Parental Unmasking

How It Teaches Humility

My son talks about me as if I’m two different people, and he’s not wrong.

Left: “I can’t believe you let your school shoes get ruined!” Right: “It’s okay. We can work out a solution.”

There’s the mom who listens, relays what she’s heard, and asks for clarification until we’re on the same page. She communicates her limitations and asks for breaks before losing all patience and lashing out. She admits her wrongs and apologizes, encouraging her kids to do the same. She fails sometimes, has lots of bad days, is nowhere near perfect, and is honest and open about it with each of her kids.

Then there’s the mom I used to be. The one who based her values equally on her parents’ traditions and the expectations heaped on her by society. The one who believed everyone who called her lazy and wondered why she couldn’t make herself do the things other moms found so easy. The way my son talks about her is hesitant, cautiously worded, and also surprisingly forgiving. The sense of relief in him that I’ve changed for the better is palpable.

He’s my oldest by a few years, and I feel comfortable saying that he knows me better than most people. He’s the only one of my children carrying memories from before a lot of the life-changing events that have reshaped me. In many ways, I’ve grown up along with him. That, and the way he towers over me while wearing a much hairier version of my face, makes us look more like siblings to people who don’t know us. It could also be our near-identical humor and (mostly) gentle roughhousing.

I wish I could take all the credit, but in all honesty, I don’t know how he became so kind, resilient, and forgiving. He remembers me at my worst, he’s told me how unhappy he felt at that time, and he is unbelievably understanding about it. I sometimes feel a quiet sting of jealousy when any of his siblings complain about him after an argument between them. I’m thankful they’re still innocent enough to think kindness is the default.

Despite my belief that I am the sum of my choices, and both the bad ones and the good ones have led me to this life, raising these children, I do still wonder. Who might I have been, and what choices might I have made, if I’d grown up with a big brother even half as loving and protective as he is toward his siblings?