Journey to a New Life

I was asked a question by someone as to how come some parents can be blatantly selfish in their behavior towards their child(ren). Where, to observers, this type of behavior is unacceptable – but where the parents themselves will act out their selfishness within a sense of entitlement and thus in essence not seeing what they're doing or seeing "what's wrong" with their behavior.

So I had a look inside myself as to where and how I could see such a pattern would emerge and develop, in terms of what I have experienced myself and walked through myself with Cesar so far.

And what I saw, was that it really goes all the way back to the beginning. And what becomes clear from the beginning is that: parenting is not easy.

All your life, your life has been about you. What you want to do, what you want to do with your life, your friends, your family, your job, your hobbies. Then – a baby is on its way.
You think you can conceptualize and ‘imagine’ what it would be like to have a baby – but the truth is = you don’t. Even when you read others’ stories, written in detail about birth, babies, parenting – in the end they’re just words and you don’t really grasp the reality of it – until you’re in it.

I suppose in a way, pregnancy does prepare you a little bit for what is to come. All these things start happening to your body, you get put into the backseat and your whole body becomes about ‘the baby’ – where to a certain extent, ‘your body is not your own’. But you know, you can still do a lot of things and pretty much live your life ‘as usual’.

Then, the baby comes – and everything changes. Every minute, every second, every breath you take is in service of your baby. Your baby is completely helpless and completely dependent on you. You are quite frankly put: its slave (unless family/friends are there to help out big time or you’ve hired someone to assist). It’s feeding, changing, clothing and feeding again round the clock. You sleep, when the baby sleeps (or at least you try). You are sleep deprived, your body hurts, you look like a mess (and very possibly smell like one too) and it seems to go on for what seems like forever. That’s how the first 3 months are registered in my brain.

So, especially in the first few months, being a mother, being a parent does a big number on you.
I mean, I am pretty lucky in terms of the environment and support that I have available with Cesar. I’d say that I pretty much live in the ‘optimum environment’ to bring up a child. And so – even with physically everything being in place, it’s still hard, it’s still an immense job.
I have no idea how I would cope if my situation would have been any different and I have the greatest respect for all women out there who are doing their best to raise their child(ren) when their environment is not one that promotes peace of mind.

So you have your baby, you’re busy all the time, you’re trying to do your best and sometimes that seems to even be not enough. Your old life is GONE. Byebye seeing friends, family, work, hobbies – it’s just you and your baby now (at least initially). Having a baby probably looked and sounded like a fun thing, blissful and all joy – but ends up being quite the opposite as you’re drained tending to your baby’s every need. If you’d imagine how you would want a relationship to be between two beings – this is not how you’d want things to be, as it’s in essence a ‘master-slave’ relationship. Now, I don’t mean to blame or shame the baby for being demanding or needy. And I don’t mean to create any type of moral issue within describing and comparing a baby-mother relationship to one of a master-slave relationship. It’s simply that by design – they are the same. It’s not good, it’s not bad – it’s just what it is.

This point, if you look at the design of babies and their 100% dependency relationship towards the mother is what one could call ‘unfair’. Meaning, you have two beings, and the one is living every moment of its life in function of the other.

I’m pretty sure that if you had a relationship with another adult in this line you’d pretty much break ties as soon as possible, because it’s no way to live.

And it’s this dynamic – being ‘unfair’ by design – which is your introduction to your relationship with your child - which forms the baseline, the nice fertile soil, from which many mind patterns and resonant designs can emerge from… if you let it.


To be continued