This is your time and it feels normal to you, but really, there is no normal. There’s only change and resistance to it and then more change.
Meryl Streep
Anyone who has raised a child has met resistance in action. When I was a young mother, I was understandably focused on the behavior of my children. My mother-in-law would listen to my fears or frustrations, shake her head and say, “it’s a phase, and when this phase passes, there will just be another.” She was right, of course. She had the experience to realize that never ending change is the hallmark of child development. Everything, everyone changes, and we all resist change, and no one can resist change like a two year old.
Parents, too, can resist change. They can refuse to let go of their perceptions of who they want their children to be. As young people grow and develop into their own selves, many parents wonder where their compliant children have gone. So many parents have said to me, “they’re so different from when they were little,” and I think to myself, of course they are.
Change and resistance to change are both inevitable. We resist our new normals and sometimes long for the comfort of days past, and yet the challenges created by change and resisting change in our lives can strengthen us. We learn about ourselves, others and the world around us. We learn the consequences of choices and behaviors. We grow up a bit. Then for a brief moment of perceived normality we rest, forgetting that change will always await us. There’s always another phase to resist as we change.
~Lisa Kiel
I cherish my 6 year old grandson for who he is today.
Having had 2 daughters that were really quite “easy” to raise I set my “normal” standard based on them… today is much different. Culture is different, expectations are different, the attitude that “if it was good enough for me then it should be good enough for them” just doesn’t work anymore. We don’t have the control over kids because they are influenced by some POWERFUL Media that has inherent “gaps” between the world of AI and reality. The changes are coming in too fast and too forceful to sit back and ruminate about the good old days…that time no longer has any sway. My new normal is about letting go. Letting go. Getting unstuck. Getting off the track that has some predestined terminal . Go with the flow, but you gotta stay nimble!
I think your reflection on Growing Up really makes a lot of sense and it is so very comforting to feel that we are not alone in dealing with growing up all the time !
Thank you, it is much easier to grow up together.