I’ve written about this before–preached whole sermons on it even. But I want this story to be here too. In 2007 we began fostering, beginning with two little girls ages 3 and 4. They stayed almost a year. They arrived terrified, grief-stricken—and angry. The first three months were the hardest. The little one clung to us, needing constant attention. The older one locked her sadness away, instead exploding in anger, or waking sobbing in the middle of the night. Bedtime took at least three hours, every night. The little one cried herself to sleep, needing to be touching us, and the older one tossed and turned in anxiety and fear, not accepting comfort, but demanding we be present. We reassured them it was okay to be sad, it was okay to be mad; we rehearsed the flow of the seasons and the time they would go back to Mommy; we looked at photo albums and told stories.
Frankly, the depths of their emotions were more than I knew what to do with. I did not know how to live with the constant clinging of such deeply sad children. I did not know how to open my heart to them the way they desperately needed me to. And I did not know how to cope with their explosive anger and daily meltdowns, rage literally beyond the child’s control. (And why not rage? Torn away from Mommy and all they knew?)
The only good thing I can say about myself then is that I did not give up. I sought help and resources and every time I messed up and y elled instead of being calm and empathetic, I tried to learn from that and do better next time. And then as I learned to just be present–be present with them and present to my own inner emotional turmoil in reaction to theirs, I found myself cracking open—feeling their anger as we threw the squishy “mad blocks” or they screamed in rage and even weeping with them in their sadness. Every time I showed up, really showed up, to them and what they needed, I found a part of me broken open and, slowly, I became a stronger, more whole person.
What I began to discover is that what I was given as a child, my inner “parent tapes” were not enough. Not enough to allow me to be the parent these children needed. Not enough to allow me to be the person I need me to be.
This is how parenting became one of my central spiritual practices. An ancient spiritual path in all traditions is the path of the open heart, the path of compassion and presence with ourselves and others. And it was my children who taught me, taught me by their whole hearted embrace of their emotions and their need for me to be whole hearted with them.
