Helpless, helpless
When someone I love is in pain, emotional or physical, I can't help but feel helpless. I assume most people feel the same way. I also can't help but want to fix whatever is causing the pain. I used to assume most people felt the same way in this area as well, but a lot of books and conversations have claimed that my feelings are more a male trait than a female one; I don't know.
When the person hurting is one of my children, however, I feel doubly bad. I assume most parents do. Sure, your mind knows that in many cases not only can't you fix the pain, you shouldn't even if you could, because the pain is a necessary part of growth. Your heart, though, hates to see them suffer. When a friend is callous toward them, a schoolmate makes fun of them, they don't win the prize they wanted, whatever is hurting them, you wince and hurt for them and often get angry at the source of the pain. All the examples I gave are ones that often seem small to adults, but they aren't, not in the hearts of our kids and not in our hearts when we were kids.
I don't think the pain you feel for your kids gives you any right to make the subject of the conversation be you. The focus should remain on them. I do, though, think it's right and proper to let your kids know that you take their pain seriously, that you remember feeling similar pain, and that you will be there for them if they want your help. If they don't, we also have to give them space.
Which is, of course, hard, because you have to accept that aside from loving and offering, you really are helpless, but so it goes.
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2 comments:
What's more stereotypically feminine is feeling a need to fix someone's life, especially that of a fellow adult, including by self-sacrifice. (The term co-dependent comes because study of this pattern began with wives of alcoholics.) The stereotypical masculine pattern is to offer constant advice in conversation, while the stereotypical female pattern is to offer commiseration and condolences. I say "stereotypical" because I and a number of my female friends are more male acculturated when it comes to talking with friends with problems; one such friend calls it Geek or Nerd Acculturated.
Congrats on the novel; though it's far from your first book, I know you've wanted it for a while.
Thanks for the note. Fair points. I think many of us share both stereotypical gender traits; it just happens.
Thanks for the kind words on the novel. I spent way too much time wanting such things and way too little working on them. Now, I write every day, and the results are definitely better this way. Take care.
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