“The one who loves and forgives unconditionally, who has limitless tolerance, is not the parent, contrary to popular belief, but the child. The child loves their parents no matter how they behave and this is where the child’s drama lies. The mother or father is at ease because deep down, they know that no matter what they do, the child will continue to love and respect them, and will forgive them.”
Can you hear this sentence and act as if you haven’t? I doubt it. Weren’t we the self-sacrificing ones? The ones who said, “I carried you in my womb for nine months, I nursed you for months”? How can someone say that the one who loves and forgives is the child? And who exactly is that?
This sentence belongs to Nihan Kaya. It’s from her 10th book “İyi Aile Yoktur” (“There is No Such Thing as a Good Family”). She has five novels, two short story collections, and two analytical books.
“İyi Aile Yoktur” is a striking phrase. It makes you stop and think. It’s followed by: “Or the paradox is that the good family is the one who acts on the principle that ‘there is no such thing as a good family’.” The first sentence hits hard, but it doesn’t leave you without a way out, saying, “If you got caught on this hook, come see, there’s an exit.”
“İyi Aile Yoktur” is a revolutionary book. These thoughts have not been expressed like this before by anyone whose mother tongue is Turkish in this land. It is revolutionary because it talks about things we’ve never criticized or questioned, things we haven’t fully realized and highlighted. It turns upside down the sacred concepts we have, like motherhood, the sacred family, and parental sacrifice.
It looks at life from the child’s perspective. It looks through the child’s short height, their frail body…
It comes from their unfamiliarity with the words we’ve loaded with thousands of experiences and lessons…
It looks at their forced adaptation to a world shaped by adults…
It looks at the fact that they didn’t choose to come into this world.
It throws the ball to us, the adults. To those who choose to become parents. It says:
“A grown-up has the right and freedom to decide whether or not to have children. An adult who does not use this right is obligated to meet all the needs of the child they have given birth to.”
Of course, it doesn’t say, “Be perfect people, perfect parents.” It’s someone grounded in reality who says this. When you become a parent, a new person will emerge from the depths of your soul. This person, shaped by your childhood experiences and the parenthood you’ve seen, will continue in your behavior toward your child if you don’t first notice and then heal your wounds.
“All parents cause their children to suffer the pain of their own traumas, unless they have overcome them and fully accepted the blame of their parents in that trauma.”
I kept thinking, after reading this book, that we adults have created a world where it’s quite difficult to be a child with our huge bodies, rules, voices, and imaginary systems. And I always felt sorry for the children living in the land of giants, like Gulliver.
After reading the book extensively, I met with Nihan Kaya one day, wanting to hear her words from her voice and complete these thoughts with an image.
A porcelain-like woman stood before me. Thin, pure white, elegant, shiny. She seemed as if she could break with a gentle touch or float away with a balloon… I ask her:
What makes a good mother/family?
She says, “Good mothers are those who question their own motherhood and aren’t disturbed by the phrase ‘there is no such thing as a good family.’ They accept that they might make mistakes and, in doing so, create an opportunity to correct those mistakes.”
What is wrong with our perception of children?
We see the child as something that belongs to us. A passive being to be shaped, to be educated. But the child is born with their own knowledge. Only when we see the child as separate from us can we respect them. We can understand that they have their own preferences, a body separate from ours, and a personality that is entirely their own. As Alice Miller said, “All children are born with some traits that are contrary to what their parents expect, and this is perfectly normal.”
What is the best thing a family can give a child?
I believe it’s respect. We say love, but other things are mixed into love. Maybe all families love enough, but not sufficiently. What we owe each other is not love but respect. Here, respect means recognizing that the child is a person with their own personality, separate from us.
Can we elaborate on respect a little?
Without realizing it, we impose some things on the child.
– We can get angry at them, but they can’t get angry at us.
– We can criticize the child, but they can’t criticize us.
– And the child can’t be sad, they shouldn’t be sad, we forbid the child from expressing negative emotions.
However, we must respect all of the child’s negative emotions. This applies not just to children, but to all of us. What really makes a person sick is not the pain itself, but the prohibition of expressing negative emotions. Without realizing it, we teach the child from an early age: “I love you this way, but not when you cry. I don’t want you to oppose me. I want you to do this in this way.” The child then interprets it like this: “My mother and father love me this way, but when I am not like this, they don’t respect me, they don’t accept me.”
Do we see the child as they are, or do we view them through our own dreams and expectations?
Every child has their own voice, and the purpose of my book is to ask the question: “How can we help our child hear their own voice?” We need to hear it, and they need to hear it. Because if an adult does not have a willing ear to listen to the child, the child won’t learn to hear themselves and communicate with themselves. And in our long adult lives, one of the biggest obstacles to communicating with ourselves is this.
In the book, you say there are no problematic children; there are problematic parents, teachers, schools, and societies. Let’s talk about that.
When a parent has a child, they return to their own childhood, but they don’t realize it. They see their own cracks in the child like a mirror. Not knowing this, they believe the problem comes from the child. However, if a child displays unwanted behavior, instead of saying “my child is problematic,” we should stop and think first: “Is my child really problematic, or do I see them that way?”
There’s also the self-sacrifice aspect of parenting, leading to the indebtedness of the child (the “I sacrificed my hair” mentality).
Human offspring are born more dependent on care than any other species. This is obvious. As an adult, I can appreciate how difficult it is from the start and decide whether or not to take it on. Many parents have children without thinking about it. Then they blame the child for the difficulties they face. Think about the struggles you had while pregnant: yes, I had nausea, and it wasn’t sacred, it was awful. But I chose this. The child has nothing to do with it. I willingly entered this, and my child is not responsible for it. If I say that, then my child doesn’t come into the world as a victim.
I must admit how difficult it is to deal with nausea or waking up at night. Winnicot has an article titled “A Mother’s 28 Reasons to Hate Her Child.” The mother is also in a dilemma: everyone pressures the woman to become a mother, but once she is one, she’s not allowed to express the difficulties she faces. At the same time, the sacredness of motherhood allows her to justify mistakes toward the child.
There is no institution or person preparing women for the mental or physical burdens of motherhood. If people were aware of this, some might choose not to have children, or they might be better prepared.
Research suggests that children who are heavily abused are often the result of unwanted pregnancies. Furthermore, we should think about whether a woman or man truly wants a child, or if they’re simply fulfilling society’s wishes. This is why the knowledge that parenthood will reopen a person’s own wounds must be shared with adults thinking about having children. They should also be informed about the physical challenges. Unfortunately, this isn’t done enough.
Yes, women aren’t prepared for the mental challenges either.
Yes, because women are told, “It’s easy.” Yet, not every mother feels like a mother as soon as she gives birth. It’s made to seem like all mothers instantly bond with their child, and the physical challenges will be easily overcome. And when the mother struggles, she doesn’t have the chance to express it openly.
She thinks, “I’m doing a sacred job; I must do it perfectly.”
I think she takes out her frustration on the child. She takes it out on the child, but makes it seem like she’s doing it for the child’s good. Because everyone thinks this way, we can’t see the truth. All of this stems from the attribution of sacredness. It’s like a chain. If we go to the beginning of that chain, we can open up the things that prevent us from seeing the truth.
Finally, what should we say to close?
Actually, no child wants to upset their mother. All of the child’s bad behaviors are due to their attempt to prove themselves. When a child displays unacceptable behaviors, we might ask ourselves, “Why is my child behaving like this, and what can I make them feel so that this behavior decreases?” And we need to allow ourselves the right to get frustrated and struggle, because constantly trying to be a good mother prevents us from hearing our child’s unique voice and getting to know them. We are so busy trying to be a good mother that we miss the opportunity to truly understand our child.
The best thing we can do for our child is to accept them as they are.
This way, the child will feel valuable.
And a child who feels valuable will enjoy what they do and life itself.
As long as we achieve this, the child won’t let themselves be crushed.
They won’t look for happiness in trying to please others…
So, the only thing we can do for our child’s happiness is to help them feel valuable.
Damla Çeliktaban
October 8, 2018
