The Conscious Parent

We shouldn’t encourage them to try for a top university?”
What if your children are incapable of being accepted at one of the
coveted schools you choose for them? Are they to believe that attending
a state college is inferior? What if your child wants to take a year off and
join the Peace Corps, travel the world, study fashion design, become a
monk, or learn animal husbandry by living on a farm in Montana?
Precisely because there’s no one we call “ours” in quite the same way,
our children have the power to unleash our ego unlike anyone else. For
example, I sit in the ice-rink and see a beautiful sevenyear-old figure
skater. Then I notice her mother on the edge of her seat, following her
child’s every move. I think to myself, “Gosh, why can’t I be like that
mother, here for her daughter day after day?” Then I realize I could
never be like this mother. Why? Because I happen to know through
friends that this mother is pushing her daughter out of her own egoic
need to have a “star” figure skater in the family.
As much as I see this mother and am amazed by her discipline, I also
know that at some level she is so very lost—lost to both herself and her
child. She has projected all her unmet needs onto her child. It’s so
important that you don’t need your children to heal a damaged part of
yourself, and that you have your own life instead of devoting every
minute of your day to your children. If you are content with the as-is—
content to let hobbies be hobbies, and to let your children’s pure being
remain free as they enjoy such activities—you won’t need your
youngsters to earn medals and tiaras.
I think of a parent who cried in my arms because her daughter didn’t
get into a particular university, then told me, “All those activities, all