Healing with Jai-Chapter 6

Chapter 6-Healing through Parenting

Hola mi gente! I love how our chapters have been building on each other a bit. We’ve talked about decolonizing, bibliotherapy and mother wounds which led to marianismo but now we are going to talk about parenting. Because the way we can be triggered as we parent our babies is no joke.  

This chapter was inspired by conversations I’ve had with other spiritual moms around breaking generational curses through parenting and how tiring it can be. And this isn’t going to be a cute type of episode like “how to be a spiritual mom” I think that’s the title of a blog post on my site where we talk about how I use astrology in my parenting and all those cute little tips. This chapter isn’t cute lol. 

I think by now we know each other enough to know that this isn’t a love and light only type of podcast over here. We also have to love and work on that shadow. That’s what healing is all about. The only way to break through this is to work through it and not pretend that it doesn’t exist. That’s what a lot of our parents did, and that doesn’t work.

You’re never prepared for parenting. People can share all their stories around parenting and share their birth stories but until you’re in it?? You can’t imagine it. Parenting is like an initiation. Every pregnancy is different and every birth story and every child. Whether you have one child or ten, that’s something that I can promise you. 

It’s hard being a spiritual person working on yourself and then boom you have these little humans you’re responsible for that sometimes trigger you in ways you never thought possible. I’ve seen it happen both ways, I’ve seen how I can be triggered, and how my own mother was triggered by my traumas.

And sometimes those mother wounds we talked about in previous chapters? Those mother wounds hit you right after you’ve given birth. I know for me, a lot of the toxic shit my mother did..it didn’t even phase me. I didn’t see it, because I considered it normal. And let me tell you my spirit team and my ancestral lineage are full of nurturing, mother archetype spirits, who also made sure that I had nurturing women around me in the physical realm. I always had someone that stepped into that mother role, whether it was a tia growing up, or an older lady where I worked. They made sure I learned what an actual nurturing mother looked like because my mother was never that. And of course as we’ve talked about my own mother wounds, there’s more of a grief of what could have been seeing as it could have easily been different.

But I didn’t see the toxicity in her until after I gave birth. My oldest son was born early, after two losses. He stayed in the Special Care Nursery for 11 days, that’s a step up from the NICU. and I spent all 11 days with him. My husband would drop me off in the mornings on his way to work, and if I wasn’t spending the night, I would go home with him after dinner. The nurses used to deliver my meals to the nursery because when I tell you I wouldn’t move from my son’s side? I would sit in a chair and read books and just keep an eye on him. 

When my son was born was when my relationship with my mother changed. When the rose colored glasses came off and I was like what the fuck is this?? I would never speak this way to my son, or treat my son this way. Let me tell you the amount of scenarios I can share of how she’s lacked boundaries or said something incredibly cruel…there’s just not enough time to share it all. 

And as our children get older and develop personalities, that is also triggering. Especially when they start hitting the age that your inner child gets triggered for healing. 

So what does breaking generational traumas look like while parenting? It all depends on what you experienced as well growing up. I can tell you from my experience, as the youngest and the only daughter in my family, i felt like my voice was not important. I had two older brothers, and when I tried to voice my concerns, I would be told I was #5, as like I didn’t have a voice because the other 4 voices were ahead of me, or mattered more.

Another thing I can remember as a theme growing up was that my parents, or my mother specifically, you couldn’t tell her anything. You try explaining how you felt or how something was unfair and she would immediately take it as a personal attack. And they never apologized for anything.

The word in my house is transparency. And it’s funny because my teenager he will straight tell me everything and I look at him like “can you please stop,a re you done” and he’ll be like “transparency mom”. Because i will be the first to say i’m not perfect. I get tired, and overwhelmed and overstimulated and I can snap. I’m only human. But I also know when I need to apologize and I will be the first to do so. Even if I meant to say what I said, but not how it came out. And i would explain that as well.

People talk about “oh this gentle parenting nowadays” but nah we are really treating our children like ACTUAL PEOPLE. Because I do feel like sometimes our parents treated us as possessions. “Here’s my home, my TV, my fridge, my groceries my kids”. Be seen and not heard. Play quietly so you don’t offend folks.

Years ago, i’m talking about at least 6 years ago, a fellow spiritual person told me that my children were here to teach me something. Because back then we were going through it. You hear me!! I was tired of all of it. And now I look back and i’m like shit, my entire work, what I provide spiritually to the community comes from me being a parent.

All of it. Mother wounds, decolonzing, marianismo…these are things that I break down as I parent daily.

As a mother of boys, the marianismo is a big one because as we talked about in the last chapter, marianismo makes a martyr out of our mothers. And I for one refuse to be a martyr. I’m grateful that my children have a great role model in their dad on how a man shows up for his family and his home and what a team looks like, but I’m also still fighting with these kids on simple things like cleaning up after themselves. Because one place I draw the line is with that. 

Funny story, my youngest is a bit messy but I still refuse to clean up after him. It’s his responsibility to do it. So I go into the bathroom the other day and there’s two pairs of socks of his, some underwear, a shirt he wore. I piled it up on a nice pile in the middle of the floor. He was already asleep so I didn’t say anything but that kid sure picked it up in the morning and put it all where it needed to go. But I also made sure to mention it like “hey you put all those clothes you left in the bathroom in the hamper?” and when he says “yes” I said “thank you I’m glad you were able to do that without my reminder.”

Sometimes it’s about being that person that will not clean up the spill. I have called them down into the kitchen to pick up something from the counter or table for things that I could have easily done. But no. We are a team here I’m not going to be the martyr for anyone. Things like that can cause dissatisfaction because they continue to build over time. There’s another word for it to but i can’t think of it right now.

Is it exhausting? Yes. But it’s also teaching us, both parent and child, boundaries, holding space for their feelings, sometimes letting them get it out when they are overwhelmed with school or sports or whatever and then explain things to them so they can see another side of the story.

I was joking with a spiritual friend about how we were raised. We both have mothers who owned businesses and the child labor we both did for free is astronomical. Who else allows a ten year old to be the bookkeeper? But my 15 year old is still not sure if he wants to work, and we’ve been talking about ways he can dip his toes in, like a seasonal job for the holidays. At his age, I was paying the phone and cable bill in my home, and when I turned 16 and drove a car, I was responsible for my own gas and insurance. I might as well have paid rent. Doesn’t surprise me that I left home at 17.

And so the biggest thing I want to share with my kids is that I’m here for them. I got their back always, so they feel comfortable talking to me about their concerns. My oldest is concerned about student loans and if he even wants to go to college. He’s only in tenth grade, but we’ve talked about trade schools and taking a gap year or even waiting longer than that to go to college. Showing him that there’s not one path and I’m here to show him all the different paths so that he can make an informed decision. One that he feels is best for him. Another thing I’m not going to do is make those decisions for him and try to live his life for him. 

Sometimes we can fall back into the easy thinking of how we were raised But I have learned from my inner child of what made her feel less than, the ways that words matter especially coming from a parent, and how she would have liked to be lifted up so that she has the confidence needed into adulthood.

So also dig into that inner child when you’re parenting to see how you can relate to your children and how you can support them.

Also for more on parenting, check out LatinxParenting on Instagram.

Let’s get into today’s reading.

Journal prompt. Let’s journal about our inner child. How can my inner child help me parent my children? What does a perfect day in parenting look like for me? 

How do you parent your children? Do you feel like you’re decolonizing parenting while raising your children? I’d love to hear your feedback! 

That’s it for today’s episode.