therapy for prepare for parenting
26 Dec 2024last week i had an excellent session with my therapist (hi, phil!) that explored the possibility of being in therapy for the purpose of supporting my parenting. for the record, i don’t have any children “of my own,” though i have a number of nibblings who i love and care for. but over the last year and half or so, i have been clear that i do want to try to parent.
and as the year comes to close, i was exploring two possible pathways with phil about to focus on next year. one direction was focusing on family dynamics and the other was focusing on preparing myself for parenting.
as he encouraged me to think about what was behind this curiosity for me, i got clear and/or named about a few different things:
- several friends of mine have shared the following sentiment: “parenting is the hardest (and sometimes most joyous!) thing you’ll do. there are some things inside your self that you will not be able to deal with until you are faced with them with your child. in the meantime, you should do all the work you can to tend to yourself so that you’re ready to face all the things you can’t face in advance.” i really see the wisdom in this stance. so that’s one reason i might focus my therapy journey in 2025 on preparing for parenting.
- sometimes trying to prepare for something in advance is a misguided effort to control (or have control during) the experience. that’s not always what preparation is about, though. for example, we would never tell a surgeon or bridge engineer that their schooling was just their attempt to control the uncontrollable. so, although i can easily imagine myself tipping unhelpfully into control territory, i can also easily see the benefit of focusing on preparing myself to parent before actually starting to parent.
- and as a man, i feel like it’s especially important to think about parenting before i parent. given the sexist society we live in (and that i was conditioned in), i can’t even imagine how deep the sexist socialization goes within in me that shapes my ideas about what parenting is. looking at that stuff will benefit me as well any child or children i help to raise.
during the call, i brainstormed so many different areas of my life that, if explored, would/will benefit my parenting. they include how i relate to:
- money
- my body
- other people’s bodies
- spirituality
- sex
- education
- geography
- family
- friends
and that’s not even an exhaustive list! honestly, i’m a little surprised i haven’t thought about focusing on this until now. but here we are!
i have not yet decided on what i will focus on but feel free to stay tuned to future writings or just ask me which direction i chose! at the moment, i’m sort of thinking i’ll try to do 3mo of family dynamics and then the next 9 on preparing for parenting. we’ll see though!
words / writing / post-processing
506w / 19.5min / 4min