could do it differently than my father had done with me, I could do with Susan.  So what did I tell myself?  What did I have to tell myself to get through the wormhole into being her parent and her encourager?  The answer was counter-intuitive and against the grain of how I was raised.  Parent myself.

1.      What you do for yourself now builds your children ever stronger into adulthood. 

2.      We never know sometimes the work in front of us to do that we have postponed doing because .... because we wanted for ourselves children and family and wholeness.
      We wanted it all! 

3.      Well less is more.  The half empty glass on the kitchen counter is just a portal to air or it is a transpiration interjection zone in need of distillation of what it is to do with ourselves and our time as individuals.  You have always been there for them.  They need you to be there for you now.

4.      Your children do not want to take from you who were so generous with others, just not yourself.   Lean on a fellow adult, just not on your child.  Your child is not your caretaker, you are! 

5.      You think your children need you to figure this out, but that is a canard.  It's only an entry, not the real door into what you must do for yourself. 

6.      Some will call you selfish, but the worst is that inner voice telling you that.

7.      When with your child or grandchild, teach yourself to be present with them in the moment.  That's a joy that stays with every child.

8.      So now give that to yourself, your own inner child, that one inside of you that you must nurture and care for in the second invention of yourself that is you in the life after Dad or Mom, or marriage in many cases, not necessarily. 

9.      Good gawd, are w grandparents  This is easy street so far as relationships go.  If you feel burdened, stay away from them.  The worst that can happen is they will think it their job to make you feel better.  That may be what you did for a parent of yours.  Don't do it.  It robs a child of his or her childhood to care for a parent who is feeling so bad!

10.  You may lose you, the old you, the anxiety driven one who thinks it the most responsible person in the room.  Well, you were never responsible for the happiness of another human being, especially your parent, or later, your spouse.

11.  Now comes the big reward.  If you figure this out, one day when your adult child is sick and guilts you and wants you to make them feel better, you will say words to this effect (12 and 13):

12.  Stop.  Your happiness is your own.  What time you have on earth is yours to dispose of.  Invent yourself anew, take yourself in hand, and walk out that door, the one that says that you are defined by what's happened to you so far in life.

13.  If you have to, don’t come back until you have said these words to your son or daughter who is at a dead stop in life.  And say these words over each time you feel any self pity: "My time is my own.  What I do with it determines the quality of my life and its byproducts, potentially joy, happiness, and fulfillment."