This, That & the Mother: Failure IS an Option

When I had my first child I had many friends who had young children recently diagnosed with Autism.  It scared me to the core (it still does), this unexplained and life-altering disorder.  When Ella was between 6-12 months old I began obsessing about the possibility that she might have autism, despite the fact that I still knew very little about the signs and characteristics of the disorder.

My father-in-law is a clinical psychologist and one day while visiting at their home I looked at my father-in-law and said, "Do you think Ella has Autism?"

"No." he breezily replied.

"But how do you know? How can you be sure?" I asked.

"Because she's looking at me." was his simple statement.

This was an oversimplified answer to the question at hand, but I understood.  I sat in stillness for a moment, wondering why I had this fear growing inside of me. Why, despite no warning signs, I was becoming a little obsessed with the possibility of my child having Autism.  After a moment or two it came to me and I said,

"I guess I am just afraid that I will miss some glaring warning sign or need in my child. That I won't be aware, but that in some big way her needs are not being met.  And I'm just going to miss it and she's going to suffer because of that."

He looked at me and said, "Let me help you out then.  You need to know, right now, that that IS going to happen."

I was taken aback and slightly horrified by this statement.  I sat in stunned silence.  

He continued,  "No matter what you do. No matter what kind of parent you are. You will fail your children in one way or the other. You will be going along, doing your best, and suddenly realize your children had a glaring need that you missed.  Maybe you find out soon after and fix it. Maybe you don't find out until they are adults and come to you and say, 'I had a glaring need that you never addressed'.  But it will happen."

I sat reeling in their sunny Living Room where my small daughter played on the carpet happily at our feet.  But as I took a moment for this information to sink in I realized he was right. And then I felt the weight of the Mommy-World lifting from my shoulders.  It was going to happen. And, more importantly, it would be okay.

We talked about my father-in-law's own children.  He mentioned that he and my mother-in-law had felt they parented their children about the same and showed them all the same amount of affection.  But while Matt always felt 100% confident in their love with the amount of verbal and physical affection they showed their kids, one of Matt's siblings told them (in his adulthood) that he wished they had been a more openly affectionate family.  That he felt unsure sometimes of their affection for him as he was growing up.  Did Matt's sibling become an axe-murder? Nope. He became an wonderful husband and father who showers his own children with a lot of overt love and affection.

When we become parents we all vow not to repeat our Parents' mistakes.  We steer ourselves widely around the failures they made. But what we don't consider is, that while avoiding our Parents' mistakes, we are busy making our own different ones with our children.  Mistakes our kids will vow not to repeat when they have their own kids.

And this is the cycle of generations that cannot be avoided.  And it's okay.

My father-in-law's assurance that I would screw my kids up in ways still unknown released me from the pressure I was feeling of never doing anything wrong.  It gave me permission to do my best and know that, many times, my best would not be good enough.  But that is what parenting is.  Not perfection, but best-guess efforts to do what is right.

Imperfect is something I can do. Imperfect is something I am great at.