Jun 01 2009
Dream
It’s a simple word, a universal concept, and something that none of us do often enough. We tell our children to do it. We want them to dream, big lofty things with wings and no limitations. But do we give ourselves the same expectations? As parents, do we dream enough, dream our own dreams. Things for ourselves, not things for them. Where do they end and we begin? Do we get so caught up in being parents that we forget that we are people as well. How do you teach someone to dream when you do not do so yourself.
I ask these things with an insomnia addled mind, at 6am when I haven’t slept yet. I ask them after standing in my doorway watching the morning light filter golden to green through the trees of my neighbors yard and dapple on the street in front of my house and thinking I hadn’t noticed the way that the stones in my walk glitter in the morning light. I used to see those things. Always. When did I stop noticing them. Did I begin to stop when I became a parent? Have I become nothing more than someones mother?
I know that many will say with indignant snorts that it is. And I should be so lucky as to define myself as such. How dare I question. But I do. I do because I used to dream and I think I have stopped. I used to imagine and think I have forgotten how. I used to notice whimsical things, like sparking stones in my walk, and now I am not. Did I give up me for them?
I know that it is a common thought that that is what being a good parent is. But I don’t think so. I think you have to retain some of yourself, because if you don’t you begin to define yourself by the accomplishments of another. And even if you did help to bring that person into being, is that a good idea? People balk at the idea of being defined by a spouse, a lover, their family, their own parents. Why are we as parents expected to be defined by our children.
We all need to be our own person. We all need to have things that define us as individuals. We all need to learn to dream more, and to dream well. We are teaching our children to be independent people, how better to do that than to be strong in our own dreams and selves. Dream. Something just for you. Selfish, and sweet, and beautiful, and make it so tangable that you can almost taste it. Dream. That is the best way to teach them to do the same.
Oh you do get deep when you are sleep deprived, dontcha? What is the age of your youngest? I suspect about the age that one is getting more independent. That is about the age mom’s and dad’s start to recall a little that they are more than just mom and dad.
I think everyone with any sense worries that they should be perfectly selfless for their children. And, no doubt, there are folks that are wayyy entirely to selfish to be ever chosen to be parents. But, I agree, parents have to have self, children learn from parents, and their skill sets. You learn to be independent yet concerned for others, with empathy for things outside yourself by watching those very things. There has to be balance between selfless caregiver and the care and feeding of one’s own needs and wants. Really that is true for any relationship whether its parent and child, friends, lovers, or married folk.
How many young adults do you know that were catered to for every moment of their lives and handed the world … and yet they turned into not fabulous adults but selfish twits that cannot see or feel beyond the length of their own nose on their own face. Because the world does indeed only revolve around theire desires after all….that is what mommy and daddy taught them after all.
I digress, but sense of self is a good thing, and a little selflessness is a good thing, as is leading by example. You stop alot of yourself when the children are small because so much has to be devoted to them, as well it should be. They are tiny, and they need all your attention and more. But parents, if they hope to be healthy (not to mention remain parents - as in plural and two of them working together) have to recall at the point the children cease to be tiny and all consuming that it is ok to be adults and individuals again too.
Many people lose more than just dreams. There have been more than a few marriages crash and burn because mom and dad forgot that they were people, individuals with lives all their own that require care and tending as well. Man and woman with adult needs, hopes, and dreams of their own.
I only have my mother left alive these days, and I have to say that I enjoy very much and have always enjoyed very much getting to know her as a person outside the role of mother. For every bit as much as I learned from her as a parent, there was only that much more I learned from her as an independent person with rich and varied life experiences.
There, nah, and it wasn’t even 6 am.
lol..no, not 6am, but very valid points. And yes, my youngest hits 6 in 9 days and has spent his first year in school. It’s certainly the combo of that and the eldest hitting 13 I think. I’ve thought it before, just this time it was at 6am with a computer on and a place to actually voice it.
Thanks for the input, it is much appreciated.