Some parents seem ‘disconnected’ with children in general, and while they put on a good show for the public they are not very close to their children at all.
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Example:
During the morning hours when one of the babies woke up my ex seldom woke up, but I mostly always did even when exhausted on shift-work. My ear was ‘tuned’ into the sound of the baby, she was completely deaf to it.
Sometimes I would wake up just before the baby would cry or would need attention, and changes in breathing patterns would wake me up with a start and I would check baby.
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We can try and try to coax and push the other parent to becoming closer spiritually to the child with the same adoring love that we have, only to find years later that it was completely hopeless. Some people just don’t connect with children.
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I have always been very heavily against the modern advice of letting the baby cry itself to sleep. I preferred to rock the baby to sleep and sing a lullaby. My theory is that this early stress of letting the child cry to sleep causes problems with the baby trusting the parents, bonding issues and long periods of time crying simply hurts the baby’s throat and cause unhappiness and anxiety.
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It was me that got my children off the pacifiers, and out of nappies and onto the toilet (toilet trained). My ex had no real patience for this and just wouldn’t do it. She wanted to use expensive plastic nappies and I got us using cloth nappies and saved a fortune and the babies had less nappy rash and other issues.
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Parenting is a character builder, and if one parent is not growing in character and becoming closer to the child then that parents is spiritually disconnected to the child/children. This person will not improve or grow and will become grumpy and unhappy with the challenges and trials of parenthood.
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My father once told us that he didn’t want anything to do with us until we were old enough to party with him. I learned to try to be there for my children because he was never there for me. I learned what it felt like to be ignored, unloved, and not wanted and didn’t want that for my own children.
I made plenty of mistakes, but I learned and tried, Dad didn’t even really try.
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So if you are wondering what is going on with your parenting partner, it may simply be that he or she doesn’t ‘get the children’ and they never will.
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All the best from
James M Sandbrook.
26 November 2017.