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Aug. 23, 2010 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
23:06
1732 Another Brave Parent!
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Hi everybody, it's Steph. This is a letter from a truly brave and heroic parent I've been chatting with a little bit here and there, and this is what she wants to write.
Since I'm writing you again, to share my experiences, an emotional struggle, I guess, would be the word after listening to one of your older podcasts.
I first started posting this on the message board, but the post wasn't coming together as cohesively as I would like, so I decided to send it in an email to you instead.
I hope that this is all right.
And you are certainly free to share the content of this email with others if you do.
It might be helpful. I just listened to FDR 1170, Empathy and Mothering, Listener Convo, and man, oh man, it seriously struck a chord with me.
I have, as have a lot of us, experienced a lot of emotional rejection...
Sorry, experienced a lot of the emotional rejection that this listener describes.
Irritation when I was crying, I needed comfort, being called a drama queen, etc.
I have particularly vivid memories of crying hysterically and my mother asking over and over why I was crying.
Through my sobs I would have whispered, I don't know.
At which point I'd be accused of hysterics since I was crying for no reason, told to stop, and given the cold shoulder when I couldn't.
I don't even remember at this point if there was a real reason for the emotional breakdowns.
Or what it might have been. But I do remember these exchanges well.
I would say I was probably six or seven until I got over, in quotes, this particular problem, though I've always been and still am prone to tears with any strong emotion.
The reason that the conversation really struck a chord, however, is because I am now a mother myself.
My boys are 16 months and two and a half years, and it is becoming very painfully obvious to me just how difficult it is to not reproduce these things with my own children.
My husband recently pointed out to me that he can see how hard I struggle to not withhold emotion when I'm upset.
With one of the kids. I think she means to withhold emotion.
Of course, I know how terrible it is to withhold love.
I have read unconditional parenting, which resonated with me on so many levels, and I'm determined not to do this with my own children.
But what I didn't notice until my husband pointed it out is how much I have to fight this almost knee-jerk reaction to withdraw emotionally.
It's like my whole body is fighting against what I know is right, and my mind has to come up, come in and say, now, now, you know you need to pick up your baby and hold him, so that's what I usually end up doing.
But tonight, when I heard this listener talking about the podcast say that his mother seemed to experience irritation when he reached out to her and needed comfort, I was struck by just how much irritation I experienced, and I'm feeling an overwhelming guilt and sense of failure as a mother.
I'm not going to fool myself into thinking that my kids aren't picking up on it, because I'm sure they feel it, even if I do pick them up and hold them.
Now, let me interject here and explain what I mean about being upset with the children.
I feel that I have pretty reasonable age-appropriate expectations of them.
I certainly don't expect them to obey or be cooperative all, or even most of the time.
I fully expect them to make messes, be loud, climb on things that aren't safe and need to be taken down, etc.
Those things don't irritate me, though they certainly are exhausting.
The main thing that leads me to have negative feelings towards the children, or one child really, is It's that my older one, we call him Bob, seems to feel that everything belongs to him.
And his younger brother, we'll call him Fred, is not allowed to have anything.
So much of my day is spent playing damage control because the youngest was happily playing with the toy and the eldest runs up to him and snatches it away.
He will play with it for a minute or so, then lose interest and once again go after whatever the younger brother has.
This situation drives me absolutely insane.
I feel so much guilt because the younger boy is now crying, understandably, And I feel that I failed to protect him from a bigger aggressor.
And I have two bad choices, it seems.
I can use force to take the toy from the older boy and return it to the younger, which only reinforces to the older boy that it's okay to take things from those smaller than yourself.
Bob will cry and keep going after it, and the younger Fred will be upset and eventually throw the toy away, seeing that it is a source of conflict and stress.
Or I can try and distract the younger boy with another toy, which will only work for so long before Bob wants to take that toy, too.
And what does that teach them? For the older one, that it's okay to take things from those who are weaker and that you can get away with it.
And for the younger one, that nobody protects you and you live a life of fear and frustration.
Some lesson for 16 months, huh?
I've tried sitting down with my eldest boy and explaining that it hurts his brother's feelings and asking why he wants to take his brother's toy, but I really think he's too young to get much out of that, especially since he doesn't talk very much yet.
So it's more of a monologue than a conversation.
So no matter how we handle this situation, I end up feeling resentful and irritated with Bob, my eldest.
He's a very affectionate kid, and when he then inevitably comes to me to sit on my lap or asks to nurse a few minutes later...
I really just don't want to do it.
It's not that I want to punish him or teach him a lesson.
I just plain don't want to hug him.
Because I'm upset with him.
I withdraw emotionally, and I don't know how to stop it.
And even if I do pick him up, I'm sure he picks up on the irritation and resentment I'm experiencing.
And he, after all, is in emotional distress, even though he was clearly in the wrong in this situation.
He's two and a half. He doesn't understand the effects that his actions have on his brother.
He's not doing it to be mean or spiteful.
It's completely normal and age-appropriate for him to think he is the center of the universe and that all the toys belong to him.
And now, after hearing this listener's pain, his mother's irritation with his distress, And being reminded of the pain I experienced from my mother's irritation with my emotional distress, I'm horrified to realize I may be doing the same terrible thing to my own children.
I really thought that by reading about parenting, remaining thoughtful about everyday decisions and making a commitment to do whatever it takes to be a good parent, the kind of parent I'd wished I'd had, I really thought I could do it.
And I'm wondering, to what extent is it even possible to give what we haven't been given?
And if it is, how the heck do I do it?
So... I won't read the rest of it, but first of all, I just wanted to express a deep, enormous, profound admiration and gratitude for the amount of thought and care that you're putting into your parenting.
Mag-frickin-nificent.
And that's the first thing that I would say.
You are... And she's aware of this, right?
But, you know, you are a far, far better parent, it sounds like, than your own mother.
And that is a fantastic, fantastic thing.
And it's great that you want to keep raising the bar.
I also want to keep raising the bar with my own parenting.
So, it is a... It is a process of continual and continuous improvement.
So, first of all, massive kudos for thinking so deeply, massive kudos for recognizing it, massive kudos for having the emotional strength to deal with self-criticisms with regards to parenting without acting out.
So, yay!
You know, cheers, crowds, hats, streamers, fireworks, good for you.
So, let's put all of that aside.
Now, I know that the world, this is, and again, this is all just amateur nonsense, right?
So this is just my thoughts.
So, you know, this is a beautiful thing about this show is that since I'm an expert in nothing, you can toss everything aside and just take whatever, if anything, you find useful.
I know the World Health Organization says two and up, keep breastfeeding and so on.
I got to think around two and a half, it may be okay to stop breastfeeding.
And the reason that I say that is, I mean, who knows about the physiological stuff.
I mean, I think that the major effects, the major beneficial effects on immune system and so on are past.
But the reason I think that breastfeeding may need to stop at this point, or should stop, is because you are irritated with your son, and I can understand why, and it's not to me inappropriate to be irritated with him, but you can't really be irritated at a six-month-old baby.
I mean, you can get a little exasperated and so on and tired, but you can't get irritated in the same way that you can get irritated with an older child.
And Breastfeeding is, of course, such an intimate and loving interaction that I think one of the reasons, and it sort of needs to stop once the kid is getting moral instruction, because when the kid doesn't follow moral instruction, you're going to feel negative or you're going to feel irritated or something like that.
And I think that breastfeeding doesn't really work emotionally in that situation.
It's probably a wildly inappropriate comparison, but what struck me was that, you know, if you're a kid, if you're a couple who's having fertility problems and you have to have sex no matter how you're getting along, that's kind of weird, right?
And there's a real intimacy to breastfeeding, and so I've just, you know, think about it.
I mean, obviously don't listen to me, just talk about it with your doctor, but I think that the major health benefits passed.
And I can see that it would be, it would raise the frustration if you had to breastfeed when you were feeling irritated with your son.
So I just sort of wanted to, I think once moral instruction starts to flow down, I think the milk should stop, at least from the boob.
So that's my thought about it for whatever that's worth.
I think you're right. These are difficult situations.
Isabella is going through a phase.
She's just turned 20 months where she believes every toy in the universe belongs to her.
And she's not particularly grabby in that she doesn't sort of just snatch things from kids and run off, but she does take them because she just wants them and it's not aggressive and she's not snatching them from.
And I don't experience it as destructive.
It's just, oh, that's a toy.
I want it. And she's not really used at all to...
I'm not having compliance in that kind of way.
So I just sort of wanted to point out that I'm sort of going through a similar thing.
Christina and I are going through a similar thing with Izzy in that we are really trying to get her to stop doing that.
So we don't grab, don't hit, don't bite, don't run, all of those kinds of things.
She's not particularly aggressive and I want to sort of minimize.
I don't want to exaggerate that, but it definitely is a phase.
And I have no problem taking a toy from her if she's grabbed it from another kid and returning it to the other kid.
She doesn't fight in that.
She doesn't sort of fight and kick and scream.
She'll give up the toy if I say I need to get the toy back and I sort of take it from her.
But I do it sort of in a gentle manner and explaining what I'm doing, though I'm not sure she really understands it.
But that's sort of my approach.
I'm dealing with a little bit of the same thing.
So I don't think it's wildly inappropriate to be experiencing all of that.
So, whenever you're faced with a false dichotomy, like, damned if you do, damned if you don't, particularly in parenting, but in every area of life, what I would say is, you know, as Ayn Rand used to say, hey, you know, check your premises.
Don't worry, this is just a pop.
I'm not drinking on the job. So, My question to you, my dear lady, would be, are you down on the floor for at least two hours a day playing with your children?
And I will say this because what the eldest boy is doing is fundamentally getting your attention.
Are you distracted?
Are you busy? Do you have all of the other six million legitimate things that parents need to do?
Like cooking and cleaning and shopping and 12 million loads of laundry a day, it would seem.
I mean, are you distracted?
Are you down there in the dirt with your children?
Because what you want is for your eldest son, To learn to enjoy playing with his youngest, with your youngest son, with his younger brother.
How is he going to learn how to enjoy playing with a 16-month-old if he's not seeing you doing it?
And please understand, I'm not saying you don't play with...
I mean, I understand, but I'm saying, are you really down there at this pretty critical time...
Down there in the dirt with them for a couple of hours a day.
I know it's a huge thing to do.
I know, I know, I know.
Particularly when you have six million other things to do, but I'm telling you, it will absolutely pay off.
Nothing could be harder than what you're doing, and nothing could be harder than where you're heading.
In terms of this, I tell you, this is not going to change without a radical transformation on your part.
And it's not going to change, you're right, it's not going to change through lecturing, it's not going to change through bossiness, it's not going to change through grabbing, it's not going to change through frustration and irritation.
What your eldest needs to see is, and I'm not saying you demonstrate it, but you genuinely mean 16, I guess it's only four months ago now, 16 months old or a challenge, but great fun to play with.
And are you down there playing consistently with both your boys, you know, on the ground, in the park, wherever?
So that what you can do is, first of all, you're enjoying their company and they're enjoying your company, which means things will be much less conflict-ridden or conflict-prone.
But also, you're demonstrating to your eldest that the youngest can be a source of fun, not a source of false self-esteem through petty dominance, right?
Through petty aggression. So, if you're down there in the dirt playing with your youngest, your eldest will see that there's an option called play with and have fun with the 16-month-old with my younger sibling.
Right now, he's not seeing that.
And I don't know for sure, but I would guess.
The first place I would look...
To what degree are you demonstrating enjoyment?
I don't mean demonstrating like faking it, right?
But to what degree are you experiencing genuine joy and pleasure playing with your youngest and playing with your eldest?
Because you need to model productive, fun, engaging, enjoyable play with...
Your sons, if they're not getting it from you, if your eldest is not seeing it from you, then you're asking him to speak a language that you're not teaching him.
If you're teaching him English, you can't expect him to break into fluent Braille or Mandarin.
If you're not teaching him that it is a great deal of fun to play with children by, you know, down in and playing with, then he's not going to have that model called, it's more fun to play than it is to dominate.
It's more fun to play than it is to grab.
It is my theory, not proven, maybe not even true, but it certainly is my theory and I found it to be very helpful, that the emotions that children evoke in us are what they are experiencing.
But can't obviously express.
So what they can't express to us, they will create in us, right?
So when we had a bunch of people over at Christmas last year, Isabella was constantly, you know, quote, whining and hanging off me and so on, to the point where I felt distracted and overwhelmed.
Why? Because she felt distracted and overwhelmed with the number of people in an normally quiet household, and she was attempting to communicate that to me.
So, that's the first place I would look at your own feelings and say, these are actually my son's feelings that he's trying to communicate with me.
That he's trying to get me to empathize with him by recreating his feelings within me.
That's the first place I would look. It's not the only place, but it's a damn good place to start.
So, if you're feeling frustration and hostility, and what you are feeling, if I sort of read between the lines, what you're really feeling...
It's lonely. You're feeling emotionally separated from your children.
You feel emotionally separated from your youngest because of the intrusion of the eldest.
You feel emotionally separated from your eldest because of his intrusion with the youngest.
And so, I would imagine, or I would guess, that what your children are feeling, particularly your eldest, is he's feeling lonely.
How has his life been since his younger brother came in?
Has he been separated from you?
Do you guys have a singular play, alone time?
Because remember, he had you for himself for, what, a year to a year and a half, and now he doesn't.
And do you still have that time with him that's not just nursing, but is actually engaged playtime?
Do you have it with each of your children separately?
Do you have it all together?
I know, I know, I know.
It's a crazy amount to ask.
It's a huge investment. And things will fall by the wayside.
But I'm telling you, there's no investment that could be better.
Make the time to reconnect with your eldest.
Make the time to stay in connection with your youngest.
Make the time for the three of them, for the three of you all to play together.
Try not to leave them unsupervised.
So, because I'm constantly playing with Isabella, and when she's in the library, or in the playground, or in Chuck E. Cheese, or in the river, wherever we are, where there are other children around, well, anywhere we are, I'm always in there playing with her.
I don't understand.
We were just at the park today, and some guy, his son was...
Playing in the park and his son was like two and a half years old and he was on his cell phone and then he was texting and then he was looking at something on the internet, I think, and it's like, dude, go play with your kid, you know?
Show him that he's fun to be with.
And because of that, it's constant...
It's a constant tweaking of behavior rather than a big intervention after a crisis.
So the moment that Isabella starts reaching towards a toy that another kid has, I touch her hand, I restrain her a little, and I say, no, no, she's playing with it when she's done, or you can ask her, or I'll ask her for you, but let her finish playing with it.
And so it doesn't get to the point where, because I'm across the room, and again, please, I'm not saying you're doing this all the time.
I'm just talking about my experience. You may not be doing it at all.
This is just a silly theory.
So I'm preventing, right?
It's all about prevention. All about prevention.
Parenting is not much to do with cure because there's precious little curing that you can do as you're finding, right?
It's all about prevention. So I'm down in there with her.
She reaches for another kid's toy.
I will hold her hand back. First of all, I'll ask her, like, no, no, no, she's playing.
If she's bothered by another kid playing with a toy that she may have had some interest in three weeks ago or might have an interest in three weeks from now.
And she says, no, no, no, no.
I said, no, no, it's okay. She can play.
She can play. You're playing here.
She's playing there. If another kid's on a rocking horse, she wants to go on the rocking horse, she'll start marching towards that kid, and I will say, no, no, we let her finish, and then when she's finished, we can play.
And so what I'm not doing is standing doing something else, and then I find that my daughter has pushed someone off.
The horse and the horsey and now there's a crisis.
And, you know, tempers flare and blah, blah, blah.
So, for me, like if I were in your shoes, it would be all about prevention.
Go down to your kids' levels.
Play with them all together.
So, you're all playing blocks together.
You're all building stuff, right? Isabella loves it when I build her a bridge so she can push her little train set underneath the bridge.
So, you can build a bridge with your eldest, It gives something like a train or a car for the youngest to push under the bridge.
And when the eldest starts reaching towards or starts grabbing, you hold him back and say, no, no, no, we let him play.
Let him play. He's not grabbing from you.
Don't grab from him. And then you go back to enjoying the game.
And you just keep doing that.
Keep preventing. It's like water wears away stone.
That's the way to work it.
But if you wait... Until the toy has been snatched and the eldest has run off, then you're dealing with a crisis situation and an emotional crisis situation for everyone involved.
And I don't use that term lightly.
It's a big deal. I'm not being facetious.
It is a big deal for everyone in the family.
So it's all about prevention.
It's all about a little light touch to prevent rather than the heavy hand after the fact.
That would be my very strong suggestion about that.
I also really wanted to say that I really appreciate the email.
I really appreciate your openness in this.
People who haven't done this, you don't know how tough it is to open up to somebody else.
It's a huge deal.
It is a very courageous thing to do.
I really, really wanted to express my admiration for that.
I hope. And of course, if what I'm talking about makes no sense whatsoever, if you are spending hours a day down in there playing and preventing, then please write me back and I'll take another swing and hopefully won't miss quite so badly.
But that's where I would start.
It is a very, very big deal.
You are absolutely wise to be very concerned about the quality of their interaction at this point.
Their relationship is being defined.
And problems between siblings that go on like this for years when they're younger...
For most siblings will last a lifetime of friction and fraction and problems and conflict and it's just not worth it.
And when in their teenage years, it's going to be even worse.
And when they can start using friends against each other, it's even worse.
And when they get bigger and stronger, it's even worse.
You don't want the resentments to build up from the youngest.
You don't want the arrogance to build up in the eldest.
It's really, really essential to find some way to solve this, right?
Parenting classes, I know it's tough to find the time and you're already a parent, but still, it's important.
It's important. Even if you can get videos on conflict resolution, anything like that, there's lots of resources available online.
If that doesn't work, then therapy is always, I think, a really great thing to do.
I always say that. But yeah, I hope that that helps.
If you just get down to their level, play with them, show them how much fun it is to play with each other so that playing with each other becomes more attractive than that, They won't then be trying to get your attention, particularly the eldest, through negative behavior.
And you can do that constant course correction of prevention rather than being faced with being judge, jury, and executioner after a crisis has erupted.
I hope that this helps.
If I'm way off the mark, just shoot me another email and we'll take another stab at it.
But thank you so much. for writing in about this.
I think it's a hugely, hugely important issue and you're absolutely wise to take it very seriously and you can have a lot of fun solving it, I think.
I just wanted to put a little addendum here of something I forgot to mention.
If your eldest son is in hot pursuit of your attention through his misbehavior, and if, as a result, you find yourself emotionally distant from him, then you are in grave danger of entering into a kind of vicious cycle.
Of course, I just wanted to point it out.
I'm sure you're aware of it, but for other people who may not be, And that, of course, is this, that you recoil from your son because he's misbehaving, but if his misbehavior is generated by your recoiling, then his misbehavior is only going to intensify, which causes you to withdraw more, which causes him to misbehave more.
That is something which you really want to nip in the bud, if that is what is going on.
Okay, that's it.
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