Intention and parenting

I’ve just read this lovely post by a good friend of mine, all about the power of intention. The bit that spoke the most to me was her story about a phone call she nearly made but which she wisely decided not to after questioning her true intentions for making the call:

I went to phone someone yesterday, then I sat for a moment and considered what my intentions were. Guess what, deep down my intention was not to have a lovely chat with that person. My intention was to fuel my bad mood. I wanted to speak to that person so that afterwards I could be critical of their words and past actions! That was a shock to me. So I didn’t make that call and my day improved no end.

I wondered how this awareness could be brought to parenting, and realised that, for me, one of the things I struggle with the most is acting out what I feel is best for my family while feeling under critical scrutiny from other people, and I know I’m not the only mother who struggles with this.

When I’m feeling strong, it’s easy to say to myself that I don’t care what other people think, I’m going to pick up my angry child and cuddle her; I’m going to let my child eat between meals; I’m going to invite my children to stay up late with us; insert whatever parenting practice you do that you feel invites raised eyebrows and tuts from the people around you.

When I’m not feeling so strong, however, I can almost physically feel the internal conflict going on. I know my child needs one thing, but I also know that the person I’m with will probably think I’m an awful mother if I go ahead and do what I feel is right.

This is so culturally conditioned in us, and I believe it will take a good few more generations until we can truly let go of it in some families. It was only a generation or so ago when many families would put their own desire to feel accepted by society above the emotional and physical needs of their daughters if they got pregnant out of wedlock, for example. Some families would still do this now.

But the key, I feel, to breaking out of this inner conflict, is in using the power of intention as my friend describes above. Next time you feel that conflict between feeling a need to appear acceptable to the people you with and the needs of your child and your own belief about what is the right thing to do, as yourself what you true, deep intentions are.

I am definitely going to be doing this, because I know that my intentions will definitely be to bring up my children healthy, happy and secure no matter what it takes and not to disregard my children’s emotional well-being for the sake of being frowned upon.

It sounds so simple and obvious, but as my friend has beautifully illustrated, sometimes we aren’t really aware of what we’re doing, nor why we’re doing it, and asking ourselves, asking our hearts, what our true intentions are is a huge step towards making the right choices.

Free Your Parenting