"If I Could Take on All of Their Pain, I Would"

Parents, if they love their children at all, at least sometimes worry about what their offspring might say about them in some future therapy session. We strive to love them in a way that guides them to grow up to be strong, confident, thoughtful, and caring, even as we know that the degree to which they fall short of the ideal will inevitably be blamed, at least in part, on us. It doesn't seem fair, especially since we don't get graded on a curve. Sometimes even the most ghastly parents produce saints, while the most conscientious of us are doomed to watch our children struggle and even suffer. That's because there is more at play than parenting, as important as it is. There are so many other factors involved in how any of us "turn out," from genetic to environmental, that only the most abusive and neglectful of parents will ever really know exactly what role they've played in who their child grows up to be, and what an awful knowledge that would be.

The best of us try so hard to help them, to be with them, and to absorb as much of their pain as we can. Parents often say things like, "If could take on all of their pain, I would." It's part of what human love is. In turn, we hope to shelter them from as much pain as possible, and by no means do we want or expect them to absorb any of our pain. But they love us too, and they are human too, which means that they must take on some of our pain. We're wise to avoid laying the whole awful truth on them, of course, the time for that knowledge will come soon enough, but some of our pain will always get through and they will suck it up like sponges because this is part of what it means to love. Likewise, they absorb our joys because to love is to absorb everything from another person.

I've spoken with a lot of early childhood educators over the course of the past two decades, from all over the world. On every continent we talk about loving the children we teach, in every country, in every school I've ever visited. There are those who talk about "professional love." I think I know what they mean. I think they mean that we love children in the way a therapist loves their patients: we play the role of absorber, the role of one who loves, while at the same time doing whatever we can to avoid passing on any of our pain. In other words, we try to make it, as much as humanly possible, a one-way street. The fact that most of us are so emotionally exhausted at the end of the day stems, I think, from our failure to adhere strictly to the so-called professional version of love. (Loving too much is perhaps the most forgivable of failings.)

The Christian tradition is based upon a savior who absorbs all of our sins. That's a lot of love, and what does he ask in return? Only that we love him back, unconditionally, which means, to accept the pain with the joy. The Yin Yang concept of dualism found in ancient Chinese philosophy holds that good and bad, right and wrong, lucky and unlucky, positive and negative are all a part of a single whole, which is, I think, a beautiful way to think about a loving human relationship. 

The only real sin, I think, is when we allow our fellow humans to suffer their pain alone. Without love, they will still sometimes try to pass on their pain along through violence and cruelty or else it will consume them as it turns inward in the form of addiction and other types of self-harm. So powerful is this need to absorb and be absorbed that we destroy ourselves without it.

Being a parent is a loving relationship before it is a project and passing on pain is an inevitable part of loving. The good news is that most of it, most of the time, has nothing but a temporary impact on the child: they are ready for it, they absorb it, and they process it appropriately. It's what humans do. The bad news is that some of it, some of the time, can't be easily absorbed: they are not ready for it, and then they need the help of someone else who can in turn absorb some of their pain, be it another parent, a sibling, a therapist, or a friend, and the pain goes from one to another until finally it gets fully processed. That's also what humans do.

A child's relationship with a parent is, for most, the first one. This is where we are meant to learn about the ebb and flow of both pain and joy. It's where we learn that we can ask for help and how to ask for that help. And it's also where we learn how to help others by being willing to absorb a bit of their pain. Naturally, we still strive to shelter our children, but it should also be possible for us to embrace the dualist idea that loving someone means counting on them to absorb at least a little of your pain in return. That's what humans do. It's not our role to manufacture an adult person complete with all the requisite traits. Growing up is their job. No, ours is to love them as best we can and that is a two-way street paved with joy and pain all mixed up together.

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