Photo By Gracie Justice
As parents, we can’t possibly be 100% present for every request from toddlers to teens to “Watch, Mommy! Listen to this!” or the gut-wrenching soul slap of a poised teenager standing in front of you while calmly saying, “Please put your phone down and look at me and listen when I’m standing right in front of you to share something that’s exciting to me.” (I’m still pulling the slivers of arrow from that one.) Oy, the guilty heart of being imperfect parents in a world of relentless competing demands on our attention.
Luckily, we don’t have to be perfect to be good. We can offer our full presence at specific moments throughout each day. I cherish the mornings when my daughter climbs into my bed to share the dreams she had, while I sip my morning tea. As I listen and nod and ask clarifying questions, she goes deeper into the possible meaning. Watching her glean insights from her own subconscious is like watching a flower open for the pleasure of its own scent. To witness a child who feels loved because they have their parent’s full undivided attention (at least for a few minutes each day) is to witness the birth of human kindness flourish in another. For as she is taking in what it means to be fully heard and seen, she is also practicing the act of love: to be present and fully see and hear others. Our children learn how to love, in part, by how we love them.
Sometimes we’re busy, and interruptions aren’t welcome; and we start to feel anxious in our resistance to being present for someone who is longing for our attention. When we rush our loved one to “get to the point” in the story they want to share, we miss out on the “um” and “but” moments—the natural pauses in which sweet smiles peek through and eyes flicker from the reflection of our faces lighting up when we see them—and they know they’ve been seen. Those are the electric beams of oxytocin, the magic serum moments that make us feel good. They write the story of the connection we create between the lines of the story being told. The more we allow ourselves to relax into these moments, the more relaxed we feel from the flood of oxytocin we exchange and therefore, the more we naturally begin to reshape our priorities to be present for those moments.
When we surrender to the loving invitation for our attention by a loved one and we give our children, spouses, and our friends our full presence, we make and form deep connections. Our blood pressure regulates, our breaths become fuller and deeper, we relax; and in being present for another, we become present for ourselves.
One of the most poignant lessons parents learn happens through the hindsight of the rear-view mirror: dinner, the to-do list, and social media scrolls can wait—listening to them tell you a story, or watching that handstand, or giving that extended cuddle, will not. For what we deem to be exhausting demands on our attention during the early years of childhood—become longed for moments of connection as our children age and grow into independence.
While I’d rather inspire people through love and rewards versus fear and consequences, it’s also worth noting that if we’re not the parental figures listening to our children, they will find someone our age who can be. Another 13-year-old girl from my hometown recently went missing. The police found that a 36-year-old man had “friended” her online. Our children seek not only attention from peers, but guidance; and if we want to protect them, it’s our job to be attentive to them. When we listen to them, they are more apt to listen to us, and our guidance. Showing up as parents, fully present, as often as we can, is both an incredible responsibility and rewarding gift.
If dinner doesn’t get done on time or we’re late to wherever we’re supposed to be because we allowed ourselves the grace to be present and attentive to someone we love, so be it. At the end of our life we will string together the pearls of memories that matter to us most; I promise you, being that parent who is always on time will not matter as much as being the parent who was present for their child.
Sage Justice is achingly sincere. Balancing wisdom and humor she most often writes deeply personal solution based pieces about the enduring virtues that connect us all: love and healing. She is an award-winning playwright and critically acclaimed performing artist who has appeared on stages from Madison Square Garden in New York City, to The Comedy Store in Hollywood, California. Ms. Justice is the author of Sage Words FREEDOM Book One, an activist, a member of the Screen Actors Guild and an alumna Artist-In-Residence of Chateau Orquevaux, France. She is a co-founder of The Unity Project which fuses activism with art, to educate and inspire, with a special emphasis on community engagement to end homelessness. She has a series of short reels about living with the rare genetic disorder, Vascular Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome that you can find in a highlight reel on her Instagram page @SageWords2027.
Thanks for the ReStack, Emily.