Last week, I was talking to a person who works with broken families. As a result of her work and her training, she also leads a group of married couples, with whom she organizes colloquiums and conferences on the topic of “family and marriage.”
We were talking about the difficulties of being a parent, and she blurted out the following statement: “Children forgive everything, except a lack of coherence.”
I found it impressive, particularly coming from a person who is used to witnessing and helping in very difficult situations.
Coherence. It is one of the most difficult virtues to find. I have spent months looking for coherence in books of famous quotes and sayings, and I have never found it as a chapter. The most I have found is a few loose phrases, and none that are particularly successful.
If it is true that children do not forgive incoherence, and it probably is, parents – perhaps I speak for myself – have it VERY difficult.
From things as trivial as the frequent war cry: “I told you not to yell at me!!!!!”, to “If it’s your aunt, tell her I’m not home” – after having given them a hard time for having told a trivial lie, to tell them, at the door of the theme park: “Say you’re seven years old, okay? Just for today you’re seven years old”, to save us 14 euros when we take them out for the day as a reward for always telling us the truth.
Consistency is VERY difficult. If people lived according to the thoughts and reflections they publish on Facebook, the world would be an idyllic place.
The truth is that I am convinced that as parents, we have no other choice. There we go all out.
On second thought, it probably isn’t that difficult, either. Most of the inconsistencies are trivial things that, if we paid more attention or were less comfortable, we could easily be faithful to the criteria that we try to pass on to our children.
We must remember that, by virtue of being parents, we live in a perpetual showcase, not only in front of others, who should not matter much to us, but also in front of our children. It might seem that they are in their own world, with their toys, their TV, or their tablet, oblivious to our conversations and our comings and goings, but in reality they detect anything we say or do that does not correspond to what we demand of them.
And what a joy that it is like that! That does not mean that they are watching us “to catch us”, like bad teachers, it simply means that they are constantly observing us because we are their reference. Would we prefer their model to be another person?
Our children do not need us to be perfect, free of errors, faults and limitations, but they do want and have every right to demand that we live according to what we transmit to them. What less?
Probably, one of the most frequent inconsistencies of parents is how much it costs us to ask for forgiveness. Again, perhaps, I speak for myself.
I have always said that perfect parents are those who make between five and ten mistakes a day, since less than five is absolutely impossible (unless you are not with the children, which is THE BIG mistake). But if my hypothesis is true, and we do not go below five blunders, why do we not ask for forgiveness at least that number of times each day?
I will say, in our discharge, that many of the mistakes that we parents make in our day-to-day go unnoticed; others we only detect when with the light off we review at least the conflicting moments of the day, and we realize that we had five other options and any of them would have been better; and some, just some of these mistakes, we detect them on the fly and, unfortunately, we try to hide them so that it doesn’t show too much, spoiling it even more. These are the great-lost opportunities.
In Içami Tiba’s book “Who loves educates”, I read that parents should behave towards their children at all times, just as we expect them to behave when we are not present. What a good criterion! So concrete too. It is difficult: it is about living as if we were guests in our own home (no more putting your feet on the table, leaving the room barefoot or saying a bad word).
It may be difficult, but if we manage it, look at what a great achievement: not only have you lived elegantly – as you expect your children to behave -, much more, you will have been an example of coherence for your children.
I cannot think of any greater aspiration.
