Having the start of my life be so rough combined with me having to be a parent for so many of my formative years left teenage me with a mixture of feelings in regard to having my own children. My parenting instincts never fully subsided. Instead, those instincts seemed to mingle with my God given nature of nurture to give me a subtle ease around children.
I have always enjoyed being around children more than adults. Children are innocent, honest, and lack the ability to be deceitful that can be so prominent in adults. As much I enjoyed being around children, when I tried to picture myself as a mother my love of children became overwhelmingly stifled by fear. Fear is not rational and doesn't play fair. Fear pulls on threads of the past and unspools them they lay in a confused tangled heap.
My biggest fear was having children would lead to history repeating itself. Putting my own children through what I went through was a thought that I could not quite shake. Logically I knew that bad parenting was not something that was inherent or coded in DNA, but I remember feeling like I was doomed to repeat the mistakes of my mother. Then there was the fear that even if I turned out to be a good parent what was going to be passing down genetically. Would my children be plagued with mother's mental illness, my father's addictions, or some awful combination of the two?
Those fears swirled dark and grey over the thoughts of children and what place they would have in my future. Then as I began to grow and mature to become more secure in my faith I grew to know better who I was. Understanding myself, God's plan for me, and how I could be used in this world allowed me to see what the darkness of fear had shrouded. I could see myself as a mother and see the joy that a child could bring into my life.
God does use all things and in some of the most beautifully unexpected ways. In 2016 my husband and I were blessed with our amazing daughter. I could never fully describe the magic and transformation that comes with bringing a child into the world. Transformation that is both instantaneous and ongoing. One thing I never anticipated was how much parenting my children would allow for me to continue to heal by reparenting my inner child.
When it comes time to discipline my children, I am able to say to them the things I needed to hear when I was growing up. I am able to uplift and encourage my children giving them the support I longed for as child. This is a part of motherhood I could not have imagined and didn't know I needed.
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