Perfect Parent

"Each of us is looking for the perfect parent. We are waiting to have someone who completely understands us to mirror back that we are simply wonderful."
- Pat Wyman, Three Keys to Self Understanding:An Innovative and Effective Combination of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, the Enneagram, and Inner-Child Healing

A new baby arrived in our family over the weekend; my nephew, Joseph Matthew Clavadetscher, made his miraculous entrance in perfect health. A beautiful blessing for my brother and his wife and their two-year-old, who has suddenly become a big brother and - for a time - second banana. Talking with my brother brought back memories of my babies and of my scrambles to be an adequate mother. Survival, not perfection, was my goal.

Yet reading Wyman's book has been deeply moving to me as both a child and a mother. I can usually read only a few pages without some deep emotional shift, after which I either cry or take a nap. When I read this statement about envisioning yourself as a small child in the house you grew up in, I just ached: "In virtually every case, the child is alone in the house. That is because no matter the size of the family or the age of the child, she felt alone." When I imagined my young self in our home in Ann Arbor, where I spent formative growing-up years, I too was alone, despite my large and loving family. Wyman presents this as no one's fault, just a reality of childhood. We want something that no one else can give to us; this seems tragic and flawed. It is especially crushing to wonder if my own children feel this way, too.

And yet . . . there are ways that we can be loved completely. Faith teaches us that our higher power (God, Spirit, Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed, etc.) loves each and every person honestly and despite our flaws. I have written before about my struggle to say and believe that "I am the beloved Child of God." That statement comforts me but I find it difficult to comprehend and integrate.

What gives me more hope and peace is the following statement from Wyman: "The perfect parent is living within each of us, and it is up to the adult part of the self to mirror back to the soul everything that the soul has been waiting for." I can love myself, show compassion to myself, and honor my deepest, darkest feelings. I can be that source of endless love and support that seems so elusive elsewhere. Belief that God / spirit / source resides within me helps me with this effort, but ultimately this feels personal. I hear my own two-year-old voice in my head when I re-read these lines: "I do it myself!" What comfort and peace to know that we have this power within us, and that our children have it too.