By the time I was 19 I had felt rejected so much, so I thought to myself “I will have a baby!” My child will love me and I won’t feel rejected anymore”. How wrong was I!
I became pregnant at 20, without any maturity of knowing what any healthy relationship entailed and what it truly meant to be a Mother. I loved the child inside me but I had no true understanding of myself and that I was there to fully give of myself; no thought to the fact I would be raising children for at least 18 years of their life. I learnt that I would do all the giving and even when I felt like I could not deal with myself; I would still have to keep on giving. How could I teach my child to be emotionally healthy if I was not, I didn’t have a clue what I was doing so you know what; I winged it for at least 7 years until I became a Christian. Then came the understanding of how broken in my emotions that I actually was and now I am on the true journey of being WHOLE in Christ, separate from any human beings thoughts of who I am nor expectations for others to be pleased with who I am.
As single parents, we have so much to take care of and so many things to consider and for many of us, all the decisions that concern our children; we have had to make 99.9 percent of the time. Some parents may have had more input in different stages of parenting but nonetheless; most decisions will end with you because you are the main care giver.
So in light of this, we need to consider that we have are children’s emotions to deal with and then we also have our own. Now, if you are not careful; your emotions will be the ones that are raising and teaching your child because I did this for years. Until one day, I sat with God and it came to my attention that I had “Dysfunctional Emotions” so basically I allowed my emotions to control my parenting and most areas of my life, some of you might be thinking; doesn’t everybody get affected by how they are feeling? Yeah of course they do but allowing unhealthy emotions in while raising a child can affect them because they will sense it, they will watch and learn behaviours that you would not want them to have.
As a one parent household, I am supposed to be the parent guiding my children into emotional health and teaching them how to deal with hurtful and upsetting emotions. How would I achieve this if I can’t handle my own emotions? We as parents need to recognise this because the key is to make sure we are content with who we are and that we genuinely have a love for ourselves. Your emotional health can change how you respond to your children and it can create a silent learning pattern that indirectly teaches our children how to act when they are upset.
Parent you are stronger than you believe and you can heal from the past hurts, it will take time but nothing can be done until we are first honest about where we are with ourselves. If someone hurts you by neglect, blame, anger or rejection in an intense way; this will still be in your sub conscious and we can often raise our children in this mind. So let’s be encouraged and understand that we can be emotionally stable. I am on a journey right now and I have changed so much. I do not act out as intensely through my emotions as I use to but it took time, effort and prayer.
Side Note: To be honest, it’s my emotions that helped me get pregnant. Now I have three sets of emotions to deal with, 2 children and an adult.
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