Oh well

[Copabanana]

Dear Echo

I am so proud for your son. He did so good. This is so powerful. I feel so happy for you.

Of course, nothing is certain. For anybody. But this shows it is in him, in your son, to know what he needs and how to correct himself mid-stream.

That he did so so quickly is amazing and so much to his credit. I also respected his decision not to call you until he is more together.

He is growing into a man. That he has first fallen, makes it more meaningful, and to me, means he will grow into a fine, fine person.

Thank you, Echo, for sharing this with us. He decided one day. Poorly. He chose again, a much wiser man. Good work, Son.

 

[pasajes4]

When they get sick and tired of being sick and tired, they begin to take ownership of themselves.

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

When they get sick and tired of being sick and tired, they begin to take ownership of themselves.

This is true pasa, but it has to do with changing the nature of our parenting, too. For them to see themselves differently, I mean. I don't exactly know what the nature of that change is. It has to do with how we see them, with freeing them and believing in them and ourselves, in a way that was impossible when we were coming from that place of protective mothering.

Everything flows out of that, somehow.

When the kids don't pick up, when bad things keep happening to them, we stay in that place of protective mothering that was appropriate when they were little kids.

It has something to do with the evolution of the mother/child bond; with how the nature of that bond should change as a child moves into independence. Our children did not move into stability. For us ~ not just for the kids, but for the parents and for extended family too, that dynamic figures in here somewhere.

Guilt and shame and things that don't really matter ~ those things figure in here, too, somewhere.

The difference is a subtle one, for me. Not "Kick them out and who cares, they are old enough." But more of a "What we are doing together is harmful for us both. Time for something different and, since you are not choosing for us, I will. Based on everything I know or can learn, this is what has to happen next for us to move from this place where we keep doing the same things in response to spiraling, ever more destructive events. So, since you are the one who must create your life because you are young and this is your time to do that, out you must go. I am strong enough to require this of you. I love you and more importantly, I believe in you and in me."

It's something like that.

And all I know about that is that after I had been here on the site long enough to work through guilt (way important) for my part in whatever was happening to my kids, and shame, which was coloring everything I knew about them and about me, then I could force myself into leaping into believing in the kids. And somehow that changed everything.

But boy, there was not one easy thing about any of it.

It seems to be working, for our family.

Those guilt and shame filters were what I had to move beyond, somehow. Or, leap beyond, when I couldn't hold faith with myself.

But I had to know, first, why that was the correct path to take.

That is why I always post that, for me anyway, detaching was about detaching from the emotions surrounding what was happening, to all of us.

Cedar

 

[pasajes4]

"What we are doing together is harmful for us both. Time for something different and, since you are not choosing for us, I will. Based on everything I know or can learn, this is what has to happen next for us to move from this place where we keep doing the same things in response to spiraling, ever more destructive events. So, since you are the one who must create your life because you are young and this is your time to do that, out you must go. I am strong enough to require this of you. I love you and more importantly, I believe in you and in me."

Beautifully put