Role of a lifetime & a lifelong role - What it means to become a Parent ?
Just when the child is born, the parent is born too! Both the child and the parent are learning! Both have only their instinct and their intuition at their disposal. Both are responding to the moment and learning from it! In the days of yore, each woman learnt how to deal with the responsibility of nurturing the child. And she was not alone in caring for it. As soon as the child became independent, the whole community and environment was the child’s learning space. As adolescence set in the child began to take on the responsibility of nurturing the younger kids.
It was home schooling at its best! The child was in the community, and it was allowed to participate in whatever was happening. The child felt capable of contributing to the needs of the community and this built self-confidence and provided the inspiration for self-reliance. The life of the young teenager was like an internship with the community. This provided opportunity for self-healing. The whole community indulged in positive parenting. The parents were not possessive about their children. Their children belonged to the whole community and learnt from whomever they wished to learn and be inspired.
In today’s society the schooled parents are stuck in the pattern of performance and are unable to find positive platforms to share their concerns and learn from their mistakes. Unlearning and unschooling are a necessary process in this trajectory. We have to stop looking for parenting solutions outside and allow the natural healing process of our relationship with our children to lead the way. The evolution of natural healing process and self-healing requires us to look with in ourselves for answers and hold hands with our children.
I believe that the soul of our child has chosen us as it’s parents. It has come to us to help us unlearn and unschool our formatted minds. If we surrender to our intuition and respond to the instinct of our body we can learn everything we need to know. No books, classes or programs can help us to become better parents. Only our sensitivity to the fact that the child is here to help us to learn and that being fearless, completely mindful, creative, nonjudgmental, loving and compassionate it is showing us the way to find our selves in this maze of words and thoughts. Observing our child, allowing her/him to exercise her will, being a role model of patience, perseverance and honesty is our only hope to lead ourselves to our purpose in life!
Penned from conversations with Meenakshi Ma 🙂
