Join | Sign In
Motherhood Transformation
  • Topics
  • Books
  • Writing
  • Podcasts
  • Webinars
  • Workshops

Archive for Shadow and Difficult Feelings

When Parental Authority is Undermined

Posted on November 30, 2018
by Lisa Marchiano, LCSW
No Comments

For many women, learning to step into our genuine, inner authority will be a major piece of psychological work. The challenges of parenting can be part of what helps us find our firm stance, as we discern what values matter most to us, and become used to inhabiting our own “no” in the face of pressures from both our children and the culture. We may decide, for example, to go against the collective grain, and keep video games out of our home as our children’s friends all begin to play them. Standing up for our values will take courage and an integrated sense of our own deep knowing about what matters most to us.

Recently, I have heard stories in my practice of a mother’s authority being challenged on a different level. As our children grow older, we may find that our authority as parents is challenged by those around us, including other parents. As our children pass through the perilous terrain of adolescence, it is natural that they look outside the family for mentors to guide them to adulthood. At this stage, children need to separate from their family of origin psychologically, a process that requires discernment about what parental values will be kept, and which will be jettisoned. It is normal for there to be some friction between parents and children at this time. But when forces outside the family work to undermine parental authority at this point in a child’s development, a normal stage of negotiating separation can become a wedge inappropriately driven between parent and child. At such a time, it may be important for parents to stand up and reassert their authority in the interest of protecting their child.

My client Emily gave me permission to share the following story. Names and details have been altered to protect privacy. When Emily’s daughter Clara was 13, she made friends with a girl slightly older than her named Gretchen. Emily took an immediate liking to Gretchen and Gretchen’s mom Andrea. According to Emily, Gretchen’s family was artistic, eccentric, and interesting. Andrea and Gretchen welcomed Clara into their lives, and it wasn’t long before she was spending part of almost every day at their house. At first, Emily was pleased to see that Andrea and Gretchen were exposing Clara to new and interesting things. Emily gave permission for Clara to accompany them on occasional weekend camping trip with other families.

But Emily started to notice some changes in Clara. After spending time at Gretchen’s house, Clara would return home sullen and irritable, looking for any excuse to pick a fight with her parents. She became withdrawn, and spent most of her time alone in her room. She had always enjoyed accompanying her parents in their occasional attendance at a Unitarian church, but now she flatly refused, and became angry when asked whether she wanted to go. Emily was perplexed. Probing her daughter to understand what was going on, she asked Clara whether spending time with Gretchen made her unhappy. “No!” Clara responded with great heat. “You’re the ones who make me unhappy!”

Fortunately, Emily was now alert to the fact that something was amiss. She began doing some research into the “camping trips” that Clara had attended, and learned more about the values and beliefs of Andrea and her family. It turns out that Clara’s friend and her parents were part of a new age cult. They had effectively been indoctrinating Clara into their belief system, and while doing so, had undermined Clara’s attachment and connection with her mom and dad – and Emily’s parental authority. Once Emily realized what was going on, she moved deftly to re-establish her role in her daughter’s life, while helping her daughter get some healthy distance from Gretchen and her family.

When Emily told me about this incident, I could sense her fear. Had Clara been older, had things gone a little further, Clara might have estranged herself from her parents under the undue influence of Andrea and the cult. Emily also felt angry – at Andrea, but also at herself. She could see that she had been taken in by the charm of Andrea and her family, and that it had been convenient for her to let Clara become so attached to them.

Most parents won’t face a situation as extreme as Emily’s. However, many of us can relate to a time when someone outside the family came to have an inappropriate amount of influence over our child. At such a time, it can be important to be honest with ourselves about the need to take the time to reconnect with our children. It is our responsibility to make sure that we are the primary influence in our children’s lives. Afterall, it is likely that no one cares for or knows our children as well as we do.

In speaking about this incident, Emily and I referenced the fairy tale “The Pied Piper of Hamelin.” In the tale, the town of Hamelin is overrun by rats. The townspeople hire a piper with the magical ability to lure rats to their death with his music. When the townspeople neglect to pay the piper his fee, he lures the town’s children away. Interestingly, this tale is, as far as I can determine, the only Grimm’s fairy tale that is based on an actual event. The earliest written record from the town of Hamelin in Lower Saxony is a 1384 document that states, “It is 100 years since our children left.” According to historical records, a large number of the town's children disappeared or perished sometime in the 13th century, though the cause remains a mystery. The fairy tale is a fitting metaphor for those times when we may have allowed someone to exercise an inappropriate degree of influence over our child.

Reconnecting with our child in the aftermath of a disruption in our connection will require time and careful attention. Spending time with our child engaging in fun activities of his or her choice is a good way to cultivate a renewed attachment. We will also need to assert our parental authority in a loving and caring way. Re-establishing sensible boundaries and making our expectations clear will be important ways that we do this.

In 2006, Gordon Neufeld and Gabor Mate published their important and bestselling book Hold onto Your Kids in which they discuss the importance of parents being the most important and influential people in their children’s lives. There is much in this book relevant to the topic covered in this blog. Readers can also watch a lecture on the same subject by Dr. Mate.

Photo by Andrik Langfield on Unsplash

Sign up here for my free email workshop on how motherhood helps is find a larger sense of self.

Article

Do You Believe Your Child is Special?

Posted on October 31, 2018
by Lisa Marchiano, LCSW
No Comments

When my children were small, we were friendly with a family who had a daughter who was quite bright. The parents spent a lot of time talking about Sophie’s intelligence and talents, and the special challenges that came along with parenting such a gifted child. Because of her superior intelligence, Sophie was especially sensitive to many things, and therefore needed to have special arrangements made for her. For example, she felt easily overwhelmed by crowds and noise. Her parents would reassure her that, due to her struggles, she deserved special treatment. It wasn’t all that surprising, then, when I came upon the following scene at a neighbor’s 4th of July party: Sophie was sitting on a float in the middle of the pool while other kids waited in line to bring her food at her request. When I asked them what was going on, the other girls let me know that Sophie had explained that she needed them to get the food for her because she couldn’t manage the crowds around the food table. Needless to say, Sophie’s friends were not happy about this arrangement, but they couldn’t quite figure out how to tell her “no.”

Parental Overvaluation

Sophie’s belief that was entitled to special treatment – a belief that had been encouraged by her parents – was already getting in the way of Sophie having satisfying, mutual friendships. Narcissistic traits can make it difficult to get along with others. They can even foster a kind of fragility, requiring us to seek constantly praise and attention.

Recent research on parenting style and its effect on the development of narcissistic traits in children confirm what a lot of us know intuitively – communicating to our child that she is better than others can foster later narcissism. Scientists gave parents a short questionnaire meant to determine whether the parent overvalued their child. They then measured narcissistic traits in that child at a later point. Indeed, children who were overvalued by their parents were more likely to exhibit narcissistic traits in the future. (Want to find out your parental overvaluation score? Take the survey here.)

Note that there is a difference between having healthy self-esteem, and being narcissistic. Researchers differentiated between kids who boasted that they were really good at drawing, and those who, like Sophie, felt that they were entitled to special treatment. The latter group of kids are less likely to be resilient, as they will be dependent on having their specialness reinforced and praised.

Diamonds and Toads

Not surprisingly, fairy tales, with their intuitive psychological wisdom have been making this same point for thousands of years. Fairy tales are full of overvalued children – and their fates are rarely happy ones. Many stories contain a motif of the virtuous but undervalued sister, and a self-centered and much doted upon sister. For example, a Louisiana variant of “Diamonds and Toads” called “The Talking Eggs” begins like this:

There was once a widow who had two daughters, one named Rose and the other Blanche.

Blanche was good and beautiful and gentle, but the mother cared nothing for her and gave her only hard words and harder blows; but she loved Rose as she loved the apple of her eye, because Rose was exactly like herself, coarse-looking, and with a bad temper and a sharp tongue.

Blanche was obliged to work all day, but Rose sat in a chair with folded hands as though she were a fine lady, with nothing in the world to do.

As in the original French tale, things do not go well for Rose as the story unfolds. She is too self-centered to think of others, and therefore she is punished, while Blanche is richly rewarded for her kindness and ability to think of others. Because Blanche has been kind to a strange old woman, she is given a choice of talking eggs to take home with her. She dutifully accepts the advice given her and picks the plainest egg, which later opens to reveal marvelous treasures. Rose is mean-spirited and selfish, and picks the egg that is outwardly most beautiful. These, however, contain snakes and toads.

This seems prescient when I think back to Sophie. It was likely very enjoyable for her to be able to ask for special treatment from her friends at 11, but even then, her peers were tiring of her selfish demands. Behaving in a narcissistic way may look appealing at first, but in the end, such behavior may yield dark dividends.

Fairy tales contain profound psychological wisdom, but they also contain straight forward common sense too, which is often expressed in exaggerated images such as those in “The Talking Eggs.” Teaching children that kindness matters, praising effort over ability, and perhaps above all, that no matter how much we love and admire them, they are not entitled to special treatment, will help make sure that our children have the skills they need to negotiate a happy and emotionally healthy adulthood.

Sign up here for my free email workshop on how motherhood helps is find a larger sense of self.

Photo by DAVID ZHOU on Unsplash

Article

The Lessons of Anger

Posted on October 16, 2018
by Lisa Marchiano, LCSW
No Comments

Last week, I explored whether avoiding all anger at one’s children might be too much of a good thing. In essence, I argued that when children see us deal with our aggression, they learn to deal with theirs. Anger is most essentially a response to having one’s boundaries violated. When someone is angry at us, we get valuable feedback that we have crossed a line. In this way, we learn that we must adapt ourselves to other people’s boundaries. We become familiar with necessary limitation. Our own fiery feelings are tempered in the flames of another’s anger.

A child, therefore, who never or rarely experiences parental anger may be insufficiently aware that his actions have consequences – that he can affect other people. He may not be aware of limitation. Parental limits – often set in the context of parental anger – is how children first learn that they are not omnipotent. Anger is how we know we have stepped on another’s toes. In that sense, it is how we find each other – we see the person as an “other,” with her own subjectivity, feelings, moods, and needs. This is relieving somehow. It is, in the end, good to know we are not all-powerful, that there is some place that our influence stops, and that there are things larger than us in life. This loss of infantile grandiosity relieves us of the need to have all the answers and prepares us for genuine relatedness. Real relationships have joy and friction; love and hate. Deep in our bones, we know this.

A child who has not experienced the limitation of interpersonal anger is uninitiated. She is not ready to handle the dark energies that she may meet out in the world – or within herself. Some research is perhaps relevant by analogy. Psychologists have discovered that there is an inverse relationship between being exposed to some challenging behaviors as a child and anxiety later in life. In fact, parents who engage in “challenging behaviors”  -- for example, roughhousing, playful teasing, allowing a child to lose a game – are inuring their children against anxiety, according to recent research.

I have wondered whether exposing our children –within limits – to our difficult emotions such as anger might help them develop resilience and fearlessness about such fiery feelings. The tendency to stay away from difficult feelings, termed emotional avoidance, is a significant contributor to mental health problems. If our children see us get angry, express our feelings, and then recover and reconnect, taking responsibility for any rupture that may have occurred, we have modeled for them an appropriate relationship with anger. They have learned that anger – our own and that of those we love – can be survived. They may see that anger can be clarifying, perhaps even bringing us closer together. This will likely help children to feel less avoidant of angry or aggressive feelings as they grow, giving them greater access to their own emotions, and helping them to be more attuned to other people’s.

A child that has not faced the fiery furnace of emotion may be unprepared to deal with upsetting experiences, or the natural frictions that occur in relationships with others. Metal and glass work sometimes need to undergo annealing – a process of heating and then cooling in a controlled way in order to make a material softer, more workable, and less brittle. Experiencing difficult feelings such as anger at or from a loving and trusted parent can serve as a kind of emotional annealing, allowing the child to become more resilient.

The Grimm’s tale “Frau Trude” can provide a fairy tale example of a psychological situation in which a child has never been forced to yield to limits, perhaps as a result of not being sufficiently exposed to parental anger. Such a child has not been exposed to “emotional annealing,” and may be easily burned once she comes into contact with strong affective experiences.

 

Frau Trude

Once upon a time there was a small girl who was strong willed and forward, and whenever her parents said anything to her, she disobeyed them. How could anything go well with her?

One day she said to her parents: "I have heard so much about Frau Trude. Someday I want to go to her place. People say such amazing things are seen there, and such strange things happen there, that I have become very curious.

Her parents strictly forbade her, saying: "Frau Trude is a wicked woman who commits godless acts. If you go there, you will no longer be our child.

But the girl paid no attention to her parents and went to Frau Trude's place anyway.

When she arrived there, Frau Trude asked: "Why are you so pale?"

"Oh," she answered, trembling all over, "I saw something that frightened me."

"What did you see?"

"I saw a black man on your steps."

"That was a charcoal burner."

"Then I saw a green man."

"That was a huntsman."

"Then I saw a blood-red man."

"That was a butcher."

"Oh, Frau Trude, it frightened me when I looked through your window and could not see you, but instead saw the devil with a head of fire."

"Aha!" she said. "So you saw the witch properly outfitted. I have been waiting for you and wanting you for a long time. Light the way for me now!"

With that she turned to girl into a block of wood and threw it into the fire. When it was thoroughly aglow she sat down next to it, and warmed herself by it, saying: "It gives such a bright light!"

 

The child in this story has not managed to come to terms with limitation. No matter what limits her parents set, she oversteps them. She is unprepared to meet the devouring archetypal forces that exist both within ourselves as well as out in the world. These forces can be overwhelming and destructive when they are not properly mediated. “Good enough” parents help mediate such strong emotional experiences for children in part through the every day experience of rupture and repair. When we become irritable or upset with a loved one or friend, we may say or do something that is hurtful, that temporarily breaks the sense of connection and simpatico we have with the other person. We may, for example, raise our voice at our child. In response, our child feels angry, upset, or afraid. When the conflict is passed, we reconnect with our child through hugging, talking, playing, or just being silly together. These kinds of ordinary interactions help children integrate a sense that strong feelings are a normal and even healthy part of life.

Next week, I will expand on the metaphor of “emotional annealing” and how it can lead to resilience.

Sign up here for my free email workshop on how motherhood helps is find a larger sense of self.

This article originally published on PsychCentral

Article

When is Anger at Children Healthy?

Posted on October 9, 2018
by Lisa Marchiano, LCSW
No Comments

Burning with rage at our children is a nearly universal experience, and yet it is one that most moms feel great shame and remorse about. It is frightening to find ourselves capable of wrath and perhaps even violent impulses toward those whom we love so greatly. Could it be okay or possibly even important to feel fiery, hot anger toward our kids?

Jung’s concept of the archetype can be helpful in allowing us to come to terms with this dark side of ourselves. Jung posited that there are inborn patterns that precede experience, priming us to respond to certain experiences or images. He called these patterns archetypes, and always stressed that an encounter with archetypal energy will leave our conscious personality feeling dwarfed. According to Jung, the archetype of the Great Mother is one of the big ones – turning up eternally in art, myth, and dreams. Archetypes, importantly, always have two poles, a positive and a negative one, and one pole cannot exist without the other. When the positive aspect of the mother archetype gets constellated, the negative aspect is never very far away.

This makes a lot of sense in practical terms. When we become a mother, we fall deeply in love with our child. We feel protective, maternal, and nurturing. But it is precisely because we love our child so deeply that we can feel such depths of rage and frustration toward him or her. Then for a moment, we may embody the dark aspect of the archetype – the Negative Mother.

While most images of the archetype in Western culture show the positive and negative aspects split and personified by different mythological figures, other cultures have retained both poles of the archetype in one image. In Hindu mythology, Kali is both the giver and taker of life, she who gives birth to new life, but is also capable of devouring her offspring.

We all have both potentials within us, and it can be frightening and confusing to get in touch with our potential for rage and darkness. Verbal abuse can be very damaging, as our children are likely to take in the negative things we say to them, and those thoughts may become part of their self-concept. But is our anger always negative? I think not.

There are many possible benefits to our children experiencing us as capable of anger at times, and I aim to explore some of these in upcoming blog posts. To start, what might it look like if we never got angry with our child? Would that be a good thing?

When my daughter was four, I befriended Beth, who also had a four-year-old daughter named Mindi. Beth was a very thoughtful and intelligent person who herself had been subjected to much abusive treatment as a child by a raging, alcoholic father. She confided in me that she had felt very damaged by this, and had sworn when she became pregnant that she would never speak harshly to her child. She told me about the tremendous self-restraint she had cultivated in order to keep this promise to herself.

One day, my daughter and I were visiting Beth and Mindi at their home. While my daughter and Mindi were playing, Beth went upstairs for a moment. With her mother was out of sight, Mindi pushed my daughter, knocking her down. I witnessed the incident quite clearly. Mindi’s aggression was entirely unprovoked, as far as I could tell. My daughter began crying. “It’s not okay to push someone, Mindi,” I said, while tending to my daughter. At that moment, Beth returned. “Mindi doesn’t push,” she answered me, matter of factly. I was quite flummoxed and wasn’t sure what to say.

It was clear that Beth genuinely believed that her daughter was incapable of aggression. It was as if she had so effectively cut herself off from her own aggression that she could not imagine it to exist in her child. Anger had been so effectively banished from consciousness in this family that it was free to roam unchecked in the unconscious, behind mom’s back, as it were. It struck me that Mindi was not being helped by having her aggressiveness erased so completely. She never got to see her mother angry, and therefore never learned that anger can be normal and healthy, or that people can survive being angry at one another.

The incident with Beth and Mindi recalled for me a Grimm’s fairy tale about a “too good mother.” The tale is called “Sweet Porridge.”

There was a poor but good little girl who lived alone with her mother, and they no longer had anything to eat. So the child went into the forest, and there an aged woman met her who was aware of her sorrow, and presented her with a little pot, which when she said, "Cook, little pot, cook," would cook good, sweet porridge, and when she said, "Stop, little pot," it ceased to cook. The girl took the pot home to her mother, and now they were freed from their poverty and hunger, and ate sweet porridge as often as they chose. Once on a time when the girl had gone out, her mother said, "Cook, little pot, cook." And it did cook and she ate till she was satisfied, and then she wanted the pot to stop cooking, but did not know the word. So it went on cooking and the porridge rose over the edge, and still it cooked on until the kitchen and whole house were full, and then the next house, and then the whole street, just as if it wanted to satisfy the hunger of the whole world, and there was the greatest distress, but no one knew how to stop it. At last when only one single house remained, the child came home and just said, "Stop, little pot," and it stopped and gave up cooking, and whosoever wished to return to the town had to eat his way back.

This is a story of a mother who is “too much of a good thing.” It hints at how destructive and dangerous that can be. The mother in this story doesn’t know how to say “stop,” and as such the sweet porridge threatens the whole town. It is anger that helps us to find our “no,” that helps us put our foot down and put an end to that which doesn’t serve us or is destructive.

It is perhaps not a coincidence that the destructive action in the story involves a pot that is boiling over. Beth could not allow her own anger into her relationship with her daughter. Where did it go? Perhaps it boiled over in sweetness, filling the room with a sticky ooze that doesn’t leave room to breathe. Beth was unable to say “no” to Mindi’s inappropriate aggression, and therefore her daughter was not getting help in learning to contain these impulses. Some anger on Beth’s part would likely have helped Mindi to metabolize her own entirely normal hostility, which likely would have felt relieving to the child.

Soon after this incident, I found my own “no,” and stopped spending time with Beth and Mindi. Though I appreciated Beth’s intelligence and depth, I wasn’t willing let my daughter become a victim to the over-flowing sweet porridge that ruled the psychological dynamic in her home.

In next week’s blog, I’ll explore more about how anger and aggression can be a healthy and necessary part of our relationship with our children.

Sign up for my free three-week email workshop!

This post was originally published on PsychCentral

 

Article

A Big Emotion is Not an Emergency: Helping Teenagers Manage Their Emotions

Posted on September 12, 2018
by Lisa Marchiano, LCSW
No Comments

I learned early in my daughter’s toddler days that savvy moms don’t gasp or shriek when the baby falls and bumps herself. At playgroups, the correct response was modeled for me: toddler falls down; toddler looks toward mom with a face beginning to scrunch with distress and fear; mom, watching from across the room, responds reassuringly; baby goes back to playing. I, too, learned to call out you’re okay! in a pleasant sing song, despite having my heart in my throat.

It turns out that the moms in my playgroup were onto something. Young children look to the emotional reactions of others to gauge the appropriate way to proceed. This is known as social referencing. Social referencing is a vital way that young children come to understand when they need to be afraid, versus when they can move forward with confidence. A baby who catches his mother’s eye and reads distress and alarm is more likely to wail than a baby who is met with confirmation that all is well.

But social referencing isn’t just for toddlers. As our kids grow older, they continue to take cues from us about how they’re doing. We are always sending subtle messages about how resilient we believe them to be—and our kids can’t help but respond as expected. As a therapist who works with many mothers, I see a concerning trend of adults having difficulty enduring uncomfortable feelings in teens. This can result in us unintentionally telegraphing expectations of emotional frailty, which in turn influences what kids expect of themselves.

I have a wise colleague who likes to say that a big emotion is not an emergency. Teenagers, of course, often have big emotions. How we as adults respond to these super-sized feelings cues young people, priming them to react to adversity with either resilience or fragility. If we acknowledge their distress but signal that we are confident that they can manage it, we help them learn adaptive ways of handling overwhelming emotions.

This is important because there is some evidence that difficulty managing feelings may lead to the development and maintenance of poor mental health. Research has linked use of maladaptive emotional regulation strategies—such as rumination, suppression and avoidance—with a wide range of disorders, including depression, eating disorders, substance abuse, anxiety and borderline personality disorder. Along with toddlerhood, adolescence is a key time when parents and other adults help kids learn how to regulate their feelings. We do this by modeling and encouraging adaptive responses for dealing with emotions that feel out of control—responses such as acceptance, reappraisal and problem solving.

Accepting difficult feelings allows us to relate to them with curiosity and openness. When feelings are accepted, they can be talked about and worked through. This can then set the stage for reappraisal—a process of gaining perspective on our difficulties and the feelings they generate. Acceptance and reappraisal in turn prepare us to engage in effective problem solving, whereby we seek constructive avenues for handling the challenge that gave rise to the negative emotions.

We cannot help our kids learn to manage big emotions if we don’t allow them to have those emotions in the first place. Well-meaning attempts to help children avoid negative feelings will likely have the effect of ensuring that they don’t learn the important skills of emotional regulation. Bypassing acknowledgement of and curiosity about feelings to jump immediately to problem solving telegraphs to our child that his initial panic and distress were warranted, and that emotional distress ought to be avoided at all costs.

Michelle* is a mother in my practice with a thirteen-year-old daughter. Michelle grew up in an alcoholic home, where chaos and destructive rage were the norm, and where her needs were ignored. An attentive and loving parent, Michelle has always been determined that Tessa’s upbringing would be different. Though this is a laudable goal, it has at times led to her having great difficulty tolerating any discomfort or strong negative feelings in her daughter. Recently, Tessa flew into a rage after her mother demanded that she pick up the mess in her room before going out with friends. Michelle was panicked by the intensity of her young teen’s reaction.

As Michelle and I discussed the incident, it became clear that she was afraid of her daughter’s extreme emotional reaction and wanted to find any way possible to avoid a repeat of such a scene. When I asked her what she was so afraid of, she admitted she worried that Tessa would hurt herself, although she conceded that this was very unlikely. As we explored together, she came to see that the fear of rage that she experienced due to her own chaotic upbringing was getting in the way of tolerating her daughter’s strong reactions. When she was able to bear her daughter’s anger without over-reacting, she could help Tessa feel less overwhelmed by her feelings. Then the work of reappraisal and problem solving could begin.

When we see our teens stumble and fall, we would do well to remember the lessons from the toddler years. By signaling to them that their intense emotions are indeed not an emergency, we communicate our belief that they can manage their feelings. We encourage them to see themselves as competent and resilient, and instill in them something like courage.

*Names and all identifying details have been changed.

Originally published in Areo Magazine

Article

When Connecting with Kids is Hard

Posted on January 13, 2018
by Lisa Marchiano, LCSW
No Comments

Last week, I shared a fairy tale which explored a parent child relationship in which the parents are ashamed or embarrassed by their child. There is a similar tale that explores this – and darker themes.  A recently published book by Orna Dornath entitled Regretting Motherhood: A Study explores the difficult subject of mothers who regret having had children. You can read more about Dornath’s study in this short article.

Dornath is exploring maternal regret through the lens of sociology, and her work is an important contribution to a neglected subject. As a therapist, however, I am more interested in the experience of maternal regret from the point of view of the individual. What is it like to find that you regret being a mother? In my experience, mothers who have difficulty attaching to their children have often themselves experienced extreme stress or trauma.

One of the most unusual and oddly lyrical fairy tales in all of Grimms touches on this taboo subject of poor attachment between mother and child. The beginning of the story is of most interest to us. Text of the full story can be found here.

Hans-My-Hedgehog

Once upon a time there was a peasant who had money and land enough, but as rich as he was, there was still something missing from his happiness: He had no children with his wife. Often when he went to the city with the other peasants, they would mock him and ask him why he had no children. He finally became angry, and when he returned home, he said, “I will have a child, even if it is a hedgehog.”

Then his wife had a baby, and the top half was a hedgehog and the bottom half a boy. When she saw the baby, she was horrified and said, “Now see what you have wished upon us!”

The man said, “It cannot be helped. The boy must be baptized, but we cannot ask anyone to be his godfather.”

The woman said, “And the only name that we can give him is Hans-My-Hedgehog.”

When he was baptized, the pastor said, “Because of his quills he cannot be given an ordinary bed.” So they put a little straw behind the stove and laid him in it. And he could not drink from his mother, for he would have stuck her with his quills. He lay there behind the stove for eight years, and his father grew tired of him, and thought, “if only he would die.” But he did not die, but just lay there.

Now it happened that there was a fair in the city, and the peasant wanted to go. He asked his wife what he should bring her.

“A little meat, some bread rolls, and things for the household,” she said. Then he asked the servant girl, and she wanted a pair of slippers and some fancy stockings.

Finally, he also said, “Hans-My-Hedgehog, what would you like?”

“Father,” he said, “bring me some bagpipes.”

When the peasant returned home he gave his wife what he had brought for her, meat and bread rolls. Then he gave the servant girl the slippers and fancy stockings. And finally he went behind the stove and gave Hans-My-Hedgehog the bagpipes.

When Hans-My-Hedgehog had them, he said, “Father, go to the blacksmith’s and have my cock-rooster shod, then I will ride away and never again come back.” The father was happy to get rid of him, so he had his rooster shod, and when it was done, Hans-My-Hedgehog climbed on it and rode away. He took pigs and donkeys with him, to tend in the forest.

Although the tale eventually ends, happily, I find that it contains some of the most heartbreaking images of any fairy tale. A hedgehog child is an eloquent metaphor for a child who is, for whatever reason, unlovable.

Attachment Trouble

Wikipedia tells me that hedgehogs are spiny mammals. When threatened, they roll themselves into a tight ball, causing their spines to all point outwards. Certainly, there are children – and adults – who show similar psychological defenses, such as is the case for those with reactive attachment disorder. Because of profound early trauma, children with RAD may be difficult to comfort. They find it difficult to attach to a caregiver, or receive love.

Imagine trying to nurse or cuddle a hedgehog!

Temperamental Fit

The image of child as hedgehog could also be an apt analogy for a poor temperamental fit between mother and baby. Researchers have noted that a baby’s temperament has a significant effect on the relationship between mother and child. Babies with difficult temperament may be hard to soothe, making parenting them more challenging and less rewarding. Some of that research can be seen here.  It is instruction to compare and contrast the tale of  The Little Singing Frog that we looked at last weekwith Hans-My-Hedgehog. Both animal offspring are redeemed in the end by a royal marriage and transformation to human form. The little frog’s redemption, loved as she is by her parents, is much less complicated and difficult than that of poor lonely Hans, who lives many years alone in the forest. This can indeed be the psychological experience of those whose parents were, for whatever reason, unable to love them.

The fairy tale is relatively silent on the subject of Hans’ mother and father. They want him dead. They want never to see him again. At the end of the tale, Hans finally reconciles with his father, who rejoices to learn of his son’s good fortune. By this time, the mother is not in the story at all.

I suspect that hers is a particularly difficult story to tell.

To discover more about how motherhood transforms us, sign up for my free email course and subscribe to my mailing list.

Article

When We Are Ashamed of Our Kids

Posted on January 5, 2018
by Lisa Marchiano, LCSW
No Comments

What an uncomfortable feeling to become aware that we are disappointed with or ashamed of our child, even momentarily. I knew a mom who had one child who was bright, attractive, and well-liked. Her other daughter, however, was awkward and overweight, and was frequently teased as a result. This mother’s disappointment in this child was at times thinly veiled, as she tried many different “treatments” to help her child lose weight or be more attractive.

If we are honest, we have likely all had moments of feeling dissatisfied, embarrassed, or ashamed of our kids. The prick of irritation that she isn’t as motivated or talented as some of her peers, the stomach-flipping flash of shame and anger when we hear that he wasn’t selected for the team.

What Part of Ourselves Are We Ashamed Of?

Usually, those aspects of our children that we find difficult to like are akin to those aspects of ourselves that we have longed despised. Knowing this can open the door to greater self-acceptance and compassion, which in turn can reduce those uncomfortable feelings about our kids.

Given the richness of this psychological situation, it isn’t surprising that that are many fairy tales about feeling embarrassed or disappointed by one’s child. The Slavic fairy tale “The Little Singing Frog” is one particularly charming version.

The Little Singing Frog

There was once a poor laborer and his wife who had no children. Every day the woman would sigh and say: “If only we had a child!” Then the man would sigh, too, and say: “It would be pleasant to have a little daughter, wouldn’t it?” At last they went on a pilgrimage to a holy shrine and there they prayed God to give them a child. “Any kind of a child!” the woman prayed. “I’d be thankful for a child of our own even if it were a frog!”

God heard their prayer and sent them a little daughter—not a little girl daughter, however, but a little frog daughter. They loved their little frog child dearly and played with her and laughed and clapped their hands as they watched her hopping about the house. But when the neighbors came in and whispered: “Why, that child of theirs is nothing but a frog!” they were ashamed and they decided that when people were about they had better keep their child hidden in a closet.

The parents loved their daughter, but were ashamed of her. The story tells us that because she was confined to the closet, she grew up without any friends. She went with her father to work in the fields every day, and while there, she would climb a tree and sing. One day, the czar’s son rode by and was stuck by the lovely singing. He demanded to know where the maiden was with the beautiful voice.

But the old man who, as I told you before, was ashamed of his frog daughter before strangers, at first pretended not to hear and then, when the young Prince repeated his question, answered gruffly: “There’s no one singing!” But the next day at the same hour when the Prince was again riding by he heard the same sweet voice and he stopped again and listened. “Surely, old man,” he said, “there is some one singing! It is a lovely girl, I know it is! Why, if I could find her, I’d be willing to marry her at once and take her home to my father, the Tsar!” “Don’t be rash, young man,” the laborer said. “I mean what I say!” the Prince declared. “I’d marry her in a minute!” “Are you sure you would?” “Yes, I’m sure!” “Very well, then, we’ll see.” The old man looked up into the tree and called: “Come down, Little Singing Frog! A Prince wants to marry you!” So the little frog girl hopped down from among the branches and stood before the Prince. “She’s my own daughter,” the laborer said, “even if she does look like a frog.”

This story of parental shame ends happily. The prince agrees to marry the little singing frog, who it turns out, knows how to transform herself into a beautiful maiden.

Inherited Shame

I once worked with a young woman whom I’ll call Maria. Maria’s parents had immigrated to the United States from Mexico. They worked as live-in staff for a wealthy family, and therefore lived in an affluent community where Maria attended the first-rate public school. Maria was academically talented. When it came time to apply for college, Maria was in the top of her class and guidance counselors were steering her toward the most prestigious schools.

Instead of feeling proud of their daughter, Maria’s academic aspirations were a source of worry for her parents. They were afraid she was shooting too high, and would be disappointed and hurt. The shame they felt about their low social status relative to most of the other people in the town got projected onto Maria to an extent. Like the laborer who didn’t believe the prince would really want to marry his daughter, Maria’s parents had difficulty believing that she could really be welcomed into her own “royal” future.

Maria’s fate and that of the singing frog overlapped in other ways as well. Having all of her life been exposed to her parents’ self-consciousness and lowered expectations for her, Maria found that could tend to sell herself short. In professional situations and dating relationships, her first impulse was often to assume she wasn’t good enough. Like the frog, however, her talents couldn’t remain hidden for long, and when the opportunity did present itself, she was able to reach inside of herself and reveal her beauty.

If we find ourselves ashamed of our children, it can be useful to ask what part of ourselves we have rejected as ugly or deficient. This can be an invitation to heal our own deep wounds around shame and inadequacy.

The frog girl’s eventual happy ending may be explained, in part, by the fact that her parents loved her and cared for her, even though they were ashamed of her – and of themselves. There is a Grimm’s fairy tale that begins in a similar manner that does not have quite such a happy ending that I will write about next time.

To discover more about how motherhood transforms us, sign up for my free email course and subscribe to my mailing list

Photo by David Clode on Unsplash

 

Article

Humble Gifts: On Knowing We’re Enough

Posted on December 15, 2017
by Lisa Marchiano, LCSW
No Comments

I had a conversation with a mother in my practice this week that brought up something important. As usual, I tried to find a fairy tale that captured the essence of what this mother was struggling with. The right tale did come to mind – it’s a 12th century French legend – and it just so happens to have an association with Christmas, so consider this my holiday offering!

The mother I was speaking with is going through something very difficult with one of her children. On the day that we spoke, she was feeling very badly about herself, and how she has been handling the challenges she is facing. She has seen other mothers who, she thinks, have managed similar difficulties much better. She was berating herself for not being as gentle, wise, and confident as she has seen other mothers be.

Read More→

Article

What Happens When We Don’t Like Our Kids?

Posted on December 7, 2017
by Lisa Marchiano, LCSW
2 Comments

I am always a little surprised when a mother tells me with great shame and in great secrecy that she finds she doesn’t particularly like her child. Of course we don’t always like our children! It seems there is too much secrecy around this fact, and greater acceptance of the wide range of feelings that motherhood stirs up would reduce the shame and self-judgment that many mothers feel.

There are many reasons that a mother may find she doesn’t like her child at a particular time. For sure, we are likely to see our worst qualities reflected in our children. When this happens, it will be very hard for us to like them in these moments. How we handle these instances can make a big difference in our ability to be there for our kids – and for ourselves.

The film Lady Bird is a poignant portrayal of a wounded relationship between a mother and daughter. It explores that ways in which our self-judgment and shame keep us from being able to accept our children. In the film, Marion McPherson is a middle-aged woman raising her teenage daughter, working too hard for too little money. The family lives on the “wrong side of the tracks.” Marion had had hopes of moving her family to a larger house in a better neighborhood, but was not able to make this happen. Marion’s own mother was a violent alcoholic.

Marion emerges as a warm-hearted but troubled woman struggling with shame and self-doubt. At the emotional climax of the film, we learn that she has poured her heart out to her daughter in numerous drafts of letters, all of which she crumpled up and threw away for fear that her daughter would think her writing wasn’t good enough. Marion’s sense of inadequacy runs very deep indeed.

Marion’s 17-year-old daughter, who goes by the nickname Lady Bird, has inherited some of this shame. She dreams of living in one of the large, stately homes in the nicer parts of town. When she befriends a popular girl at school, she lies about where she lives, hiding her family’s modest circumstances.

Just as she can’t accept herself, Marion struggles to express her approval to her daughter. She is frequently cruelly critical. As the film opens, we see the two of them driving, discussing Lady Bird’s college choices. Marion tells Lady Bird she will never get into an East Coast college, and, with her work ethic, ought to “go to City College, and from there to jail.”

In an important scene, Marion takes Lady Bird to go shopping for a dress for the prom. Lady Bird tries on several dresses, critical of how she looks in each one until she finds one she really likes. As she stands admiring herself in the mirror, the lack of approval from her mother is palpable. Lady Bird challenges her mother to express her full, enthusiastic for how she looks in the dress. Marion cannot do it. “I just want you to be the best version of yourself possible,” she says, as a lame explanation. “What if this is the best version of me?” asks Lady Bird. (If you haven’t seen the film, this trailer samples a few of the scenes I have mentioned above.)

As viewers, we have empathy for Marion. We see that her limitations are a result of her own wounds. Yet we feel the ache of the gulf between her and daughter that is never quite bridged.

A fairy tale from Sierra Leone entitled “The Story of Two Women” contains an image of confronting our most shameful aspects while mothering, and the healing potential inherent in cultivating self-acceptance and compassion.

In the tale, two women find themselves childless. Seeking a remedy, one journeys to a village where there is an old woman who knows the medicine for having children. Before the old woman agrees to help her, she asks the young woman a series of questions about how she will treat the child. The young woman answers always in the affirmative.

“Will you wash of its filth?”

“Yes.”

“Will you allow it to wet on you?”

“Yes.”

“Will you be able to be vomited on?”

“Yes.”

“Will you like the vomit”

“Yes.”

“Well, sit down.”[i]

 The young woman must go through several trials that night, but the next day, the old woman gives her a basket and some medicine. In the basket is a girl child covered with sores. The young woman carefully lifts the sore covered child out, covers her with kisses, and lovingly washes her with medicine. As a result, he sore covered child is healed, and in a little while, the young woman becomes pregnant with a child of her own.

Seeing her success, the second woman decides also to seek the old woman with the medicine for having children. This woman, however, does not answer in the affirmative to the old woman’s questions. She is insulted by them instead. She is subjected to the same trials, but complains about them bitterly. In the morning, the old woman gives her a basket with a sore covered child in it. Unlike the first woman, the second woman stuffs rags in the child’s mouth to keep her from crying. She doesn’t want anyone to know that she has a child with sores. The second woman not only doesn’t have a child – she quickly dies.

“The Story of Two Women” teaches us the necessity of accepting our own inner sore covered child. If we cannot accept those parts of ourselves that are shameful or disappointing, it will be much more difficult for us to accept the less likable aspects of our children.

When we can welcome with compassion what is most despised in ourselves and our children, this material can be transformed. Motherhood may provide a redemptive opportunity to reclaim rejected parts of ourselves because we are able to relate to them more compassionately when we see them carried by our children.

Marion is challenged to find and express unconditional love and acceptance for Lady Bird. At the end of the film, Lady Bird reads the crumpled up and discarded letters from her mother that her father rescued from the trash. Each letter expresses Marion’s profound love for her daughter.

Marion finds it difficult to accept herself – and Lady Bird – fully and unconditionally. But she tries. When we find ourselves experiencing irritation, embarrassment or disappointment with our children, we may find that cultivating greater self-acceptance is the healing factor.

[i] Ragan, K., & Yolen, J. (2000). Fearless girls, wise women, and beloved sisters: heroines in folktales from around the world. New York: W.W. Norton.

Photo by Gerome Viavant on Unsplash

To discover more about how motherhood transforms us, subscribe to my mailing list. 

Originally published at PsychCentral.

Article

Helping Our Kids Become Whole

Posted on October 25, 2017
by Lisa Marchiano, LCSW
No Comments

“The right way to wholeness,” Jung wrote, “is full of fateful detours and wrong turnings.” And yet many mothers worry that there is a right way and a wrong way to parent. We spend time reading books and blogs. We listen to podcasts, and pay for expert advice, which is often contradictory.

Of course, there are general approaches in parenting that are superior to others, but we do ourselves a disservice when we overestimate our ability to control outcomes when it comes to parenting. Our children enter the world with their own distinct personalities and inclinations. Environmental factors that are out of our control shape their lives further. And even when we parent with intention, how can we know for certain what effect our efforts will have? Any parent of more than one child knows that the parenting technique that works wonders with one child has an entirely different effect on another child.

Though I am not advocating against parenting thoughtfully and with intention, I do think it is important to remember that we our ability to purposefully shape our children through our parenting has its limitations. Sometimes the ways in which are children are influenced are quite unintended.

Patricia was raised by a single, alcoholic mother. Due to heavy drinking and erratic behavior, Patricia’s mother had difficulty keeping a job. The two of them moved frequently, and Patricia recalls that life was chaotic and unpredictable. Every now and again, she would stay with her father and his wife and children. Her father’s family lived a much more stable life. “The children always had clean clothes. They lived in a house, and it was neat and orderly. When I stayed with them, we ate together at the dining room table.”

From these brief visits with her father, Patricia learned that there was another way of living than that she knew with her mother. “I remember being very young – maybe around ten years old – and realizing all of sudden that my mother was kind of a wreck. I loved her, but I knew she wasn’t taking good care of me, and that a different kind of life was possible. Somewhere inside of me, I resolved to myself that I was going to create that different life for myself just as soon as I could.”

Patricia became a stellar student. She excelled in school, and advocated for herself successfully. She was skipped a grade, allowing her to graduate and leave home to attend college when she was barely 17, and had a PhD by 25. Today, she is highly respected in her field.

Though her chaotic early life took its toll, she can look back and see that the deficits of her childhood also created a firm resolve in her to take advantage of the opportunities life offered her.

This is a common theme in fairy tales as well. One of the central paradoxes of psychic life is that it is often the witches, dragons, and ogres that stand in our way that eventually lead us to into a discovery of our own depths. It is no coincidence that the confrontation with these dark elements almost always leads to a discovery of the treasure.

In the Hungarian fairy tale “The Boy Who Could Keep a Secret,” a child is beaten by his mother, and sits crying.

For a long time the child sat sobbing, and the noise was heard by the king as he was driving by. ‘Go and see who it is that is crying so,’ said he to one of his servants, and the man went. In a few minutes he returned saying: ‘Your Majesty, it is a little boy who is kneeling there sobbing because his mother has beaten him.’

‘Bring him to me at once,’ commanded the monarch, ‘and tell him that it is the king who sends for him, and that he has never cried in all his life and cannot bear anyone else to do so.’ On receiving this message the boy dried his tears and went with the servant to the royal carriage. ‘Will you be my son?’ asked the king.

By the end of the tale, the boy has become the King of Hungary, and he acknowledges his gratitude to his mother for the beating that set him out on his path. “If you had not beaten me, nothing would have happened that has happened, and I would not now be King of Hungary.” The mother’s beatings were in fact the thing that set him on his hero’s journey.

Of course, we shouldn’t beat our children! And parental alcoholism has well-documented negative effects on children. But the fairy tale makes it clear that we can’t always predict with certainty the outcomes – either positive or negative – of our parenting interventions. The day to day cultivation of a human personality is such a complex task that there can’t possibly be one right way.

Originally published on PsychCentral.com.

Photo by Peter Hershey on Unsplash

Article
Next Page →
To learn more about how fairy tales help us understand ourselves better, join my mailing list.



Babies & Toddlers | Teens & Young Adults | Initiation | Loss & Mourning | Shadow & Difficult Feelings | Personal Growth
About | Policies | Contact

Motherhood Transformation © 2021