A few years ago, I, a parent of two young girls, was in a program with a group of intellectuals, all from diverse backgrounds but on a common quest to find fulfillment from work.
To break the ice between strangers, the facilitator offered a prompt ― Use no words and express what space you are in ― and everyone in the room started to draw.
I stared at what I drew and couldn’t comprehend it. It looked something like this.
Author holding hands of her younger siblings and daughters. Image courtesy of the author.
“How can you call yourself a parent of these four children, two young siblings, and two daughters, who see you as an example when you yourself are stuck,” a voice spoke to me.
Dressed up in a formal pink Ann Taylor dress, color-coordinated Swarovski earrings, and Tory Burch heels, “I am a learned and experienced leader. I can’t mix parenthood feelings with work,” I countered to silence that inner voice.
Did this voice speak to me for the first time? Or did I listen to it for the first time?
Someone was talking in my face. If this were a Hollywood movie, now would be the part in which someone would quietly walk into the room, lay a heavy hand on my shoulder, and speak to me: “Ma’am, it’s over. You are caught red-handed. You have failed as a professional. You have failed as a parent.”
The parenting adage that I had known and lived till now — a parent is born when a child is born — was lying in front of me, shattered into pieces.
Parenthood- a lovely paradox
The mean child in me was doing the talking now: What if my daughters judge me as they grow old? What if they don’t forgive me for my choices?
Will my daughters trust that I read and implemented the learnings of best books, including one written by Heidi E. Murkoff, one of the world’s leading experts in pregnancy and childcare — What to Expect When You’re Expecting, named one of the ‘Most Influential Books of the Last 25 Years’ by USA Today.
Will they believe that no one taught me that my parenting mold — the way I was raised — might get in the way, and how can I steer clear from that?
Will they appreciate my unmasked share that parenthood is exhausting, isolating, demanding, changes relationships, friendships, and dreams?
When I know from my heart and soul that parenthood gives me the reason for being, can I leave it on the hope that my children would learn one day that my relish and regard about parenting far exceeded the challenging periods, always?
I experienced parenthood as heaven and hell at the same time.
. . .
I felt called to work with children, from their perch, shaping their character, and jump off the corporate cliff. But how can I fill empty spaces in myself? How do I nurture and protect tiny souls with compassion without losing myself? Sounds incongruent.
Nurture self
It was the distance between my ideal self, i.e., how I aspired to show up as a parent in raising young leaders, and my current self — not the incongruence.
A fascinating process sprang inside me, which didn’t fill any cracks but unveiled more layers.
The outside voices said, “the leadership role in corporate life and parenting are like train tracks which never merge. Learning child psychology will give you a false lens; it is like digging in the past and finding that every behavior stems from childhood experience. Parenting is innate, why you need to learn it. A parent is born when a child is born.”
I made no effort to silence outside voices but focused all energies on listening to my inner voice compassionately and set myself on the learning path.
Here’s what came true. When we see more, we imagine more, and we create more. A conscious parent was now born, and I became a parent to one more child— the child in me!
. . .
Here, I accept myself as I am. If I had to raise my daughters again, I would change nothing in them and my work. My work would be as important to me as raising the future generation.
