How Do We Allow Our Children to Suffer Through What We Ourselves Cannot Tolerate?
Being a parent, is being in a constant state of questioning. Am I doing enough? Are they doing ok? Should I have done something else? Why is this so hard?
Last night was one of the most difficult nights I’ve had as a parent. for me, actually one of the most difficult nights I’ve had… ever. I knew last night was going to be agony. I knew each of us would feel the discomfort. And I also knew, eventually, the feelings would have to be felt.
My little boy is 2 1/2 years old. He’s had a pacifier of some form since he was born.
Immediately after he was born, he had to be taken into the NICU for tests and monitoring. This pacifier has served as his transitional object, his consistent source of comfort, his means to deeply exhale. I nursed him for the first two years of his life, and when it was time to wean off nursing so I could go out of town, his pacifier made the separation a bit easier to bare.
But he’s growing up. He sleeps in a big boy bed now. He naps without his pacifier at preschool, and is at a point where his teeth may be impacted by continuing to use his “passy.” We knew letting go of this comfort item would be incredibly challenging for him. We also knew it was time.
So, my husband and I picked a date for all of us to face the process of letting go. We read several different advice columns, all of which made the point that there really is no way to avoid nights of tears when taking a pacifier away from your child. They suggested including your child in the process of recycling the pacifier, talking about how big they are now, and that they no longer need what they needed as a baby. I even started several weeks in advance singing a song together that I heard on Sesame Street (bye, bye binky! binky bye, bye!)
Prepared to the best of our ability, we decided yesterday was going to be d-day. It all began fairly smoothly.
We had a conversation about it being time to say goodbye to his passy now that he’s such a big boy. We sang the song throughout the day and even watched with delight as my son giggled his way through tossing each of his passys away. My husband put him to bed while I was at work, and we both were astonished at how easily he accepted the explanation of not getting his passy before bed. We exclaimed, “maybe this wasn’t such a big deal! We’ve been terrified over nothing!!”
And then the clock struck 11:15 pm.
My son awoke for a moment and reached down as he normally would to place his passy back in his mouth. As soon as he remembered it wasn’t there - he became ENRAGED. He started whaling in agony in a way that I had never heard from him (never from any person really). He came into our room hysterically, inconsolably, desperately pleading that we give his passy back. His little body thrashed and shook and experienced a state of chaos that I can only imagine is reminiscent of what someone looks like while they experience heroine withdrawal.
I took a deep breath. This was it.
This was my moment to make a parenting decision that I knew full well the magnitude of. You see, I had secretly hidden a pacifier in the very back of our junk drawer. I knew that I could make all the pain he was experiencing go away in a split second, and I contemplated doing it. But then what?
What message was that teaching him about his ability to tolerate discomfort? And wouldn’t we have to go through this exact same agonizing experience 6 months from now?
It wasn’t until I was 32 years old that I learned that uncomfortable feelings will not kill you. this was the greatest gift of my life. it was through getting sober and having no choice (for the first time in my life) but to feel all the feelings I’d pacified through material objects, relationships, food, drugs, alcohol, television - that I finally learned to feel. Up to that point, anytime I’d had a feeling I didn’t like, I would immediately make it go away. It was what I had learned from my parents (without any blame or shaming of them loving their child the best way they knew how) never allowing me to feel pain.
Since becoming a parent, I’ve learned that the most difficult experiences for us to tolerate our child having, are the ones we struggle with ourselves.
So if it’s really difficult for you to experience boredom.. it will feel near impossible for you to witness this feeling in your child. You will immediately want to alleviate the experience they’re having, because you would never feel it yourself if you could avoid it. This speaks to your love for them.
But there is also a very real cost to them. If you pacify your child every time they feel bored with an activity, or television or someone to play with - you rob them of the ability to feel, move past and eventually transcend this experience. Maybe within their boredom lies the key to an imaginal space or self-awareness that they will never uncover if they don’t have the ability to sit in this feeling.
This is, in my opinion, is some of the most difficult - and yet vital work of parenting.
When we teach our children to suffer, we teach them that suffering does not last forever, and ultimately - can be the key to our growth.
My son whaled in agony for a solid hour and a half while my husband and I tried everything we could think of to comfort him. We told him that although we couldn’t fix his hurt with a passy, we were right there. We kept telling his that all of his feelings were understandable. Eventually he came over to my side of the bed, asked me to lift him up, and wrapped both of his little arms around my neck as he convulsed the last of his deep sobs away. We both sighed. The wave had passed. A few more little ripples came as he woke throughout the night, but the big one.. the storm.. had passed - and he’d made it.
As I watched him emerge the next morning, completely untainted - as though nothing had occurred the night before - I thought, “Look at his resilience. I will continue to question everything. But he is going to teach me so much…if I can just stay out of his way.”
