How parenting teaches you that life isn't a KPI
On September 29 I brought my Golden Retriever puppy home and at first she was playful and super sleepy but recently she’s been going through a big bout of teething and she’s been restless, its taught me a lot about confidence, discomfort, feeling out of depth and how to cope.
For many years I’ve wanted kids and I’ve not hidden that fact from my friends or you. I’ve given you a little insight to that but with how life’s turned out it happened to be that a puppy came first. I wanted Mia for 18 months (see why on this blog) and often doted on the sweet images knowing that there will be a lot of corrections when teaching her but I never knew just how overwhelmed I could feel. I totally underestimated that.
Before Mia was brought home, I had mutually beneficial business agreements in place and meetings set up. My world since has become a bit messy as I navigate how to puppy parent. Some calls I’ve had to push back, others I accidentally missed because I got caught up teaching Mia what to do instead of what not to do and along with that I’ve had a LOT of guilt. I guess I can finally say I get it Mums.
Just days into owning Mia the social media frenzy of:
‘Do this’
‘Do that’
‘You’ll be this kind of a mother if you….’
‘Only terrible pet owners crate their dogs’
‘I hope your dog doesn’t die because you chose to put them on the grass before their third vaccinations’.
I mean the list goes on.
It is a real test of your inner strength and the deep connection to your values. Jules pre-coach probably would have had an even bigger meltdown when my dog was frustrating me. I probably would have bought 17 dog magazines and not backed myself at all. While I did question some things I did and in frustration and lack of a break got upset at the insensitiveness of people the self consciousness has ultimately lasted for a few moments here and there not entire weeks. I’ve stood up for what I felt was right for my dog too.
Puppy parenting also taught me some really important lessons. As a high performer myself I’ve always put high expectations on my ability to do things and that’s really only one part of the self- worth equation. When you parent, whether its pets or children high expectations of yourself are unrealistic because there is a lot of newness; an entire being is discovering life. We aren’t born to perform at a high level, we develop this capacity. Just as our puppy or children learn routines of what happens in the morning or at night before they go to bed we place expectations on ourselves once we see our regular performance. Our commitment to consistently turn up, want to do better the next time becomes like a game because we desire to have fun and feel the positivity from beating our own past success. However, to feel worthy during the parenting stage we need to remove performance form the equation and think about ability:
Are we able to do something different if what we are doing is not working?
Are we able to be more consistent in our actions?
Are we able to bring more calmness and intention to our interactions?
Are we able to slow down our breathing more?
Are we able to think about the long term benefits even in moments of frustration?
What I’ve noticed about Mia is that she picks up on my energy. While I didn’t want to read all the books and become overwhelmed I did need to understand what she doesn’t understand that humans can otherwise come to comprehend. Learning that made me see that expectations I had of myself that were transferred to Mia were completely inappropriate and downright wrong. I could be in my ego and blame her for that or get over it and do better. When I applied this her learning was fast and far less painful for both of us. That’s something else I learnt.
For a couple of weeks I was stuck in my emotions of overwhelm at different points throughout the day and trying to do it all I felt inadequate, in several areas of my life. I am by no means going to write a book on parenting with one ‘child’ and limited exposure that would be pretty ludicrous in my opinion but I learnt just how much my emotions are my responsibility. You might be saying ‘oh dear’ but hear me out first. When I thought about becoming a parent before I thought:
Am I financially ready?
Am I in a place I want to be? Eg: not moving or travelling extensively?
Am I in a good house?
I didn’t ask myself this VERY important question:
Is my emotional state in check so that I teach a child/puppy calmly? So that I role model how to manage emotions? Am I capable of seeing her behaviour for what it is so I don’t internalise that her very normal learning experiences aren’t another way I belittle myself?
How will I give myself grace when I don’t get it right? When what I do doesn’t help her how can I be kind to myself?
In parenting there has long been this idea of ‘healthy fear’. I think healthy fear is total BS. You do not form relationships out of fear and you don’t form respect out of it either. As children we want quality time with our parents, we want fun, to be listened to, to be helped, to learn and know how to make our goals happen. We also want to develop an understanding of healthy and dangerous risks so we can manage our own health and happiness. As young children we rarely get things right on the first attempt and we need guidance to know how to be respectful human beings however, we need to make sure that we aren’t forcing our children (or puppy’s) to be as we wish them to be instead of how they are.
Parenting isn’t something you can place KPIs on. It is not something you can compare notes on. Children or dogs are beings, there’s no checklist of what should happen. However if you want to have a checklist for success in parenting the best KPI to measure probably asks you: Am I working to be a kinder person? Am I doing my best? Am I taking full responsibility for controlling my emotions? Am I taking full responsibility for my effort or am I blaming my success on a child or pet that doesn’t yet know any better.
