When the Mirror Doesn’t Smile Back

There is a specific kind of silence that falls over a house when a child speaks a truth you weren’t prepared to hear.

Mind you, this wasn’t during a tantrum or a door-slamming or foot-stomping moment either. It was just a quiet, matter-of-fact observation delivered over a plate of half-eaten toast. My son looked at us — the two people who have built our entire lives around his orbit — and simply said he didn’t like us very much right now.

As a parent, my first instinct is to “fix” the data. I wanted to explain how much we love him and do so much just to see him smile… I was running a mental audit of all the things we’ve done right, even when we were running on empty. I want to present a closing argument for why we were, in fact, very likable.

But as I sat there, I realized that I was falling into the old trap of wanting “alignment.” I wanted him to agree with my version of the story.

I’ve spent a lot of time lately thinking about the “silent letters” in our lives — the things we feel but don’t say to keep the peace. But children don’t have silent letters. They pronounce everything.

If I have spent the last year encouraging him to be a “truth-teller,” and if I’ve accepted his premise that he is here to “correct” me, then I have to be prepared for the days when his correction feels like a cold wind.

He wasn’t saying we were bad people. He was saying that, in this moment, our presence felt like a thumbprint on his autonomy. Our rules, our schedules, our constant “guidance” — to him, it didn’t feel like love; it felt like gravity. And no one likes gravity when they are trying to fly.

And then I thought of the Ego-Death of parenting this little boy.

In my professional life, I’ve learned that the best way to handle a “No” is to pivot. But in motherhood, there is no pivot. There is only the sitting-with.

I had to realize that his “dislike” wasn’t a failure of my parenting; it was a sign of his growth. He is becoming a person with his own taste, his own boundaries, and his own internal weather system. If he is going to eventually become a man who can stand on his own, he has to first learn how to stand against us.

He needs to know that his love isn’t a currency he has to pay us to keep us stable. He needs to know that he can dislike us, and the world won’t end. We will still be there, making the toast and holding the map, even if he doesn’t want to look at it right now.

There is a strange kind of freedom in being disliked by your child. It shatters the image of the “perfect mother” I’ve tried so hard to work on. It forces me to stop being a “manager” and start being a witness.

I’m learning to be okay with being the “villain” in his story for a day or two. I’m learning that my value isn’t tied to his constant approval.

One year into this writing journey, I thought I’d be writing about the joy of connection. But today, I’m writing about the grace of the gap. I’m learning that sometimes, the most loving thing you can do is to be the person your child is allowed to move away from, knowing that your shadow will always be a safe place for him to return when he’s ready.

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This post was previously published on medium.com.