Children and parents

 

(top marks for those who get the reference)

Well this one is another little tour around the mechanics of our emotions; why we feel the things we do; what's good about it; what can be bad.

I was thinking about the whole way that the relationships between parents and children can be the most meaningful and joyful, but also sometimes the most painful, in our brief lives. Maybe it's part of how we survive as a species. It's not just that we are hard-wired for sex, it's also that we are hard-wired for the intense joy that having children can release in us.

Conventionally, I think people believe the mother-child bond is the most ferociously loving in our lives (and I have to say that in my near experience I would feel safer stepping between a grizzly bear and her cub than many a human mother and her child). But as someone who has seen two children into the world, and who has three stepchildren I love dearly, I can assure you it is daft to underestimate the strength of the father-child bond (and the joys and pains that come from it). 

How is the bond so strong? You could just say "Oh it's just our selfish genes, trying to populate the world" but I think our brains and hearts can also speak in the matter. In case I haven't mentioned it recently, I spent ten years teaching primary/elementary school, so I've seen and heard an awful lot of parent/child interaction and thought about it.

A parent can't help but be reminded of their own childhood when they have children. All the good bits they want to repeat (or the bad bits they swear to avoid). And seeing the world through a child's eyes can be so liberating for an averagely screwed-up grown-up. Even just the fascination of watching the daily changes in a young child's life can be gripping and joyful.

Also, you can - and this is a risk as well as a possible strength - see the future independent adult in the young child. Knowing that what you are seeing is someone becoming themselves is a source of pride and wonder, so can be very emotional. The risk is that you sometimes spend so much of your effort trying to help or direct your child that you can't know at the end whether they are themselves or some creation of yours. My considered opinion is that the 'Love em and leave em alone' approach works best.

The other rule which I have over a lifetime observed is that 'You can't learn from someone else's mistakes, only from your own'. And trying to protect a child from all harm might just make things worse. The children who have too much support and protection can end up less resilient and less in control of their own lives. And if you are allowed to make your own mistakes, at least in the end you can 'own' those mistakes rather than blaming your parents.

So far, I've mainly been thinking, in a rather obvious way, of the strong bond between the relatively recent parent and a quite young child. But of course our lives are long and the emotions are quite as intense to the child as the parent. And to my contemporaries it may be that the most intense (and possibly painful) parent-child relationship is the one between the sixty-something child and the ninety-something parent, who may now need all your protection and care (but like the young child, may not want it). 

And at this time, when your own joints are creaking too, you may need more strength than ever to appreciate the power and importance of the emotions that flow from this lifetime spring.