The Gift of Benign Neglect
By way of a plant analogy that I have hopefully taken 'just far enough'
My experience of parenting has been much like this, too.
In the early years, I tended to underestimate what my child was capable of, and 'over-water' her by default.
I felt afraid to deprive her of even the tiniest bit of support or nurturing, and I was especially terrified about what it would mean about me as a mother if I did.
Naturally, I was exhausted from neglecting myself.
I remember how guilty I felt starting my first online business when my daughter was four, although I very much enjoyed the work and needed the adult interaction it provided. She was at home with me 24/7, which meant we had plenty of time together, but I still worried that I was neglecting her during those long hours I spent in front of the computer.
But do you know what my child did while I was working on my business?
She started her own!
Yep, she and her bestie made toys from paper and went around selling them door-to-door in our 1970's-style neighborhood of free range kids.
I’ll admit that I didn’t even know about this venture until she came home one afternoon with a pocket full of cash.
And I can promise you that I never once tried to teach her about business, or pushed her to be creative.
Without intending to, I had simply left my child the space she needed to thrive.
She's gone on now to start two other businesses, in which I've been almost completely uninvolved, and only when my help has been requested by the boss.
My extreme concern over leaving my child to entertain herself stemmed from my own childhood wounds. I had been abandoned both emotionally and physically, and also smothered by a caregiver who didn't trust me to do things ‘the right way.’
My impulse as a parent to compensate for my own losses had me both overly worried about neglecting my child and anxious about the prospect of trusting her inner resources.
Like plants, it's a delicate balance of nurturing and leaving space for them to grow, and it takes time, reflection, self-healing and practice to find it.
But I can honestly say that every single time I have felt conflicted over whether to do something for myself or attend to my child, and I have chosen myself, my child has amazed me with her capabilities. At this point these include learning to read, do math, use video editing software and much more.
When we see our kids begin to flourish from a little less watering, we gain confidence in them and also in our choice to spend much needed time and energy nurturing ourselves.
After all, children do as we do, and not as we instruct them to.
If we aspire for them to have a growth mindset, fall madly in love with themselves, or make smart financial decisions, the best thing we can do is to become living examples.
And of course, to then release attachment to the outcome — we are not here to make up for our own parents’ failures, but to parent the children in front of us.
Like the saying goes, water the plant you have, not the one your mother let die because she was too busy compulsively baking cookies to take care of it. Or something.
What I mean to say is that your child will let you know what they need, and when. And you'll be there, because you're emotionally available and not addicted to prescription painkillers. Right?
A final note, for the parent who may worry that they have over-worried and over-watered their child to the brim:
Although there is no human equivalent to Home Depot’s generous return policy on houseplants, I'm happy to report from personal experience that children recover from a little over-watering just fine.