Parenting Blog

"In fact we often don’t feel the wonder and beauty because we are too busy...trying to live up to the ideal in our head....The cost of perfection is sometimes that it stresses us out to the point where we no longer enjoy the moment we are living in." - Pastor Jon

Most of us aspire to give our kids a fairy-tale holiday.  We have a secret fantasy that this will make up for all of our imperfections as a parent.

An even deeper fantasy for most of us is that giving our child a perfect holiday will somehow repair everything that wasn't perfect in our own childhoods.  Like most unconscious needs, this one fuels a fierce frenzy of activity that's destined to fail. 

We can heal our own childhoods by acknowledging our wounds, realizing that our parents were only human, and understanding that whatever happened was about them, not about us.  We grieve the perfect childhood we didn't get, and love ourselves back to health.

But we can't heal our pasts by frosting them over with a fantasy holiday for our family.  Yes, it is healing to give love to our children.  No, it is not healing to stay up around the clock buying, decorating, cooking, stressing, gritting our teeth and forcing our family into something that looks like a storybook holiday but feels awful.

Our fantasy of the perfect family holiday drives us to do more, more, more.  But more of what we didn't need to begin with can't fill those deep longings.  There's a better way.

1. Acknowledge your own deep longings.  It's ok, we all have them.  Tell yourself that you deserve that big love, and that you're going to get it by giving it to yourself.  Not with superficial trimmings, but inside your own heart, with real self-acceptance and self-appreciation.  Fill your cup with self-nurture of all kinds, and remember there's no substitute for looking in the mirror and pouring love into your own hungry heart. 

2. Ditch the Guilt.  Presents are symbolic love, but they aren't real love and they won't buy you love.  Don't worry, you don't have to make up for not being a perfect parent.  No one is.  Just resolve to keep choosing love as often as possible when you're interacting with your child.  That's all you can do, and it really is enough. 

3. Limit the presents.  All of us want to make our children's faces shine by gifting them with something special.  Unfortunately, those material presents are a bit like drugs -- the lift is temporary, followed by a deeper inner craving, eventually tinged with desperation.   That's because a focus on presents actually fuels the fantasy that we can get what we need inside through things.  Because that doesn't work, we can't appreciate those things, so we're always looking for the next one that might do the trick.  The truth is, your child IS enough and has enough.  Nothing wrong with exchanging presents to express your delight in each other.  But keep the focus on connection and meaning, which fills us inside in a way that things can never do.

4. Give your child something better than fantasy.  Kids spell LOVE with the letters TIME.  Pouring your adoring presence into your child as you share a holiday tradition will do more to fill his cup than a mountain of presents.  The tradition can be as complicated as making a gingerbread house or as simple as a glass of eggnog before bed while looking at the stars.

I hope that whatever holiday you celebrate is not perfect.  But is filled with the light of love.

P.S.  I'll be taking off the holidays to spend with my family.  I wish you every blessing during the holiday season, and I'll see you on January 2!