The Lousy Parent Trap Pt 2

If you are a parent, you will know one of the most common traps we fall into is called THE LOUSY PARENT trap...

I have just been to a psychology workshop and in my group, we had three females who were all mummies. All of them talked about how much of a failure they felt they were as a mother...

It is a trap tat we fall into readily and easily as parents as we want to best for our children but most of the time lack confidence that we are doing the right thing... part of it stems from the fact that we had lots of judgements about how our parents brought us up.. so if no one showed us the right way, how are we going to do it right?:)

But of course, as you become aware of this big EGO trap within you, you will too realize that as long as you love your children alot, doesn't matter what you do, they will turn out alright if they too choose love and choose life :)

But society does not make it any easier to get out of this trap.

Some time back, there was an advertising campaign about how to prevent your house from becoming the nest of the Aedes Mosquito. It showed a child in hospital and a self blaming mum who remembered that she did not throw away the dirty water and so now she caused her son to be hospitalized and be in life danger and so she blamed herself and cried.

"Oh my god! Wat a terrible ad to show on tv!" I exclaimed when I saw it. I have no doubt it would be successful in the way it was designed to pull a guilt trip out of all parents... and I have no doubt many will remember it because of how much guilt you are reminded of when you watch it... but wat a terrible ad to show on tv.. wat a terrible thing to do, to encourage guilt and to play on tat guilt to SELL something!

In my mind, all parents are great parents.

No matter what they do, they already did their best. If they could do any better, they would have. Just ask yourself.. haven't you always done your very best for your child? It may not always turn out the way you expected but it has always been the very best you can do at that particular time, is it not?

Then why blame yourself when you have already done your best?

If it did not turn out well, all we need to do is learn the lesson and move on... as long as we love our child, they will feel it and they will turn out ok ;)

All the guilt will only create unworthiness, pain, suffering, distance between parent and child.

Just to add a cherry to the top of the icing cake, the Singaporean Media has recently decided to come up with a show titled Super Mummy.

I watched some episodes and while it is rather amusing and it was heart warming and inspiring to see how these contestants were doing such a great job as mummies for their kids (I really salute those mummies because I myself don't have the confidence to take part and say, "I am a super mum!"), I was rather indignant about the show.

The show just did not sit right with me.

Firstly, I felt it was rather strange to get a motley group of people to become judges of who is the best Super Mom... Please hor, even if they are parents or even if they are FAMOUS parents... that doesn't mean they are any better as a parent.. and just WHO are they to decide or say which mummy is better than the other?

And then, I was really quite against it when they made the children a part of the competition. They put the children through tasks and based on how they performed, they graded the parents and there was a particular kid who cried and cried just because her mummy did not get into the finals. Why put the kids through the pain and give them an extra chance to feel guilt?

Isn't the world messy as it is?

I wish I could send all the media workers in sgp to POV so that they would create more programmes that promoted love and joining rather than competition and guilt...

The other day, after lots of strong recommendation, I finally watched Money No Enough 2. No doubt it was entertaining, I did not like the ending where the mum sacrificed herself to save her grand daughter after being very badly treated...

In the real world, sacrifice is never every going to buy you happiness... the people are so ridden with guilt when they receive a gift like tat they will never truly enjoy their life.

Instead, they could have asked for a miracle and everyone could still live and have lived happily ever after...

Well, I guess it is typically asian to glorify sacrifice...

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