Being parents changes our lives, on the outside, but it also changes us on the inside. The challenges of conscious motherhood and fatherhood involve turning everything around, rethinking our beliefs and intensely seeking ways to improve as people, because only if we are better people can we be the best possible parents. Definitely, being parents teaches us many things.
Perfection does not exist. But human beings are able to perfect ourselves. And in this becoming parents means as much learning as possible which, surely, we will face in life.
In the upbringing and education of another human being is when we assume greater responsibility. Not only do they depend on us for their survival, health, physical integrity and comfort. Our children also depend on us to grow emotionally healthy, know themselves, manage their emotions and know how to relate to others with empathy and assertiveness.
Learn to accompany another being
The reasons why becoming parents teaches us so much They are in the very essence of what it is to be parents: accompany another human being in its construction and discovery. Our children only pretend to themselves, neither to society nor to us nor to the extended family. Our duty is to let them be.
And that is the first learning, to let someone else be without forcing him to assume our beliefs, without downloading our frustrations or fears, without pressing him to meet our expectations. Allow you to discover and fulfill your own dreams.
To educate, basically, is not to force ourselves to be what we want them to be, but to allow them to fully develop and acquire the tools and knowledge to have a satisfactory life at all times, in childhood and also when they are independent adults.
Reeducate us
Becoming a conscious mother and mother forces us to reconsider all our childhood, our upbringing, what we learned, beliefs and values. We come across the reality of our son's love and how clear he exposes his needs for contact and respect. We reeducated with them.
If we look at the child we will consider many of the things we have learned and we will launch a deep work of personal discovery: our reeducation. The way in which we interact with the child and with the rest of human beings is going to mark him, because he learns from what we do, so there is no other choice but to have the courage to improve ourselves and acquire new knowledge, strategies and communication skills.
Accepting that our parents made mistakes rather than resentment can help us recognize the efforts they made to be the best version of themselves. If they yelled at us, punished or possibly hit us, even though it hurt us, they were already moving forward from a previous paradigm in which they had received beatings in their childhood.
Is now our turn to grow and provide a further step in the way we treat children, and instead of repeating their mistakes, we can improve a little more.
Imagine growing up without screaming, feeling welcomed and valued at all times. So our children will be safer and braver people and can, when they are parents, improve the mistakes that we surely also make.
Being parents makes us learn to dialogue and negotiate, to value people for who they are and not for what we project in them, not to judge, to be patient, to control anger, to take into account the needs of another person over ours when they collide, to be generous and to think long term about the life we want to have and offer children.
I'm sure you can think of many more things we learn from both fatherhood and motherhood. Do you dare to tell us in the comments to this post?
