Isn’t it nice when someone pays special attention to you? On your birthday…or, Mother’s Day…or, just any day? My soul position is alienation regarding certain people – people whom I would normally celebrate or expect to celebrate with me on the calendar days… That happens. But I’m married with kids who still like to do that stuff, so I should get to enjoy brunch or, a movie or, whatever I like with my kids while I can. It’s nice to get that attention.

But what if the someone paying special attention to you is your only son? Your middle child..?

I had the thought: Am I making my kids codependent? Maybe worrying is part of love, but I don’t want my son to be worried about me. For that matter, I don’t want any of my children to feel as if they need to cater to me. Maybe I’m saying: I don’t want my children to be codependent with me. They don’t need to feel like they have to make me happy in order to be happy.

And as their parent, I guess it’s really a big part of my job to make sure that I’m not teaching them to engage “Momma” that way.

I need to jump in here – to this blog post of mine – and say, I’m not even sure I’m defining codependency accurately – that is, for psychological or, psychiatric purposes. A friend of mine shared this idea with me. “Idea” is as precise as I can be about what I understand as the term and definition of codependency… She learned through therapy about this idea – this notion, codependency.

I’d heard of codependency before and had always been curious about what it actually looks like. And when I heard: Codependency looks like one person trying to please an incessantly unhappy/unsatisfied/needy person; I started to see it everywhere. I saw it in my children’s relationship stories. I saw it in friendships. I never expected to see it relating to me.

But then I started looking up in the middle of conversations – especially when I was berating my husband… You shouldn’t berate people, especially your husband, unless you want to see things like I saw: My son or, possibly, our other children…looking back and forth between us. He or they would be considering us. And at some point, he or they would decide: It’s time to jump in here and please my mom – before she decimates Dad.

Imagine my horror.

All because of my intention to be transparent as well as my childish need to express my feelings right now, I’m putting pressure on my own kids to perform for me. In order to calm me down… I write about this elsewhere, and I’m beginning to learn: I have to use the self-control and restraint that I have inside of me, because Jesus lives there. I abide in Christ, and because of what God the Holy Spirit is teaching me – through the therapy close relations are receiving and, moments of self-awareness that God’s wisdom gives me – I can grow as a parent.

I have to be honest: I just responded with the middle finger to my husband over a comment he made about my food giving him a stomachache. So… It’s quite obvious. I have some growing up to do!