The tangled tapestry of life

There are a million thoughts zapping round and this post has largely been sparked by a couple of Face Book conversations today, but also the time of year it is for me - laden with anniversaries as it is.

Parenting is certainly not for the faint hearted.
No one ever said it was going to be easy.
It's one of those things in life you actually have to approach in an emotional way to make a good job of it I think. As T went into surgery recently someone told me not to worry about him - if I wasn't worrying I actually wasn't doing my job.

But how do you manage those emotions, how do you harness them for the good of your parenting and not let them bog you down, stopping the progress which is vital for both you and your child/children in life's journey?

From one of the discussion today which got me thinking I wonder how you even classify emotions - one person's regret is another's grief is another's guilt. Parenting seems to be laden with opportunities for guilt but what is it really? People talk about 'mother guilt' but is guilt really a conglomeration of emotions and not actually a single emotion at all?

The tricky bit to labeling motions is that, by their nature, they aren't rational. You can't pin them down, they squirm and flip away from you under the pin of a label.
'Mother guilt', so called guilt over events, choices, even things which there was no way you could control, rationally you know that, but the shoulda, woulda, couldas will always haunt you.
I think so called guilt, in parenting terms anyway, isn't a true, single, isolatable emotion but a conglomeration.
It's a mixture of many other emotions and probably the primary elements are those of sadness, regret, frustration, anger at the situation you find yourself in, however the situation arose, what ever 'choices' got you there.
Responsibility also sneaks in there. You wouldn't feel these other things if you didn't feel responsible, responsible for this small person entrusted to you, responsible for your decisions and the outcomes - whether they could actually be predicted or not, even if you actually can't be held responsible for the events or outcomes - I told you emotions aren't rational!

Born from this emotion of responsibility I think comes the search which is almost universal in parenting, well good parenting anyway,  the constant search for what is best for your particular child. It doesn't actually matter what path you took to become a parent, what hurdles you've jumped, how smooth, medical or otherwise your path has been. It is the search to do the best you can that unites us all.

The impact of the hurdles, how far you actually CAN jump, where your expectations lie, what your hopes and dreams are for that child - that is affected by your path, but not that core desire.
That's why parenting, especially modern parenting is a competitive sport in so many arenas.

Your perception of the size of those hurdles is also shaped by your path and so how much each individual bit impacts on you as you journey through your parenting. For some their biggest hurdle is being able to breast feed or not, for others your child living through another night is it. Some beg, hope, plead and pray that their child will be able to walk, talk, see.
I know that over the past few months with T's eating difficulties, N's have paled in comparison.
I had a child who WANTED to eat - but who couldn't. We were staring down the barrel of very slow continuous tube feeds and virtually no solid food for years to come.
But that doesn't make N's issues any less important, significant - or emotionally important.
It's all relative to the person and child - the molehill in one person's view may well be the biggest mountain that person's ever encountered.
Often people say to me they feel they shouldn't complain/worry/whatever about their child and their issues when so much more is going on for my boys. But their issues do not de-value someone else's mountain, just as my boys' issues are laughable to someone else with a critically ill child - they'd love to swap situations I'm sure.

But it is this emotional journey in parenting, this responsibility, guilt, whatever emotion is popping at that time that affects and guides us to be better parents.
And so when a new problem arises, new research comes out, events change and you realise that decisions you made - even those which were really beyond your control - actually may have laid the groundwork for a new issue, problem, hurdle - you react emotionally.

For those where life is more complex, there is always an element of on-going grief. I don't think you can parent a child with 'differences' without it. It is a constantly evolving spiral. Some times you are further away from it and other times it is brought into sharp relief. It may not even be a new issue or a new face of the same issue which sharpens it up. It can be anniversaries, reminders of what has happened, what could have been.
I spent time today gathering information to start an assessment process for W and I think of what might have been, how different his life could have been if only he hadn't been early. Some times that's just a twinge, other times, like now in the run up to his birthday it's a lot sharper.

I look at T reveling in eating chippies today, a huge grin over his face. Some days that's fantastic to watch, other days it's bitter sweet as I contemplate how different, how unscarred his tummy would have been if only I'd stood my ground when he was a baby, if only the doctor hadn't dropped the ball so badly.
Situations both well out of my control, times when I made the best decisions I could based on what information available at the time - but that drive to do the best I can for the kids sits and niggles.
We gave W a medication for his reflux which carried a risk of cardiac problems. At the times we made the best decision we could. The reflux caused apnoea episodes which the medication reduced. We had the 'choice' of keeping him breathing now and face potential issues later. When it looked like that had come home to roost a couple of years ago I felt dreadful, second-guessing every element of that so-called decision, feeling guilty.

It doesn't have to be a life and death situation like that to trigger that emotional response. It can be triggered in a mother with a child with behaviour issues, health problems, whatever.  They were unable, for whatever reason to breast feed, and now research comes out showing reduced risk of the issue they are facing if only they'd breast fed. You can't go back on that decision, you can't change history, there may have been overwhelming medical, physical whatever reasons to totally justify or explain the feeding decision but the emotional response is there, the 'Oh crap, did I cause this? Could life have been different? What have I done?'

This is no reason NOT to put the information out there, but it is a reason for the visceral response so many have to this kind of situation.

I cannot change my kids' premature births, the damage done, the risk factors for all sorts of life long issues they face. But reading the studies, gathering the information still hurts, still leaves me with the woulda, coulda, shouldas, the emotional response. I need the information, I believe in aware, quiet watching, not expecting trouble but knowing the potential pot holes so when a stumble starts I don't wait to see the fall but jump in sooner than I otherwise would. But I don't have to LIKE the information.
Your response is often shaped by where you are on the journey too, I can handle reports of potential risks much better if I don't have a kid fresh from surgery, on the verge of a new issue being diagnosed.
Just as doctors know bad news is often greeted with anger, so those with new studies, research, information need to remember the core drive in parenting - the emotions involved.

Now I search out the information, I can choose when I'm feeling strong enough or need the information right now. So many of the 'humdrum', the 'ordinary' parenting situations are actually blasted in a way that you can't avoid. You can't choose when you are ready to receive the information. When I'm dealing with a really bad ADHD temper tantrum I do not want to open the paper and read some research saying it's diagnosed too freely and it's really bad parenting. That makes me react emotionally. You can't wonder at it really.

But the magic key, as I see it, is what you do with this emotion and how you harness it.
Bad news throws you into a hole. If you stay impossibly chipper all the time you probably aren't actually seeing the situation for what it is, taking it seriously.

You could get mad with the person bringing you the bad news - slinging insults, discrediting them in all sorts of ridiculous ways, sticking your fingers in your ears and lah lah lahing.
You can sit and cry for a while, contemplating the situation, feeling the complex and swirling emotions.
But eventually you have to do something, you have to progress the journey onwards - for your child's sake if not your own.

I personally use that time, after hitting the bottom and acknowledging it, to look at the situation and trying to map out a plan to fix or re-mediate the situation as best you can.
But again, so often, your response is part of your own unique parenting journey - is this the biggest mountain you have to climb? Is this your first stumbling point? Did you even expect a stumbling point in your journey?
In so many ways you also need this emotional fuel to keep moving, it stays with you, as part of your journey.
You don't, you can't let go, move on. It is part of what has shaped and fired your parenting - and all the emotions, in whatever form they come in, are all part of that spiral.