I am the oldest child of four, the only girl. A position I did not ask for in the small order of my family of origin world but definitely one that has influenced greatly the way I position myself or allow others to position me (if that is ever possible without my approval) in the order of the wider world.
As I grew up, in a family that was no stranger to hardship and quite strong twists of fate, there were two phrases I would hear from my caretakers (parents, grandparents, extended family, teachers, neighbors) that have shaped my reactions in my later professional and personal life.
“You are the oldest, you should know better / behave in a better manner / give in.” This phrase drove such rage in me! But I could not express it because, had I done that, I would go precisely against the request of behaving in a “mature” manner, even though I was possibly only 10 or 15. I am 47 and can still remember my feelings of anger, of unfairness manifesting in my life and enforced on me by the people closest to me, the feeling of intense loneliness and the divide it drove between my brothers and myself. Why did they get to be 10 or 15 and I had to be 30 in an instant? Why was I not allowed the same leeway to make mistakes and screw up? In the absence of responses from those around me, I created my own. And those were never flattering.
“We have greater expectations of you, you are the oldest. / You are a girl.” And the fire of fury would explode again in me and I would once again push it down because if I let any of it out I would threaten my image as “the good girl” and that was foundational, that was my established and assumed role in the family unit. And if I were not in that role, where would I be then?
This is not meant to criticize my parents. The moment I became a parent myself I realized that it is very easy to look at parenting styles outside of the reality of life unfolding and tell people what they should have done better. When you are the parent and are called to raise new humans, most often completely different than yourself, with different needs and in a different world, the game seems rigged from the get go. None of us get it right. I have strived to learn about myself profusely for the past three decades and still I can already tell how I have built beliefs in my son who will not serve him well in his adult life. Because that is how I knew to love him in the moment, with what was unfolding in my life.
This is an attempt at re-parenting myself.
There is nothing wrong with having high expectations of someone. The invitation to let go and learn to not cling to any conflict longer than it is constructive is a lesson better learned early in life because it is one that will shape our relationships and work going further. But if validation of feelings and freedom to express healthy anger are missing from the equation, we are not educating our children, we are building yet another cage for them.
And the crazy thing is, as adults this cage has a magnetic pull because it bears the smell of the familiar, of what we know from early years, what we were taught and, more importantly, what we come to believe about ourselves.
The cage is where I ran the other day when I was called “angry” instead of being asked what is going on and how I am feeling, based solely on the interpretation of the person making the assertion (not for the first time). Instead of looking the person in the eye and asking them to make a factual observation about my behavior instead of labeling what they think they see, my lizard brain pushed me in the well known cage and I started to defend myself. When emotions I am displaying are labeled as “too much” without any factual statements about how it affects my personal or professional life (which means basically that the person in front of me is uncomfortable witnessing it and therefore is holding it against me), I run to the cage to remind myself that I must be the good girl and not step out of the line.
Writing has been a confessional and a classroom for me and therefore I will use this again to re-parent myself a little, hoping the pull of the cage will subside the next time I am challenged this way. Catalina, it is ok to feel angry when your values are threatened, when you feel unseen and unappreciated. It is ok to vocalize these feelings of anger and they are valid. I am sorry that this is happening to you. If possible, take your distance from them and find comfort in what you love and then come back to the situation and behave in a way that fits the values you uphold. You are good, you are not broken, you are human and are allowed to be human.
Just change the name and say this to yourself as often as you can. It would be so beautiful for those around us to realize these and change the way they approach discomfort and conflict but chances are the only successful work we ever get to do is on ourselves. Gotta go, I have some swearing to do at this last realization before I continue to explore it and learn lessons healthily.
Photo – Unsplash
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