I am here starting to walk a series as I go through the episodes of Parenthood wherein I'll work my way through various aspects of parenthood where throughout generations parents have tended to behave in similar ways in certain situations - and so, taking the opportunity to release pre-conceived ideas and copied-over behaviors about parenting/parenthood and considering what would be a best-for-all approach in such a situation. So - note that these are not situations that I am faced with in my life currently, but am taking responsibility for within seeing that: it could've been me. Herein - I invite everyone to share your own perspectives in the comment section - other points you may have observed or other possible solutions!

In the first Episode of Season one of the series Parenthood, Krstina and Adam get to hear that their son, Max, might have Asperger syndrome - both use the words 'there is something wrong with my baby/son' to describe the situation. This is one of the big fears parents have - that their child will be different, that it will be abnormal, that it will be disadvantaged, that it will be dysfunctional - and where this is then labeled as 'wrong'. There are a few aspects to this point.

1. Fear/belief that there must be something wrong with the parents themselves for having a child that is abnormal - and then the ensuing guilt about it.
2. Fear that the child will have a difficult and unfulfilling life - where the parents then feel bad for the child because it's not what they would've wanted for the child.
3. Disappointment about how the child didn't turn out how they had expected and that it will not fulfill their desire of a perfect happy family.
4. Fear of how the parents' lives will change and how much they will have to sacrifice for the child - emotionally, financially and practically.

In the Previous Blog-posts I worked through points 1 to 3, here opening up number 4 with Self-Forgiveness:

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to, upon finding out that my son/daughter is in some way different, immediately start worrying and becoming afraid about how my life will change and how much i will have to sacrifice to meet the needs of my child.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to, upon finding out that my child is in some way different, immediately assume that my life will be an emotional roller-coaster and I an emotional wreck for the remainder of my life - immediately accepting the belief and idea that my life will be miserable and that I will be miserable - where I then immediately go through an experience of 'loss' - because of the perception of losing the future that I had expected to receive, one where the child would have fulfilled me, made me a happier person, more at peace within myself in the idea that I would finally be fulfilling my purpose.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to - in that moment of reaction - immediately create my life to be one of emotional turmoil, where I immediately accept and allow the belief that I am not stable and that I cannot be stable - that I don't have what it takes to face a challenge and see it through towards the best possible outcome.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to, upon finding out that my child is in some way different, immediately give up before having started, deciding that I will fail at the task ahead and that I will be beating myself up for it for the rest of my life.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to, upon finding out that my child is in some way different and requires extra care - immediately invoke a picture in my mind of a stack of bills to be paid and a red number on my bank account and letters from the bank reminding me to pay off my debt, as a projection of how I think the future will look like, where I experience a loss of security and financial stability - thinking/believing/presuming that I 'know' the future - when in fact, I have not even begun to investigate what kind of care is involved, what the options are and what can practically be done to ensure a stable financial future - instead, simply going into a 'doomsday state of mind' and believing that this is the only possible outcome, victimizing myself entirely towards the situation and not taking any responsibility for who I am in that moment, towards myself or towards my child.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to panic upon finding out that my child requires some form of extra care with added expenses, wherein I immediately project my family finding itself in financial jeopardy - imagining both myself and my husband and any other child I may have, struggling to get by and having to pass up on opportunities that are no longer affordable - and wherein I immediately blame the 'extra-care-needing child' for this situation, even though such scenario hasn't even manifested or is in no way a certain outcome.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to, upon finding out that my child is in some way different and requires extra care - immediately project in my mind how the child will be a burden in my life and how I will have to give up all the things that I enjoy 'just for me', wherein any hobbies or activities or simply 'me-time' will no longer be possible and where i will have to compromise all my other relationships with other beings just to be able to take care of the extra-care-needing child.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to, upon finding out that my child is in some way different and requires extra care - to immediately feel bitter towards my child, myself and my life - because I feel that all that I had worked for my entire life to ensure my preferred outcome, is all being flushed down the toilet in that singular moment.

I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to realize that within that singular moment of reaction, I would be founding my entire relationship with the child on an experience of blame, bitterness and resentment towards it - where, in every interaction with the child, directly or indirectly, the blame, bitterness and resentment will in some way resonate and the child will be aware of it - immediately affecting and influencing how the child perceives him/herself and from there, compromising its life experience entirely.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to become selfish in how I will look at the situation in terms of what I will have to give up - instead of seeing/realizing/understanding that it is about what I am able to give as I would like to be given if I were the child.

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I am here starting to walk a series as I go through the episodes of Parenthood wherein I'll work my way through various aspects of parenthood where throughout generations parents have tended to behave in similar ways in certain situations - and so, taking the opportunity to release preconceived ideas and copied-over behaviors about parenting/parenthood and considering what would be a best-for-all approach in such a situation. So - note that these are not situations that I am faced with in my life currently, but am taking responsibility for within seeing that: it could've been me. Herein - I invite everyone to share your own perspectives in the comment section - other points you may have observed or other possible solutions!

Here goes!

In the first Episode of Season one of the series Parenthood, Kristina and Adam get to hear that their son, Max, might have Asperger syndrome - both use the words 'there is something wrong with my baby/son' to describe the situation. This is one of the big fears parents have - that their child will be different, that it will be abnormal, that it will be disadvantaged, that it will be dysfunctional - and where this is then labeled as 'wrong'. There are a few aspects to this point.

1. Fear/belief that there must be something wrong with the parents themselves for having a child that is abnormal - and then the ensuing guilt about it.
2. Fear that the child will have a difficult and unfulfilling life - where the parents then feel bad for the child because it's not what they would've wanted for the child.
3. Disappointment about how the child didn't turn out how they had expected and that it will not fulfill their desire of a perfect happy family.
4. Fear of how the parents' lives will change and how much they will have to sacrifice for the child - emotionally, financially and practically.

I'll further open up each of these points with Self-Forgiveness:

1. Fear/belief that there must be something wrong with the parents themselves for having a child that is abnormal - and then the ensuing guilt about it.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear that there is/will/may be something 'wrong' with my baby - where 'wrong' could mean anything from the child being different in physical features, or 'out of the ordinary' regarding social or psychological 'make-up', it being 'abnormal' in any sense, it being disadvantaged in any sense, it being dysfunctional in any sense.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that if a/my child deviates in any way from what is regarded as the 'norm' to label a child as 'normal', then it is appropriate to assess that there is something 'wrong' with the child and to as such label the child as 'wrong'.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear my child deviating from 'the norm' because I believe and fear that it would mean that there is something wrong with me.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to immediately take it personally if I were to find out that my child does not conform to the 'norm' of what is regarded as a 'normal child' and to from there immediately feel guilty in the belief that I 'bestowed' unto the child deficient genes and that therefore I am the cause of bringing into the world and abnormality, which I would judge as an 'abomination'.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to judge anything that is abnormal as deviating from 'the norm' as 'abominable' - believing it to be bad, fowl, a disgrace in the sense of it being a sign that that which is deemed 'abnormal' is as such because it fell or is not within 'God's Grace'.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to immediately assume/believe/interpret that if I were to have an 'abnormal' child as deviating from what is deemed to be 'the norm' - that it must be a punishment from God and thus, that i have done something terribly wrong/evil/fowl in my life that would deserve such a punishment.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to immediately judge myself as 'abnormal', 'abominable', 'inadequate', 'deficient' and 'unworthy' if I were to find out that my child is in some way deviating from 'the norm' - and to actually believe that I am 'abnormal', 'abominable', 'inadequate', 'deficient' and 'unworthy'.

2. Fear that the child will have a difficult and unfulfilling life - where the parents then feel bad for the child because it's not what they would've wanted for the child.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to, in reaction to hearing that my child may have some form of 'abnormality', immediately start generating thoughts as future projections about what their life may/might look like - where I would immediately assume the worst-case-scenario and believe that their life will be miserable, unfulfilling and difficult - and where I would then immediately start pitying the child as a victim, as hopeless and helpless.

I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to realize that such a reaction reflects how I would react when/if I see that I in some way am different to others - where I would immediately believe that my life is doomed and that I will not be able to live my life the way it is 'meant' to be lived, as though such a way exists - and that I will inevitable suffer pain, difficulty and misery - and whereby I would immediately start pitying myself, seeing myself as a victim and as helpless and hopeless - where I would immediately define myself as inferior to whichever 'condition' or 'way in which I differ from the norm' and would allow it to dictate who I am and dictate my life.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to - whenever I see that I in some way differ from others or differ from 'the norm' - immediately believe that this is a problem and will cause difficulties, whereby I then believe I have to 'find a way' to 'make up' for this apparent 'disability' or 'condition' and through future projections in my mind, attempt to envision all the worst case scenarios as situations where problems may arise due to this 'disability' and 'condition' - and then try to devise and think up ways through my mind in which I would be able to 'mask' my difficulty - so that others would only notice minimally that something's up and not judge me so that I wouldn't feel bad about it.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that any deviation from the 'norm' immediately implies inferiority in relation to the norm - that whatever is different, is by default worse and a problem to my survival.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to - as soon as I see that there may be something different about me - label it as a 'condition' as a constant variable that cannot be changed and to which I must submit myself and my entire existence - instead of investigating how such a 'condition' was created through the acceptance and allowance of certain patterns over time - and from there see how I am best able to assist and support myself to align the origin-points to prevent the perpetuation of such patterns as taking responsibility for them - and not view the 'condition' as something separate from me that 'happened to me' - but seeing how I participated in its creation through my acceptances and allowances over time.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to have imagined future projections of what my child's life must be like or what I would want my child's life to be like in terms of the kind of life I would've wanted/want - and so, whenever reality shows that my child's life will not be that which I had attempted to impose on it through my mind - I feel like I have failed - revealing herein the conditionality under which parents define effective parenting - where a parent apparently - lol - only succeeds and is effective in parenting if and only if the parent is able to control the child's life to such an extent that it turns out exactly the way the parent had envisioned/planned/hoped/wanted for the child.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that it is a parent's job and responsibility to shape their children's lives and to make sure that the child does not stray from the path that the parent had set out from them - because apparently the parent is 'wise' in having lived a longer time and therefore apparently 'knows best' - when really the parent's view on 'a good life' is all based in fears and desires and unresolved personal issues which the parent superimposes onto the child.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that it is my job and responsibility to shape my child/children's life/lives and to make sure that my child does not stray from the path that i have set out for them - and thus, i forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that I am 'wise' and 'all-knowing' must because I have lived a few decades longer than the child on this planet already and therefore apparently 'know best' and 'know better than the child what is good for the child' - not realizing that my view of 'the good life' is based in fears and desires as unresolved personal issues which I am superimposing onto the child instead of taking responsibility for my own issues and allowing the child to become self-responsible within directing their own life.

Continuing with Points 3 and 4 in the next blog. Thanks for reading.



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