Identity Crisis

by Kim Atkinson

My mom and I walked into Sears—into the lingerie department to be exact. But this time, everything looked different, surreal. The lights seemed to be casting an odd glow. People glanced at me with small knowing smiles, or just grinned. The floor felt tilted. I felt unbalanced.

In reality, Sears hadn’t changed—I had. Carrying my five-day-old baby in a corduroy Snugli, I was now a mother. My identity had changed and thus the world around me seemed altered.

A wise woman I know who thinks deeply on these things wondered aloud about a parent’s identity. Do parents go through developmental stages parallel to the stages we see in children? What happens to a person who becomes a parent? What happens to a person’s identity?

Her musings gave me quite a start. As an Early Childhood Educator, I have been reflecting on children’s development for years, but a parent’s development? A parent’s identity? An assortment of memories began to emerge.

When I had that baby 23 years ago, I searched for books, articles, anything that would validate my experience. I didn’t need “how to mother” information. I desperately needed “is this what a mother is?” confirmation. I wanted to hear stories of the vast overwhelming emotions of mothering, the wrenching fears, the crisis of confidence. I wanted to hear that it was OK to be afraid of being a parent. I wondered if I would have to give up parts of myself to be a “good” parent. The potential for making mistakes was huge! The consequences of those mistakes were even more huge! Could I still be who I was? I had already become a different person and I wanted to know if others felt the same way.

The babies grew and changed, and so did I. Each age and stage the kids went through pressed me to find different skills and adjust who I was. Being a parent of a newborn required me to be different than being a parent of a school-aged child. The world viewed me differently when I was the parent of two teens. Some stages I was pretty good at, some were tougher for me. And then the kids weren’t kids any more and moved into lives of their own and I was redefining myself again.

Throughout those years I changed. I adapted, tried out ideas, tested theories. Sometimes I had it all together and sometimes I didn’t. Sometimes I went back to old comfortable ways and found they no longer worked. At times my identity felt more like a cab driver than mother. Sometimes I felt wise. At times I really didn’t like the mother I saw myself being. Other times I was too busy to think about it. Mostly I did the best I could and tried to be satisfied with that.

I once saw a pin that aptly stated “My Real Name Isn’t Mom.” We can become caught up in being the right kind of parent, following all the right trends, reading the right books, establishing the right home and rules, making the right food. Sometimes the person, the “I” can be hiding in the shadow of the “Parent.”

Professor Aldo Fortunati, Italian author and scholar says that once we become parents, we behave as if we are no longer free to be ourselves.

“…We feel duty-bound to be always equal to the task, always accepting and tolerant, right in every circumstance, neglecting our own needs and, above all, careful not to repeat the mistakes that we have attributed to or recognized in the behaviour of our own parents,” he writes.

In my work with families I’ve observed this struggle between the “I” and the “Parent.”  The “I” really needs to sit and read the paper and have a cup of tea, but the “Parent” should be getting ready for that birthday party. I see parents who work outside the home, love it and feel guilty; and I see parents who don’t and wish they did.

And I see parents coming to a place of balance, bringing the “I” out of the shadow of the “Parent” and forging an identity that embraces both.

I think we sometimes forget that the “Parent” and the “I” are one and the same. That the strengths and limitations we have as a person are going to be the same strengths and limitations we have as a parent. The needs we have as a person will still be there as a parent. And that just as our children grow and change and try out behaviours, so too will we as parents.

I never did find any articles or books to validate my mothering feelings 23 years ago. Thankfully that has changed and there are multitudes now. Instead I listened to my mother’s stories and I had a friend to whom I could confess anything. I had a smart and tolerant husband, and a community of friends. Eventually the floor at Sears righted itself, the lights settled down and I found my balance.

Kim Atkinson is the mother of two young men and an Early Childhood Educator at Lansdowne Co-op Preschool.