conscious parenting, even when it’s hard

When I first found out I was (unexpectedly) pregnant with my son, Henry, I had the typical flood of emotions that comes with such a huge moment. My husband and I had never planned on having kids, and now we were suddenly remapping our life plans in an entirely new direction and figuring it all out as we went along. One of the earliest decisions my husband and I made in my pregnancy was that we would be conscious parents. Conscious parenting means being aware and mindful of your own emotions, triggers, and traumas, and being intentional on how those play into your parenting decisions and interactions with your child. A lot of this process involves refusing to inherit harmful behaviors from your own parents and breaking cycles of behavior that sometimes go back generations.

Both my husband and I have childhood trauma (I won’t speak on his specifics because it’s not my story to tell) and our parents all had their own issues. As soon as our son was born we both had to question a lot of why things happened with us that we would never allow to happen to our child, and that shit is *hard* to do. Unpacking your own trauma isn’t a nice cut and dry process, and doing it while also learning to take care of a brand new human being was a whole set of challenges that I was unprepared for. It may sound simple to someone who’s never done it, but let me assure you that it’s hard work. Trauma can manifest in a myriad of ways in different people. For me, I have major issues with perfectionism and being afraid to look silly in front of anyone, avoiding confrontation, and a terrible need for approval and validation. It’s not fun, it’s not something I’m cool with, and I’m working on it in therapy. Unpacking all of that and trying to correct it is a whole process, and that process takes time. I’m not there yet, but in the meantime I have to be very aware of my responses to Henry because I refuse to pass that on to him. I want him to be able to be silly, to play, and to be confident in himself, and the best way to influence values and traits in children is to model it for them. I may be faking it til I make it, but the more I lean into it the more I feel like I’m at least making headway.

Henry’s currently about 15 months old. He’s definitely in the toddler stage, and this stage comes with its own challenges and milestones. Right now he’s getting some of his bigger teeth in and the nights are getting a little rough with him waking frequently or just waking up super early. My husband works and I stay home - it’s safer for me to be tired at home than to have him driving around exhausted, so when Henry’s up at night on a work night, I handle it. The past few weeks have involved multiple nights of only getting 2-4 hours of sleep, and that is absolutely not cutting it for my elder millennial self. It doesn’t matter how tired I am, though, or if I’ve had a bad day mentally or emotionally and I’m not my best self, I’m still responsible for my son. Something that I’ll work to teach him throughout his life Item is that big feelings demand to be felt and that it’s 100% okay to feel them, but sometimes that looks like emotional regulation until you’re at a safe place (physically, mentally, and in regards to important responsibilities) to process them. Obviously I’m not expecting a 15 month old to regulate his emotions, so sometimes that means putting off what I need to do for myself in order to take care of my son. This isn’t to say my needs are always on the back burner - my husband understands that I still work even if I don’t have an typical job, and he works hard to make sure I get time regularly to relax and unwind - but again, I won’t make my issues his issues.

Parenting through your own feelings is hard, but I want to raise a good human and it’s worth the work it takes.

#parenting #consciousparenting #mentalhealth #gentleparenting #embracevulnerability #unfiltered #parentsoflemon8 #lemon8parenting #motherhood #lemon8challenge