The Over-protecter

Still in the series about feelings that hinder us as mothers, I came across my over-protection, or rather yet, that possessive love that makes us think that only we know them, only we understand them, only we can help them and many more … “only we”.

I really felt like that, and thought that my son was totally dependent on me to the point of stopping to make certain personal things, because I “thought” that he couldn’t do it alone, and there I was, not doing what I should be doing in order to be next to Gabi. Pure deception!

I was preventing him from having his own experiences.

Until, because of work reasons, I had to travel alone and had to leave him with my husband, can you imagine?? !! I packed everything: clothes, school uniforms for each day, extra school supplies, chart schedules, frozen lunch, reminders and lists and more lists in order for my husband not to forget anything. I was sleepless the night preceding the trip, thinking how Gabriel would survive without me and I couldn’t find a solution, I tried several times to convince to stay, but there was no way! You know what happened?

I got sick at the airport, I almost didn’t embark, I cried, I felt shortness of breath…and meanwhile, my son?! Happily, celebrating that the house would only be for the boys.
It was 10 days away, 10 days in which I learned that my son didn’t depend on me, but I did. I had made him my world and God was showing me how wrong I was; how many things I was putting aside for him and much more—I was stopping my son from living, putting him in my “glass jar.”

We surely can teach them the way and prepare them for the battles, but we can never fight for them, if not, how will they learn to depend on God?

I returned totally different because we survived … lol, and I even won the beautiful gift of seeing my husband learning how to deal with our boy. While I was gone, the two got closer to each other, they understood each other like never before, they created a relationship of complicity that didn’t exist before and did things together that they hadn’t done in years.
Today’s lesson, mom friend: Sometimes we expect our husbands to act with our children just as we do, but we forget without realizing it that we occupy ALL the protection space making them retract and think: why should I do it if she always does it all?

We are not irreplaceable, nobody is, so let’s take advantage and give them room for them to also act in their own fatherly tasks, and in the meantime, how about we turn to ourselves?

Exaggerated protection generates dependence on the protector and not from the one being protected, which indeed, once you have the first opportunity you will want to run far away, grow wings and fly, and that’s not what we want.

 

See you next week!