All moms have found themselves in this situation at least once.
You are out of school and you are expecting your child.
Out of the corner of your eye, you see the mother of the child who has a habit of harassing others and you decide to approach her to talk to her.
You gather your courage and you say:
I feel a duty to share with you the information I received from my child, so that you can verify it with yours.
From what I hear, your child abuses others.
Yesterday, he would have insulted a comrade by telling him that he was fat and by making fun of him in front of the girls.
Yesterday this boy cried at school and he told my son he didn’t want to go back to school.
I’m sure it’s not just because your child has been naughty, but maybe you should check what it is.
You think you were respectful and you know you chose your words carefully, but this mom looked at you angrily and said something that’s common:
This is none of your business !
Take care of your child and leave mine alone!
It’s like she slammed the door in your face!
All of a sudden you felt helpless, but you were also angry.
How dare she tell you that?
You take care of your child and you talk openly with him, that’s how you got this information.
You honestly thought that mom would be grateful and thank you.
Besides, how do you explain to this mother that you don’t take care of her child or her education at all.
Her child is part of the peer community, and this community is the area in which your child is also growing up.
It is a common space for stimulating development and everyone is responsible for what they bring to this area.
Everyone is responsible for what they do outside their home towards others.
Of course, everything he does for others outside, in a way, he learned at home, rehearsing roles.
This is why the responsibility of parents is great.
Now, how can you explain to this mother that you didn’t attack her, you didn’t attack her child either?
No mom would do that!
You just wanted to make community life easier and you thought that all adults who bring their children to school and work there want to do the same.
Sometimes big changes happen when each of us does at least one thing with the full awareness that we are not alone in the world and that we are part of a community that we truly have an influence on.
Each of us must ask ourselves how others feel about our behavior.
We must also ask ourselves how we feel about the behavior of others.
After all, the whole philosophy of life resides in it!
How can you explain to this mother that we parents are first on the list in terms of the hierarchy of developmental influences?
We are role models!
The children look at us and model their inner map after us.
Whatever good we change in ourselves, we incorporate that change into the pattern by which our children will be formed.
If this mom learns to receive feedback, her child will too.
Now, how do you explain to this mom that you don’t think you’re better than her, especially since you’re not scolding her, but that you’re just a worried mom.
All moms have the same mission, so they need to cooperate and listen to advice and feedback from others.
If tomorrow, she sees your child being disrespectful to someone, you really hope that this mom will come to you.
You’ll be grateful if she draws your attention to how your child behaves when you’re not around.
So, each mom must be the corrective factor for the others!
And I agree…
Look at my child, draw my attention, because I, within the four walls of my house, can make many mistakes of indulgence, hypersensitivity, etc.
I can have many blind spots when looking at my child.
How can you explain to this mom that we are the way we are, because we all see everyone as enemies?
Because we all put a sign in front of everyone: MINDFUL OF YOUR BUSINESS!
And that is why, since we mind our own business, we lose control over this field of interactions, the field of shared experiences, in which our children grow up who do not know how to mind their own business.
Because according to the hierarchy of the developmental influences, the parent occupies the first place, just like the other parental figures, but the influence of the peers comes in second position.
And sometimes, when parental authority gives way, it remains the only developmental influence.
There are so many situations like this where we narcissistically defend our children, viewing them as our own extensions.
When someone talks about our child, we think he is talking about us.
We project onto our children the wounds of our childhood, our hypersensitivity to criticism, our hypersensitivity to condemnation, our feeling of inadequacy, making them untouchable as we wanted to be in the face of criticism from our parents.
We protect our children as no one has protected us in front of our comrades.
How many of our children play a redemptive role?
I had to suffer, but I refuse to see my child suffer!
Because we parents defend our children, because no one defended us, we protect them from other children and we defend them from other moms and dads.
We even defend them from teachers who are found to be unfair!
Because of our childhood wounds, we fail to see that our children are not us and are preparing to live in a world where peer influence has never been greater.
The authority of parents, weakened by various personal and collective traumas, has never been so weak!
It is important that we understand that we, the parents, form these people who will be the components of this community.
It is enough to cooperate, because it is difficult to do this work alone.
Yet, in the weight of all these events, I think about how much we don’t need to do something big and thunderous, a tectonic shift.
We just need to learn to cooperate.
We should seek feedback on our children’s behavior from educators, teachers, professors, other moms and dads.
If we listen to them, they see our children while we don’t see them, they see them in circumstances where we are not present.
We correct ourselves by respecting our personal limits and aspirations.
Because it is true that someone else’s child is not our problem, but the problematic behavior of any child, especially ours, is.
We are all responsible for the quality of the public space, this intermediate space (between people) in which we exchange and build.
Let’s keep in mind that the identity of each of us is socially mediated, it is built in an intermediate space, and we are all responsible for what we bring into this intermediate space.
There are no privileged or exempt.
