I became a mom in March 2020. Nothing about parenthood was what I expected.
I had a lot of expectations. Our journey was riddled with years of infertility and a high risk pregnancy. It felt like, once he was here, I’d finally get to the easy part. Silly me. Parenting isn’t easy. Becoming a parent isn’t easy. Doing it in the pandemic added even more layers. Transitioning to motherhood in near total isolation was the deepest mud I’ve ever trudged through. It was confusing to be so in love and in so much emotional distress, simultaneously.
I shouldn’t have been surprised at my postpartum anxiety diagnosis. But I was.
I did the things you’re supposed to do: I went to (virtual) therapy; I journaled; I talked about my feelings with my husband; I told trusted people in my life. But something was missing. Deep in my heart I knew what it was: self-empowerment.
Let me rewind briefly to my life pre-motherhood, pre-pandemic. I was a full-time student in a doctoral program, conducting research on empowered learning using human development and motivational psychology as foundations. I have a theoretical base and a fairly robust understanding of empowerment.
I really didn’t want to admit to myself empowerment was what I was lacking. It felt like failure. Not just as someone who, not too long ago, thought she was becoming an expert on empowerment, but also as a mother, as a wife, even as a human being. Empowerment is one of my core values. How could I have let this happen!?
Sometimes, when you’re so deep in the mud it doesn’t matter how much knowledge or experience or awareness you have. The mud is thick, it’s gritty; this makes you feel as if you’ve lost your grit. So I started small. I started by asking myself what one thing I wanted more than anything. Loud and clear I heard the word: COMFORT.
I don’t know about you but there is nothing more comforting to me than soup. So, I made soup that day. One that reminded me of people who bring me comfort. Then I decided I would make a new soup each week. I started by following recipes, but a few weeks into the project something cool happened. I started to riff. I’d think, “I could add this other ingredient!” or “I can cook this differently and I think it’ll turn out better.” As I flexed my creativity and ideas, I gained confidence. Sometimes my idea wouldn’t work, I’d have to pivot to try to fix it. Which meant I failed some, but mostly I succeeded, and my confidence was building. I was learning too, gaining and grasping new knowledge about food. This small activity of making soup once a week was empowering me! I was surprised because in all my research, all my experience, what I’d neglected to acknowledge is: it isn’t the big flashy stuff, it’s the simple stuff, that can really help us tap into our unique, individual power.
Fast forward two years and I’m constantly trying new things in the kitchen, - not just soup - riffing, exploring, testing, creating, failing, succeeding. Last year we got my son a kitchen tower so he can climb up and be a part of the action. Over the last year, we’ve been inviting him to cook and bake with us. He stirs, he pours, he presses, he smells, he tastes. Some favorites have been baking bread, pressing tortillas, and blueberry pie. Sometimes he loses interest halfway through and it’s often more messy than it would have been on my own, but it’s worth it because there are always such sweet moments beckoning me to stay present.
The day we made pie I said to my husband, “this should make me apprehensive, letting him mix blueberries! But it doesn’t. I think it’s because I feel so comfortable here, it allows me to empower him and lower my expectations.” It was an “aha moment” for me!
So I started brainstorming other activities similar to cooking. When I say similar, what I mean is, they meet the same three conditions: I feel grounded in my confidence; the environment is one I feel supported in; the activity aligns with my values as a person and a parent. I came up with a handful of activities but the one we’ve been venturing into most recently is hiking.
Hiking with a two year old!? Yup! It sounds big and daunting but I used to work at a summer camp where hiking was an almost daily activity, so I feel confident. Each time we hike, I try to take a similar posture to the one I take in the kitchen: be in this moment with him - don’t let my expectations pull me away. Allow both of us to explore, riff, and grow.
He loves it. What I thought might be a once or twice a month outing has become a once or twice a week outing. I often let him explore the trail and run ahead on his own. I see how empowered he feels and it’s the motivation I need to keep going out there when it’s hot and buggy.
Just like cooking, he’s teaching me incredible lessons on the trail, like how I can’t worry too much about what’s ahead on the trail beyond what I can see. Or how my energy on the trail sets a tone for us both. Or how it doesn’t matter how fast or far we go, it just matters we experience nature together. These are new aspects of hiking for me; my son is opening my eyes to them through how he experiences something I love.
Do I think you should cook with your kid? Or take them hiking? Maybe. If it feels right to you. There’s a lot of parenting advice out there encouraging you to get into your kids' interests, which has merit. But it’s also true we as parents deserve to invite our kids into activities where we feel connected to our own empowerment. Specifically, activities meeting the three criteria: we feel confident; we feel good in the environment; and we feel aligned with important values.This might mean digging back in our minds to things we haven’t done in a long time. It had been twenty years since I’d gone hiking! Or we might need to spend time cultivating our confidence in the activity, like I was doing with cooking, before inviting our kids in with us. The gift is, when we feel empowered, it’s easier to let them find their own empowerment in a shared activity. This is especially true when we release the expectation that their empowerment must look the same as our own, and when we allow them to show us parts of the activity we haven’t yet discovered.
Our kids thinks we hung the moon - they want to be invited into our worlds. If you’ve been waiting for it, this is your invitation to share your empowered self with your children.
