David McElroy

making sense of a dysfunctional culture

parenting

I can’t help wanting to replay life with emotionally healthy parents

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When I was born, babies were kept away from families for awhile. Even the mother didn’t have a lot of time with the baby right after birth. For the most part, the babies spent their time in a nursery, separated from visitors by a huge sheet of glass.

I’m one of those babies in the nursery above. I’ve been told that I was the one on the front left, but I can’t be sure of that. The man you see reflected in the glass — the one in the short-sleeve dress shirt and tie — was my father. For days, he couldn’t hold his first-born child — and I’m told that he spent hours watching me, just like this.

My father could be a very loving man at times. Because I had to go so many years without being able to talk about his terrifying narcissistic side, you’ve heard me speak quite a bit this year — since he died in April — about the awful side of growing up with him.

But when I look at a picture like this from my baby book — with him longing to hold and love his new son — it breaks my heart, because it reminds me how much he wanted to love me and how much he wanted me to love him.

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‘Dad, is there really a Santa Claus?’ Should we lie to kids or tell truth?

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We never talked much about Santa in my family. I don’t remember ever believing that a jolly man in a red coat delivered toys to children all around the world. To me, it was just a fun story — just like all the other stories I enjoyed so much as a kid.

My father wasn’t sure whether any of us believed in Santa Claus, but he figured it out one Christmas season as we were all walking through a department store one evening.

“Look, Daddy,” said my youngest sister, who was about 4 at the time. She was pointing to the department store Santa with children in line to visit him. “There’s an old man dressed up like Santa Claus.”

We enjoyed Christmas stories — about Santa and Frosty and the Grinch, among others — but we knew they were fantasies. I was never told at home that Santa was real or that he wasn’t real. I just knew it was a fun story.

So why do so many people get angry about the question of kids and Santa?

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Listening to our own inner voice can be the toughest thing we do

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I never have to tell Molly to listen to her inner voice and get in touch with her genuine needs.

If you’ve spent much time around cats, you know that felines are always in touch with their needs. Nobody has to tell them to what they need or what they want.

If they’re hungry, you’re going to hear about it. If they want to play, they’re going to interrupt whatever you’re doing. They have no sense of shame about demanding exactly what they want.

Humans are trained from an early age to be just the opposite. Children who ask too often for what they need or want are considered problem kids. They’re told not to be so selfish. They’re often punished for having too many needs and wants. They’re rewarded for ignoring their needs and putting others first.

It’s no wonder that many of us realize — decades into our lives — that we have a sense of shame about asking for what we need and what we want. Family and society have programmed us not to ask for much. Many of us eventually realize that we’ve subordinated those inner needs and wants for so long that we can’t even hear the voice that’s trying to tell us what’s wrong — or what’s missing.

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