I will not apologize for my childrens’ behavior

Dear Family and Friends,

I will not apologize for my kids’ behavior.  My kids are a reflection of their parents, their family, community and school.  They also reflect society, including the political climate, racism and classism and all the toxic “food” they are consuming.  Unresolved trauma from our ancestors is also passed down to our kids.  If you disagree with me, well just take a look at the last few years of the pandemic.  Kids mental health issues have skyrocketing.

 My own journey to healing and consciousness reflects positively in my kids. I often notice that when I come back from plant medicine ceremonies, they seem happier. I even remember coming back to my son’s decision to do better in math. And I once remember reaching out to him in the middle of a plant medicine ceremony and he won 1st place at a martial arts tournament that weekend while I was away. 

 But it takes a lot more work than just a weekend sitting in ceremony.  Breaking the cycle of trauma takes a huge amount of courage, effort, money, social support.  I thank my kids, and need to thank them more and more, for leading me down this path.  I do it for them and I do it for myself.

 I thought I had a happy childhood when I was growing up, and even into my 40s.  What I buried was the alcoholism of my father, and my mother who did her best to shield us from this. I also buried the intergenerational trauma of anxiety, that stemmed from poverty and starvation. I buried the feelings of invisibility and being bullied and neglected for the 5 years that I lived in Canada.  There also existed racism as a Chinese immigrant.   

 As a young child, my parents were physically apart due to the political climate of Jamaica in the 1970s. My mother, two brothers and I were in Toronto, while my dad stayed in Jamaica to work and he would visit once/month. My mother did her best trying to work full time and take care of three children all on her own, but this came at a huge price for me.  She was not emotionally available to me.  I remember banging my head and splitting open my eyebrow.  My brother and I decided to try and treat it rather than wake my mom up.  I have since walked through my life feeling like I had no voice and trying not to take up any space. 

 Probably the biggest thing I buried was my own sexual abuse as a teenager.  And when this happened, I could not tell anyone.  The “Asian Shame” was too great. My parents didn’t understand my behavior and I just remember my dad yelling at me because I was hanging out with the wrong person.

 The wounds of my childhood are deep, and the fix is not a quick pill or even a daily pill from the medical industrial complex who truly would like to us to stay un-conscious and unwell.

 It all came crashing down when I had twins in 2012.  No longer can you fake it, though I tried for years. I was so anxious as a mother. I didn’t even know how to ask for help.  And I had two of them.  Their father didn’t take any time off work and I was left at home alone to take care of them.   The previous survival mechanisms we used as adults to get by, to be successful in our lives don’t work on our children.  Those energy sensors can see right through you and what they are asking you to do is fix your shit!  Heal from your trauma.

 I didn’t even know what a boundary was until I was 48 years old.  Victims of sexual trauma are physically violated and therefore their boundaries are violated from the most intimate place, their souls. However, even before that, I was never taught what a boundary was.  My mother had no boundaries to her own soul’s detriment.  She lived and breathed for my father’s needs.  She never took care of her own needs.  Energetically she didn’t know where she ended and her family began.  I’m sure it was like that for her mother, and her mother before that.  And so it was with this way of being that I took into my teenaged years where I met someone who violated me over and over again until somehow my spirit knew to stop.  But I buried that trauma deep inside and even “forgot” that it happened. I didn’t tell one single person, because I learned from early childhood that the only person I could depend on was myself.

 I picked up what was left of me, head down, powered through college, medical school, residency, a very successful career including my work in developing nations, and being chief of my service;  all along catering to other people’s needs, again not knowing where I ended and the other began.  Everyone around me I was the most amazing person, because I was so helpful, and so caring and tried my hardest to do the right thing for everyone around me.  I was considered one of the best residents, because I worked the hardest, and put myself last. (This was before there ever any rules for resident work hours)

 It was all a lie.  This was me trying to escape from my past. 

I ended up choosing a life partner and having twins with a person who is equally, if not even more traumatized from his own childhood.  He is over-reactive, overly punitive and hyper vigilant.  He yells a lot (claims that he is hard of hearing), swears continuously, speaks disrespectfully to me and completely unaware.  I remember Thanksgiving when my daughter was 8 years old, and she dropped a pie on the floor.  He got so mad, she ran to her room in tears.  No one else at the dinner party seemed to care.  He has de-humanized the twins on multiple occasions, especially my daughter, who once told me after she was completely dehumanized “give me a knife so I can stab myself”.  It has been emotionally abusive for about 10 years now.  This too, is about to end.

 So here I am, with two highly sensitive children, who are growing up with both parents with Post Traumatic Stress disorder and anxiety, trying to make sense of the dysregulation around them.  One twin became very anxious, and the other became defiant.  When they were younger, before they had much agency, I would often come home to two well behaved children, but the minute I walk through the door, they lose their own centers and become dysregulated.  Why? because they are so energy sensitive, and they pick up on my hidden internal conflict. This was the first several years of their lives. 

 When they were 6 years old, I went to Peru and started doing plant medicine ceremonies.  It was obvious that their behavior improved when I came back. I was more centered.  But this effect was not long lasting, because I had to continue to do the work and look at my own shadow.  The twins too continue to grow and pick up more and more of the negative influence all around them.  Their parents constantly fighting, the negative energy of living in a big city, and the pandemic.  Then at the age of 9, they lost one of their best friends.  To face death at such an early age, at that young age of 9 when you finally do understand loss and impermanence, catastrophic.  My son has had sleeping problems ever since, and my daughter- well you can feel the hardening in her heart.

 Why do adults, including my own family, continually forget this? They judge, they get angry, they get triggered by my children, who by the way, are not alone in their struggles. The other kids at school also struggle with their own family trauma of abandonment from one parent, or a parent in jail, physical abuse and other issues that are sadly way too common.

 When an adult is rude or angry and behaves badly, what do we do?  A post by Dr Shefali Tsabary states “We excuse their behavior”.  In fact, we excused one of them all the way to the White House. But with kids? Why do we expect them to be perfect.  Why do we expect the smallest of our community, those with the fewest resources, the most vulnerable, to behave perfectly?

 It is our job as adults to teach them how to behave well.  But we can only do so after we have done our own internal work.  I can only speak when my throat chakra has opened back up, which means I have to work through those childhood wounds of being invisible. It is only with that voice can I teach them, otherwise my words are ineffective, because they have no energy behind them.

I can only help with my son’s feelings of being hurt and disappointed by things if I have worked through my own anxiety about these things. If my daughter competes in a sport and loses, I need to be able to handle her disappointment also.  How do I feel with failure? Do I have shame over it due to something that happened to me as a child?  It might be so bad that I am afraid to let my daughter compete.  

 So next time you see my kid acting up, perhaps my son invading my personal boundary and poking at my arm, or my daughter talking non-stop and trying to control everyone around her, take a deep breath and pause. Offer yourself self-compassion. Then try this mantra from Dr Justina Tseng.  “No blame, shame, or guilt.  Everyone is doing the best they can”. Say that to yourself over and over again.  And then if that works, feel free to help me out in any small way.  Offer me a hug, a drink, a smile that says “I see you”; or distract my child from what he or she is doing. And if you cannot do that, then walk away, because I do not need judgement or criticism.  What I need is love and support.

 I write this 5 years after my first trip to Peru, over 40 plant medicine ceremonies, several Kundalini activation sessions; and on-going psychotherapy.  I’m in a much better place now but the journey of healing never ends, but all you need to do is get started.  The children in your life know, they see it, and you will see it too.