Changing Yourself to Change Your Kids
“If you want change, you’ve got to change”
-The Okee Dokee Brothers
We were listening to the song “Jamboree” by the Okee Dokee Brothers the other day and this line came up. I look over to my husband in the car and say “Well isn’t that basically what parenting is?”
Like many other parents, Tyler and I have hopes, dreams, and wishes for E. We hope she will develop a resilient spirit, strong emotional intelligence, a zest for life, and a compassionate heart. We want her to feel grounded in her values and live true to herself. We also have things that we hope she will not have to carry the burden of; things like body shame, diet culture, repressed feelings, perfectionism, and more.
While pregnant, I had the realization that if I wanted these things for our little one, that I also needed to want these things for myself and believe that I am worthy of them. I would need to unlearn many of the things that I believed to be true about myself and my place in the world. I would truly need to embody these things, because “Do as I say, not as I do” really just doesn’t work in practice.
This work requires us to dig deep into our own insecurities and vulnerabilities. It requires us to face our shame demons head on. It isn’t easy and we will continue to make mistakes. For me, Brene Brown’s work around shame and vulnerability has helped me immensely on my journey. Her book, The Gifts of Imperfection (affiliate link), is one of my top self growth reads, and I couldn’t recommend it more. I’ve read it multiple times, and it has truly changed my life in so many ways, and is now helping shape my daughter’s.
Something my therapist tells me is how she thinks it is so beautiful and exciting that this next generation of parents are intentionally trying to break some of these generational cycles/traumas. That we are realizing that we have the power to unlearn and relearn things that we were taught or socialized to believe in our childhood and adolescence so that we don’t pass these things on to our own children. I couldn’t agree more.
Our kiddos are always watching us, and they can intuit more than we would like to think. So really, what it comes down to is that if we want these changes for our little ones, we have to be willing to change ourselves. And I have to tell you, this new work is changing me for the better. I feel more brave, more connected, more accepting of my emotions and who I am. I am better at holding boundaries and respecting and accepting myself. Ultimately, this work is making me feel more authentically me.
And what a gift that is! Parenting is wild y’all.
