The Conscious Parent

powerless and worthless her parents made her feel as a child. Only now,
instead of becoming the “perfect daughter” as she had all those years ago
in her parents’ home, as a parent herself she fought back. The tragedy
was that she was fighting with the wrong person.
Anya had no awareness that her daughter was behaving quite normally
given the circumstances of her rigid upbringing. She couldn’t see that
Jessica was saying, “Enough of the charade. Wake up and notice that I’m
a unique individual with different needs from you. I can’t be yours to
control any longer.”
Jessica was in effect screaming for the release Anya could never claim
for herself. She was the flag bearer of her mother’s unfought war.
Though she appeared “bad” in the eyes of the public, she was in truth
being a dutiful daughter, enacting her mother’s unlived past for her.
Through her antisocial behavior, she was facilitating her mother in
finally expressing all that had been trapped inside her for decades. In
terms of the journey of becoming a conscious parent, Jessica’s “badness”
was a service to her mother, the opportunity for Anya to revisit her
childhood resentment and heartache. Thus Anya was finally allowing
herself to scream, letting out her emotional toxicity. Our children are
generous in this way, willingly becoming receptacles for our misplaced
emotions so we can ultimately set ourselves free. It’s our unwillingness
to walk toward this freedom that creates the illusion our children are
“bad” and must be doing things maliciously.
If you understand that the inappropriate behavior of your children is a
call to increased consciousness on your part, you are able to view the
opportunities they afford you to grow differently. Instead of reacting to