Making them Happy
While we’re taking a closer look at what exactly is our job as a Mom and what isn’t, let’s consider this one today.
Is it your job to make them happy? Make sure they are always happy? Is happiness even the goal? and for how much of the day/their lives? Or ours?
A LOT of us get caught in a people pleasing trap. Maybe we’ve done it our whole lives so doing it with our kids is just a natural byproduct. Or maybe we understand that we’re not in charge of other people’s emotions but we can’t quite believe that when it comes to our kids. Surely their emotions are our responsibility. But are they? And a lot of our people pleasing tendencies may have come from our own parents not knowing how to regulate themselves and so even as children we tried to behave in order to help our parents be happy. So it goes both ways. But I’m just going to propose that it doesn’t need to go either way.
When we really understand that our feelings come from our thoughts and not from anything anyone else is doing or saying, we get our own power over our emotional lives and we give everyone else their power back also. Which was never ours to begin with but when we think it is, we are in an uphill. battle against reality. For example, if i think that my job is to keep my kids happy all day, i’ll just let them do whatever they want all day, whether it’s good for them or me or not. Have you tried this? Does it even “make them” happy anyway? no. because you cannot make them anything. it’s their thoughts that cause their feelings. So you may agree to icecream for breakfast but they are still mad that their sister got more than them or that they just didn’t get enough or the right kind or they want cake too or on and on. There is no satiating them on a quest to make them happy. They are only happy if they want to be and it’s all controlled in their own little heads, not by anything you do or don’t do.
Try this on for a day. It is revolutionary. It is literally life changing to take the stress- and guilt!- out of parenting by dropping the expectation that it is your job to make your kids happy. It’s impossible anyway and it just makes you crazy trying.
Another hint to help you as you try this one is to remember that all emotions are just feelings, not problems to fix. Let’s talk about that a little more tomorrow.
