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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sidney Reilly who wrote (25932)	11/22/1998 9:42:00 PM
From: Grainne	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

Hi, Bob. It's nice to see you over here. When I wrote that little post about rethinking immersion parenting, it was because as the parent of a teenager, I feel a little battle weary, quite a bit older, and wish that my husband and I had been a little more selfish, so that we might feel a little less invested in our child now. I think this has a little to do with only having one child--I think it is easy to put so much pressure on them to be healthy and perfect and wonderful that the child always feels like too much is expected. I would agree that children feel extremely ignored when their parents spend a lot of time at the computer, and would argue that if it becomes a problem, the computer should go, or at least be limited to work times, not family hours. But I followed a pediatrician, John Sears, who wrote a book arguing that parents should never leave their children with babysitters, or even think about going away for a weekend by themselves. I know quite a few children who survived just such occasional slights, and seem to be fine now, and maybe a little more resilient. I know in reality that I would have been miserable going away without our daughter, and it seemed natural to have her with us. I don't really regret anything, except when I get really frustrated with all the teenage stuff and feel like my life is passing me by. Then sometimes I wonder if I would feel a little better now if there had been a wee bit more balance back then between me as a mother, and me as a wife and woman. Of course all the roles are really so entwined they are hard to sort out. <I believe very firmly that the parents give the child the ideas of what they are worth that they carry through their whole lives when they are young. Kids are very perceptive and don't listen to words but judge by actions.> I thought I believed that very firmly, also, but as my own child develops into a more complex being, my husband and I are both sensing that MUCH more is genetic than we imagined, and how much less is environmental. For example, my daughter has psychological traits that she has never even observed, which come from the reticent Irish side of her, where feelings are stuffed down so hard they are never hear from again. Her gestures and mannerisms come from a grandfather who died before she was born, and she seems very much from me, but not really of me, much of the time. So while I do think it is very, very important to create a calm and loving environment, and be kind and affectionate, I am starting to feel that much more is out of the parents' control, developmentally speaking, than I ever dreamed.