When both my boys were born, they emerged from the womb — my womb, where I grew and nurtured them with every ounce of love in my body — as tiny little Daddy clones. It stung a little. If I wasn’t destined to be a mom of girls I could dress up like dolls, then could one of the children at least have the dark hair that I so loved about myself?
It took a few years but as Easton changed from a chubby baby to a toddler to a little kid, his hair darkened and he lost the tight baby curls that made him the image of his father. His face changed and his smile changed and now looking at his face is a little like looking into a mirror.
But as he’s grown into the small person he is today, it’s not just his looks that mirror mine. This child is my child with every fiber of his being.
And seeing that — all my flaws, my personality traits, the million little things that make me me — reflected back in him is the most humbling experience of motherhood.
I see his crushing insecurities, his belief that failure is devastating, his unwillingness to try something unless he knows he’s good at it. I see the anxiety written across his face in new situations, and I see the lack of bodily awareness that makes both of us too self-conscious for team sports.
I also see the intense passion for things he cares about, the determined belief that he’s right and can make an outcome happen, and the visionary creativity that literally burns in him some days. He can’t not do something once he sets his mind to it, and he’s blinded to everything else around him while he’s pursuing it.
I see it and I know it, because I do it all that way too.
But this is where the trouble starts. He’s me as a child. He’s me now. I know what this life feels like — and I want more for him.
That mindset reflects a fundamental thinking error: projection parenting. My child is like me, therefore he is me. I don’t want him to have any of the hurt that I had (have), therefore I will parent by projection — undoing, piece by piece, my own little traumas of growing up under the guise of doing better for my child.
There are two divergent directions projection parenting can take, and in this case, I see #DoneWithFun Daddy and I on opposite ends of the spectrum in our approaches. (Because as much as Easton is me, he’s more than a little of his father too.)
I’m reactive and overcompensating. We need to do the exact opposite my parents did for me (push harder in some places, pull back in others). We should force team sports and read Big Life Journal to work on resiliency and hell, maybe we should just start him in therapy right now to give him a better shot at happiness. How young is too young to medicate?
My husband is resigned and complacent. This is just how he is. I was like this too. You worry too much. He’ll be fine. He doesn’t need team sports or after school activities; he doesn’t need therapy. He needs LEGOs and video games and alone time. But really, how young is too young to medicate?
We are parenting from a place of our own deep-seated childhood scars. The approach isn’t wrong — every parent wants better for their child than they had for themselves.
But this approach pulls you into the past and flings you into the future — remembering how you felt as a child and extrapolating that outward to your own child as an unhappy tween or teen or young adult.
It doesn’t keep you present, in the here and now, to make decisions based on rationality and actual facts instead of emotion.
Fact: Your child may look like you and act like you and feel like you, but your child is not you. They have their own set of experiences and toolbox of emotions and coping strategies.
Fact: You cannot protect your child from hurt always. Even if it were socially acceptable to keep them in a bubble, big emotions and hard things will seep in anyway. Learning how to navigate hard things is what will ultimately help your child grow up well-adjusted (or at least more well-adjusted than you are.)
Fact: You can’t mold your child into anything through sheer force of will alone. You have to wait for them to figure it out for themselves, and that means giving them time and space to make mistakes and find their way.
Fact: Watching then go through that process feels even harder than it did when you were going through the process as a kid yourself. Nothing will tear your heart wide open more than watching your child struggle in a way that flashes you right back to your awkward, miserable or lost childhood self.
So what do you do if not parent by projection? Parent by intuition. Parent in the present.
Trust that your child is strong enough to make it through. Trust that you are strong enough to guide them toward growth without doing the hard work for them. Trust your instincts, but also trust the voice in your head that screams you have no idea what you’re doing.
You don’t. None of us do. We’re just finding our way, one decision at a time. That’s parenting — and also life — in its bare and brutal reality.
It stings some days more than others. But the end result is somehow still beautiful — often fucked up, but beautiful. Trust that and parent from that space.
Do you have a child that’s just like you? How do you cope? Tell me in the comments below or connect on social media — I’d love your insights on this hard topic. Keep following here and on Instagram, Facebook and Pinterest for more ideas and inspiration and always raw motherhood.
Looking for more musings on motherhood and parenting with intention? Read How to Connect with Your Anxious Child or Dear Stranger in the Store or To My First Grader on His First Day.
