We had a parenting situation last night. Deep into the throes of our year-end holiday, my youngest became quite unwell. Tummy issues, the mainstay of little humans. As a result, all four of us needed to flee the hotel dinner we’d basically just arrived at and tend to her problem.

My eldest, we soon realised, was piiiisssseeeed off, and, with a bit of questioning, expressed how “Ayla gets all the attention”, how “Ayla is being dramatic”, and how “Mommy never lies on the bed with me / runs a bath for me”, etc. She behaved similarly a month ago when accident-prone Ayla slipped and ripped her armpit open. I went from cool-and-collected fully-booked-for-the-afternoon shrink, to watching my sedated child being sewn back together in the ER, within an hour.

I cannot lie: last night I was ANGRY with my eldest. I felt disgust, frustration, judgement. Why can she not see that her sister is unwell? Why does she not care?  And I must be honest: I didn’t (immediately) molly-coddle and pacify. I tended to the youngest and expressed my sentiments to the eldest. I even ‘WhatsApp’ed’ my husband, who was obviously in the same room, to let him know just how perturbed and disturbed I was. He agreed, but also felt it’s age-appropriate, and somewhat “cute”.

For triggered ME, there was nothing CUTE about it!

While tending to Ayla, my mind was in overdrive… Sometimes it’s a curse to be a shrink, and some of the best wisdom I’ve received from psychologist mentors who’ve already traversed these roads is TO JUST LIVE, without analysing how each word and experience will land.

I remembered how I’d also felt extreme sibling jealousy as a young child. My elder sister received a pure silver chain for her birthday. I cried. Bitter tears. Of unadulterated jealousy, and indignation for myself. Wanting what I want. And do you know what my own father did, at the time? (Bless his soul; I adored him). He SHAMED me. He ugly-laughed, in my face. Or at least this is how the experiencing 9-year-old inside me recalls it.  He mocked me, for not being able to suspend my reaction and participate in my sister’s joy. He made me feel like there’s something so very wrong with having a quite normal feeling.

A week ago, I wrote a still-unpublished article about seeing our kids as mirrors, and realising that what hooks and provokes us, about them, are our wounds and emotional injuries. And how we could learn to hold our reactions and minister to their experience, so they can metabolise their feelings and move beyond them, to wholeness. Without shame. And, specifically, how attention-seeking behaviour is being reframed as connection-seeking behaviour. And if a small person is demonstrating that they need connection, best we notice!

I haven’t published it, as it still feels too raw and real and vulnerable for me. What if it’s only me? What if I’m just a terrible mother?

Once Ayla, the sickie, was well, and asleep, I called Ariana to the bed I was lying on and asked her to tell me what she was feeling. And what emerged was a lot of “I need more care; I feel neglected”. To be fair, she has played second fiddle to her youngest sister, who had a massive seizure at 14 months, and has been “the patient”, “the remedial child” and “the eternal baby” ever since. And so, I hugged Ariana, stroked her hair, and tried to connect with the soul in there that was legitimately sore. I did point out, though, instances in the recent past where she too has been the subject of intensive mommy-love. To balance her thinking. But at some point, she uttered the words, “and you don’t even care”, and I wanted to burst into flames again…

So here I sit, the morning after, with my coffee and my journal. I attended a self-development, year-planning, goal-setting webinar late last night, and I’m working through some of the content. And I’m thinking of my mom-goals-and-intentions for 2022.

I wrote that “I want to be a better mother, through conscious care, and consistency”. I wrote that I want to learn, more, how to deal with my own triggers, so that I can set my children free to be themselves, unencumbered by my baggage. I want to process my triggers and regulate my explosive responses to them.

Cognitive-behavioural therapists and life coaches speak of the “NOW” acronym, in a variety of contexts, and I wrote how I want, in 2022, to Noticing my urge to hate on her behaviour and purge her of it, as my dad did to me (causing shame, and a sense of fundamental badness). I want to Observe myself, triggered by my child and full of feelings, and then to Witness myself, and process my response, and what the trigger means to me.

So that, on the other side of that NOW-ing, I can normalise basic human feelings for my daughters. Like being jealous and wanting what we want. Without making unnecessary drama about it.

Because, I have learnt, that if we can do that – experience the full range of normal human emotions – we can possibly better allow for the joys and trials of others.

I also, in my morning journaling, happened upon my own desire or need to be perfect. How I’d love to be the PERFECT mother, and the PERFECT psychologist / wife / daughter / sister / human, etc.  I know this is a narcissistic fantasy, that in some ways would protect us from having to feel dis-ease and discomfort. If I had perfect responses in every instance, I’d never have to do any of the grappling I’m doing right now.

I know I cannot be perfect. I know I get so much wrong. But I can try. Every day. And trying counts for a lot when we take a consistency approach. Consistent trying, intermingled with fumbles and foibles, would still likely go a lot further than not reflecting on these things at all.

May you find and take what you need from this deep-holiday, sea-facing ramble about parenting, triggers-from-childhood, and, as Brene Brown coined, “the gifts of imperfection”.

And, as a revelation to myself, and an aside, my “word” for 2022 is CONSISTENCY.

Because it outruns perfection by miles and yields lasting results and long-term wins.