What is it about the “fish in water” analogy that I find so appealing? I have gone back to it again and again over the years and now I’m here once again! It goes like this: The fish swims around in a body of water and this is his only known context (we know what happens to the fish when no longer in water…..). The fish has no awareness that he is in water because he has never known anything other than this particular medium. He has been surrounded always with water. The analogy continues: And so it is for us as human beings growing up in contexts surrounding us in our particular families and communities of origin with certain attitudes, beliefs, practices, experiences, and customs. This becomes the consensual reality in which we live without our ever being aware that we are carrying all this around. We have downloaded this programming. It becomes our automatic view of the “way it is”, and it lives inside of us outside of our awareness.
This wired in, automatic way of viewing can show up anywhere and everywhere in our lives, and it shows up prominently in the way we perceive our role of parent and the way in which we interact with our kids. How could it be otherwise?
As new parents, overnight, we are thrown into the world of parenting, the 24/7 demanding, challenging, and complex schedule of providing for the needs of a little human being reliant on us for their well being. Suddenly our own world is changed forever and the responsibilities we carry are multiplied. Often overwhelmed, we automatically rely on what we carry inside as our best idea or reaction in a given situation. When we are required to act NOW, we pull it out from the files. We are grateful for the sense of certainty these files provide in a role fraught with uncertainty.
We start, many of us, that way and proceed forth. Our parenting responses continue to flow from these long held assumptions that we don’t even know we hold inside us. They are the internal directors of our actions and behaviors. We react, then find ourselves justifying our actions to ourselves by a seemingly rational explanation about the wisdom of our parenting method. All the while we are unaware of the water in which we are swimming….and the impact that this can have on the children we love so much and to whom we want to give our very best selves and efforts.
At this point we aren’t even aware that there is something worth knowing that we don’t yet know. We think we’ve got it handled, more or less. And often it can look like we’ve got what we need to do the job. Our kids appear to be okay. All seems well, or at least it can look that way to us and even to others around us. While our young children are in the closer structure of our meeting their daily needs and managing their activities, all can appear to be well. Then comes adolescence with new complexities for both parent and budding teen. Most kids will manage fairly well with the new challenges. But now is when we may begin to notice that something in our automatic parenting styles has left our teen less well equipped to move forward toward greater self sufficiency.
When difficulties arise for a teen it can be confusing and upsetting for parents who may be at a loss wondering what went wrong. Relationships between parent and teen can deteriorate at a time when they are needed the most. It is now that our kids need parents who have moved beyond automatic response and are able to really connect and provide safe edges.
No one is born knowing how to connect in the most optimal ways or grasping the wisdom of providing boundaries with the child’s needs in mind. However, no matter where we start these are understandings that we can learn and they serve us well in being the parents that we want to be, the parents that our children need us to be.
