I have been planning to write a blog post on forgiveness in parenting for some time. It has become one of the things I talk about most often in regards to being a new parent. I realized early on how important it is to be able to forgive yourself. When caring for a baby, it is inevitable that accidents will happen. From things as simple as getting some skin caught in the nail clipper to more frightening incidents like falls down the stairs. We certainly should take all the precautions we can to avoid situations where our children get hurt, but when the unavoidable ones happen, it is crucial to be able to forgive ourselves and move on.
I was thinking that this ability to forgive ourselves is one of the most difficult things to learn as new parents. And it is. But, what I didn't think about is the fact that I am not on this parenting journey on my own. I did not factor in the fact that I have a partner, and that he, too, may have moments where an error in judgment leads to a baby mishap. My failure to consider that possibility also means that I hadn't given any thought to how I might feel or react were such an event to occur.
Over the last nine-and-a-half months I have had my fair share of close calls when it comes to my son, Matthew. Just recently, I was using a sharp knife to cut up his food while he was sitting in his chair waiting for his dinner. I didn't realize how close I was to him or that he was reaching out to grab the food as I was cutting it. I saw his finger at the last possible second, just in time to move the knife away and sigh one of the biggest sighs of relief I've ever released. There have also been times when I have also turned my back for a quick second and turned back just in time to avoid disaster. In all of these instances, the worst-case-scenario of what could have happened plays over in my head several times, and I know that had I actually hurt him it would be very difficult to forgive myself. But, I also remind myself that at some point in the years of his development, accidents will happen. I will do my best to prevent them, and, of course, I hope not to cause them, but when they occur, I need to stay calm and do what is best for my son. Being a good parent isn't just about protecting him, it's also about caring for him when I am unable to protect him enough.
And so I have had this conversation with myself many times about how I will respond when the first accident occurs, and how I will try not to punish myself too much. And then it happened. He fell off the bed, and no one was quick enough to catch him. Only it wasn't me who was playing with him, it was my husband, Scott. And all of a sudden, all of that knowledge I have about how I've been close to this exact scenario several times before and how any of those times could have been different and how any day now I could look the wrong way at just the wrong second - all that went out the window. Suddenly I was filled with this righteous indignation that such a thing would never happen on my watch. I was listening to my baby cry and all I could think was "How could you let this happen?"
I found myself paralyzed. I felt anger rising up in me, but I knew I couldn't let it out. I knew deep down that it was unfair and that expressing it was going to be damaging. I kept thinking about how utterly awful I would feel had I been the one near him when he fell and how much worse it would be if my partner was yelling at me. I felt these two conflicting ideas raging within me - the emotional irrational anger versus the rational cognitive understanding. I did my best to focus on the task at hand - soothing Matthew and making sure he was alright - and not on the moments leading up to his fall. Ultimately, I think I got stuck somewhere in between my two minds, choosing not to address my husband directly until after the initial anger subsided. In all the times I had thought about how I would feel if I allowed something to happen to Matty, I never once thought about how angry Scott would be with me.
The whole ordeal lasted no more than five minutes from the moment of the fall til Matty had completely stopped crying and seemed to have forgotten it had even occurred. Once he had calmed down and I had time to think, I realized that I just as easily could have been the one playing with him by the bed. Over the last few weeks, his ability to move around has increased tenfold, and sometimes these changes happen from one day to the next. It is shocking how quickly he can get from one side of a bed to the other. A mistake was made, there is no question about it, but it does not mean that my husband isn't an excellent father (he is) or that I couldn't have made the same one (I could have).
I walked away from this whole experience with a very salient lesson in my pocket. Forgiveness is an extremely important tool in parenting. We must learn how to forgive ourselves, as I have been saying for some time. But, possibly more importantly, we need to be able to forgive our partners. Accidents can happen at any time, to any of us. Aside from cases of gross negligence, we are all doing the best we can. Even the greatest parent can make a poor judgment call at one time or another. We all know this, and yet when accidents occur, we feel our entire ability to be parents has been called into question. What we need from our partners is support and reassurance. We need to be reminded that we are wonderful parents and that everybody makes mistakes. What we do not need is to be interrogated about what we were thinking and berated for our errors. A conversation about ways to avoid similar situations may be appropriate at a later time, but in the direct aftermath of an accident, forgiving our partners can go a long way in promoting successful joint parenting.
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