It’s Never Too Late

We are all to some degree a product of our times. The choices we make as parents are influenced by the era in which we parent and its values, and by the people around us, our own parents, our friends, and, of course, the “experts.” We tend to take authoritative pronouncements at face value and not see past their social contexts, whether it is the way our parents raised us or well-meaning advice from a pediatrician. It’s very hard to nurse a baby in a time when everyone is bottle-feeding, in an environment lacking support, guidance, and role models. Or we may have grown up in a family that didn’t hug, where feelings were not acknowledged, or where love was always tied to conditions and expectations. We may have carried that way of being into our own parenting, relying on what was familiar and comfortable, without much thought, or unable to muster the will or courage to go against the prevailing tide.

At times, we may not have been comfortable with what we were doing as parents, and our intuition may have voiced discomfort or yearned for something else, but we may not have felt that we had options, that there was any other way. Our feelings, our instincts, and our intuitions may have been buried, and now, later in life, we may be left with regret, sadness, loss, or pain.

We do the best we can and, being human, our view of things is always partial and inevitably changes. We all have regrets and see things later that we didn’t see and wish we had done differently.

A mother of grown children sent us the following reflections, which she had written several years before we met her:

I am but a baby myself when I give birth to my first child. Twenty-three is wanting to be tripping off in Europe somewhere or going to grad school or dating more than one guy in the same week. Twenty-three is not wanting to change diapers, sterilize glass baby bottles and have cotton lap pads across my thighs. But it is the early 60s, and what’s a nice Jewish girl to do at 20 but to marry a nice Jewish boy and produce a grandchild…

It is the early 60s and my husband simply drops me off at the hospital as I go into labor. The doctor says he will call him at home… not to worry and to grab some sleep. “Good-bye, hon,” he says. The nurse wheels me off in the wheelchair and looks at my small frame. “What are you here for?” “To have a baby,” I say. “Where is it?” she asks, looking at my belly. It is the early 60s and the less gain the better. I am 15 pounds over my normal weight. It is the early 60s and hiding a protrusion is in… showing, as in blossoming, is definitely out.

I am wheeled into the labor room. It is the early 60s and consciousness is out… being unconscious is in, and I am given an injection to create twilight sleep. In the delivery room I feel nothing, I see nothing. My only recall is of someone shaking my arm, and I vaguely hear, “You have a boy.” It is the early 60s, and I never get to see my son until many hours after the birth. It is the early 60s, and rooming in (mother and child) is not permitted in hospitals. Fathers can only visit during hours. Breast-feeding is out… formula is in… having a nurse for four weeks is in… bonding with the baby is… well, no one really even talks about the bonding process.

My husband and I may be parents, but we are still kids ourselves. Neither of us has worked out our deeper issues, and when the nurse leaves after four weeks, I begin to cry. The impact hits hard. At twenty-three, I am tied down. I am on a schedule of feeding, changing, bathing, sleeping. I am ripe for the advice that I hear… “Don’t spoil him… don’t pick him up… let him cry. That’s what we did with you. Listen to us… we are your parents and after raising two children, we know what is right. The worst thing is to give in when he cries… Oh, you can see if he needs to be changed or fed, but if he doesn’t need that, then let him cry and eventually he’ll go to sleep.”

I buy their advice… I want to be a good mother and have an unspoiled child, and so I feed, I diaper, I bathe and when I hear the crying, I let him cry.

The word spoiled hits hard… It brings back some unpleasant memories of when I was called spoiled by my parents…

“You should be grateful for what you have… for what we do for you… other children don’t have it as good as you do… we’ve spoiled you…”

I look at my infant son… No, I won’t give in to his crying.

It’s the early 60s and live in house-keepers are in; joining a country club is in; playing indoor tennis as part of a league is in. I don’t do any of the forementioned, but I also don’t meet my son’s primary need for closeness and contact. I don’t even learn about bonding until almost twenty-five years later.

At some time during the early 80s, I begin to notice women breast-feeding their babies in public places and in the quiet confines of their homes. On the Oprah show I learn that having wants and needs is OK. I am hearing words like contact and warmth and the bonding process. Something in me is painfully sad. Something in me is wanting to cry. I long to return to my infant son and pick him up and kiss his baby tears; I yearn to cuddle him and coo him to sleep, but having that second chance is out.

It is the 90s… my son is a grown man and for me, feeling the pain and the feelings is in.

The grief of lost opportunities, for how we were or weren’t in another time, lies deep within the human psyche. It can cause us to yearn for some way to heal our children’s pain and our own and bring us closer. We are forced to acknowledge that what is past cannot be undone, only known and known deeply, felt and felt deeply, and thereby, in a glimmer of new possibility and hope, perhaps transformed by our very recognition and our acceptance. It is only in the present that new possibilities exist. Acknowledging our anguish and grief and the pain we may have caused is part of the shaping of those possibilities, of giving birth to something new in ourselves, which may require the shedding of something old, however tenaciously it clings to us and we to it.

In our view, it is never too late to try to heal relationships with grown children who may have been hurt by us through our past ignorance, however innocent or understandable, or through lack of attention, or busyness, or neglect, withholding, judgment, or abusiveness. It is never too late to work toward creating healthy new connections, even if they are distrustful of us, or angry about past attitudes or actions, omissions or commissions on our part that they feel were harmful to them.

One way we can begin to heal these wounds is by sharing our regrets and our awareness of the things we did that were harmful or neglectful, either by letter or in person with our adult children. Doing this in a letter may be a more sensitive way to communicate at first, particularly if a child feels we have been intrusive or thoughtless about boundaries. To be of any real value, reaching out in this way must be a genuine overture, with the well-being of our child foremost in our mind, and, as hard as it might be for us, accepting the possibility that irreparable harm may have been done and that reconciliation may not be possible. We need to stand in a place beyond looking for sympathy, understanding, reassurance, or affection, beyond any desire to be absolved of guilt. We can recognize these feelings when they arise in us, and yet bring our attention back to the question, “What is in the best interest of my child?” even when he or she is an adult.

In bringing mindfulness to our relationships with our adult children, it is important to be aware of the ways in which our assumptions, expectations, and judgments may be limiting or disrespectful. It is equally important that we try to be a little more empathic and cognizant of the demands and stresses that they may be dealing with in their lives.

This does not mean that in our interactions with our adult children, we should not voice our feelings or express our needs. When something happens that bothers us, we can be aware of the various feelings we are having and bring them up at what feels like a relatively good time rather than letting things build up. At times, we may decide not to bring up particular issues, whether because they are not that important or because they are too loaded. It can be helpful to keep in mind a larger view of the relationship and to notice how attached we may be to expressing what in the end may just be an opinion. When we need something from them, it is helpful to remember that they are adults and are free to say no and express their feelings in response.

Can we look at our grown children as if we were seeing them for the first time, seeing each not as a newborn, but as a new being? Any moment together, even on the telephone, is a new chance to be present, to build trust, to attune to them, to be sensitive, to be empathic, to accept them as they are, and to honor their sovereignty.

If, on occasion, we lapse into an old familiar pattern, if we find ourselves critical, or unkind, or judging, or demanding, or withholding, or any of the myriad ways negativity can manifest, we can take a moment and look at what has happened. We can acknowledge what we did, hopefully learn from it, and apologize for our behavior. And then… begin again.

Western medicine is founded on the cardinal principle, dating to Hippocrates, to first do no harm. Perhaps we need to collectively affirm a Hippocratic Oath for parenting: that we will, above all, first do no harm. This would be a practice in itself. Without mindfulness, how would we even know whether we were doing harm in a particular moment, or upon reflection afterward?

Mindfulness is about living the lives that are ours to live. This can only happen if we make room for our true nature—what is deepest and best in ourselves—to emerge. While we may all be born miraculous beings, without proper nurturing, our innate genius may be smothered, snuffed out for lack of oxygen. The oxygen that feeds our true nature is found in stillness, attention, love, sovereignty, and community. The challenge of mindful parenting is to find ways to nourish our children and ourselves as we make our way along the ordinary and extraordinary journey that is a human life lived in awareness, and so to grow into who we all are and can become for each other, for ourselves, and for the world.