Parenting Imperfectly, by Design

This week, I had the tremendous brochah of welcoming a new baby granddaughter into my family (simchos by all of Klal Yisrael!). As I held this gorgeous, pink-cheeked baby in my arms and looked into her cloudy newborn eyes, a strange (and maybe slightly weird) thought popped into my head:
“Hey, baby girl… I wonder how your parents are going to traumatize you.”

To be clear—her parents are absolutely wonderful, and I have full confidence in their ability to raise this little princess. But I also know that despite our best intentions, no one makes it through this world unscathed. She will inevitably bear the marks of ordinary, small “t” traumas—even from the hands of her loving parents—that will leave impressions on her tender, developing psyche and shape her adult journey of healing. And that, too, is exactly how Hashem designed the world.

I once heard a parenting talk by Rebbetzin Heller-Gottlieb, where she described the exact hashgachah pratis between the pairing of parent and child. She explained that every neshamah is given the precise parents it needs to help it fulfill its tikkun. When a parent finds herself losing it (again!) with the same child, she said, there’s comfort in remembering that this child was meant to have this exact maniac mother. (Yes, she really used that example. And yes, she was joking. I think.)

When I heard that, I was in the thick of raising four small children and didn’t feel like I was doing a stellar job. Her words were tremendously comforting. I realized that no matter how hard I tried, it was impossible to meet all of my children’s needs all the time. I was only human. I was never a “natural” with little kids, the job didn’t fit my natural temperament on so many levels, and I function terribly on no sleep. Did that mean I shouldn’t have had kids? Of course not. It meant my job was to do my best—and if my children were affected by my shortcomings, even negatively, that too was part of the divine plan.

Our responsibility is to keep working on ourselves and strive to be the best parents we can be. But there will always be times when our best simply isn’t enough. A child may need something we cannot give them at that moment—and years later, they may need therapy, middos work (spoiler alert: they’re the same thing), or self-reflection to heal those unmet needs. And that, too, is exactly how it’s supposed to be.

The backlash against the “new psychology” of the 1980s—where patients lie on a couch and blame everything on their parents—wasn’t because the model was untrue. In fact, much of what shapes us is our parents’ fault, but for a purpose. Life is designed that way. Hashem arranges our experiences so that we are given exactly what we need in order to grow and heal. Of course, we must do our best to minimize harm, to parent with love, awareness and care. But in His great kindness, Hashem ensures that we won’t be able to do that all of the time. As we say in Borei Nefashos, He created us with “rabbos v’chesronan”—many lacks—so that we always have something to strive for, something to repair. Everyone is going to collect little ‘t’ (and some big ‘T’) traumas. Everyone. 

And likewise, the reverse is also true: most of child-rearing is really self-rearing. Our children trigger us precisely in the places where we need to grow. The emotions, frustrations, and insecurities that surface as we care for them—that’s where our own tikkun lies. Nothing raises a person more effectively than a child.

So as I take in my new granddaughter’s tiny perfection, I also hope she grows up with the courage to face imperfection—her own and her parents’. May she be raised in love, shaped by their humanity, and come to know that her efforts to regain her shlaimus are, in themselves, the most perfect thing about her.

Wishing us all only simchas,

Mrs. Aliza Feder

PS- on this topic (sort of), I recommend Wendy Mogul Ph.D.’s parenting book, The Blessings of a Skinned Knee