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When I told my son a few months ago that the man we’d thought would be around for a long,
long while, and who had committed to be, was no longer going to be in our lives, he said, “Mom,
I am NEVER getting my hopes up if you date anyone ever again.”
My heart sank.
You try to safeguard your kids against things like this. And I don’t date just anyone. I am well-
educated, I try to make smart decisions, I listen to what men say and prefer to trust them, and I
know about child development, so I aim to take all things into consideration when introducing a
man into my child’s life. I had no idea I was setting either one of us up for what we experienced.
But this was the second man in two years to do a mighty disappearing act and never actually
say goodbye to my child, my then nine year old son, who absolutely loved these men. And I am
trying to raise a conscious little man, so the weight of this is significant. I wonder how it will
affect him, just as I wonder how divorce at age five will affect him, or his dad being in a
partnership but not mom. I want conscious partnership – not just any companion – and so the bar
is set high. But I want my son to see what conscious relationship can be, and it’s what I want to
experience.
Leaving without saying goodbye is shocking and full of unconscious, or shadow, motivation. It’s
hard to explain poor adult behavior to a child or to explain why he, too, would be disrespected,
when there is no good reason for it.
My son is loving. He’s sensitive and he will open his heart. I have a photo of him as a two and a
half year old extending his arm to help a little friend while she climbed the whole way over a hay
bale. I remember that day, just watching his positive intent. But as he gets older, he is more
prone to guardedness. He evaluates what is fair and he is navigating a world that is bigger and
seemingly harsher all the time.
So I modeled for him a healthy emotional process as I grieved, and sometimes I modeled a
messy emotional process. I invited him to share his process with me. I modeled noticing the
sensations in my body as I was navigating fear (tense) or grief (ache). I modeled how to feel
without identifying wholly with any one emotion – that emotions come and go. As we allow them
and sit with them, the emotions show us what they want to show us, and then they move on.
When we hold them up within ourselves and don’t allow ourselves to feel, that’s when emotions
become a problem. They get stuck. But otherwise, they’re not a problem and they are welcome
to be felt and expressed.
He’s permitted to do this. This is mindful parenting in action. All parts of us are accepted here.
This last breakup was completely unexpected, completely surprising, and it shook me in ways I
prefer not to be shaken. To navigate this as a couples/women’s/men’s coach was difficult
enough. To navigate this as a mother brought an extra heap of guilt.
I love the men that are present in my son’s life. I value each of them. My friend recently showed
up at the door and my son stood to greet him, and immediately received a lesson in how to give
a proper handshake with eye contact. Another friend recently spoke to my son on my behalf
when we were locked in a power struggle about respecting his mother. As a single woman, I do
not want to raise my son without a community of conscious men.
But I feared what these close examples of poor adult behavior were also teaching him – about
men, about relationship, about sticking around to talk out the sensations in the body, the fears,
the emotions. I feel sad that he has not had a proper example of that. My heart sinks to imagine
what this means for him as he grows older, with just his mom’s voice in his ear instead of
witnessing a close example of conscious union.
And then, one night I’m doing the dishes and he’s in the shower singing like he does, and I
catch the words. And I crept closer to the bathroom to listen in, and I smiled as some of my
worry relaxed. His little voice, with all the conviction of the original artist, sang, “I’m gonna make
a change, for once in my life. It’s gonna feel real good, gonna make a difference, gonna make it
right! I’m starting with the man in the mirror, I’m asking him to change his ways…”
You know the rest of the lyrics.
His dad put that song on his iPod for him. Given the conviction in his little voice as he sang,
perhaps the message, already at ten, is sinking in.
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Photo courtesy Unsplash.