Weak boundaries from childhood and parenting today

This morning, when I took my small son to nursery, I had a sudden insight about my upbringing and what I need to do differently with my own child. 

The incident was - thankfully! - just an everyday, harmless occurrence, but for me my reaction and the implications carry a wider significance.

This is what happened: For the past year my son has been very good friends with another boy in his class, who we will call Tim for the purposes of this blog. Both Tim's parents, me and the nursery staff have encouraged this relationship. We were excited that they were socialising so beautifully, their play and communication totally in sync. It was lovely to see. 

But recently, their relationship has hit a bit of a rough patch. There has been some mutual winding up and recently they fell out after Tim pushed my son, resulting in both of them bursting into heart-rending sobs and tears.  But they are still great friends. The nursery staff have had to sit them apart at activities, only to see them back to being as thick as thieves with each other moments later. It seems their issues stem from the intensity of their relationship - they have they grown a little weary of each other, which is understandable.   

When we arrived in his classroom this morning, Tim rushed up to my son, ready to start playing, trying to grab him. But my son ignored him, in fact he tried to get away from him as Tim attempted to hug him and get his attention. Eventually Tim gave up and, looking sad and dejected. I felt sorry for him, so I asked my son: "Why don't you play nicely with him?" To which my son replied, with Tim out of earshot: "Tim is not my best friend."

Now my immediate, involuntary response to this was to pull a face and to say: "Oh, don't say that! It's not very nice!"

But then I caught myself: Why on earth was I chastising him for just expressing what to him is a fact, a fact which reflects his feelings? Why am I denying him the right to feel whatever he wants? And I immediately knew the answer:  Because this is exactly what my mother would have done.  

It's not as if this is the first time I discover this aspect to my mother, but it has been a while since it has reared its head in my own actions towards my son. I am not sure if this was due to her strict Catholic upbringing, but as far as she was concerned, if we had an issue with someone, be it an adult or a child, teacher or friend, it was always because we were flawed, not them. If we got into trouble at school, it was undoubtedly because we deserved it. The general assumption was that we were bad and that we had to sacrifice ourselves, our needs and wishes, accommodate others, whose needs were more important. 

If someone had wronged us, she would defend them, never fighting our corner, never consoling us. It was as if she was ashamed of me, and I often felt dirty, flawed, wrong. This meant I never went to her with any emotional or relationship difficulties, not past a certain age anyway, I think at around 9 years old. This is also when her physical affection towards me stopped.  

Looking back, my mother threw me to the lions repeatedly, not least with my ex-husband towards whom she still has a degree of loyalty that makes me deeply uncomfortable. I have learnt just to live with it, but that is the subject of another post.

I guess it just did not occur to my mother that sometimes I, as a child and as a teenager, needed her protection, that  I needed my feelings and instincts validated by her so that I could learn to value and protect myself, to set my own boundaries. The message her neglect on this front gave me was: You are worthless. Other people are more important than you. 

This was difficult for me growing up but it became downright dangerous later on in my life, when I started getting into relationships and being sexually active. I had been taught to ignore and override my instincts at all times and I felt deep guilt if I wanted to be assertive or set limits with people. I felt I literally had no right to do so. Who was I to tell someone how to treat me or not treat me? Often it didn't even occur to me that setting boundaries was an option for me. 

I was quite bolshy in general, but I reacted to abusive and manipulative boyfriends by being submissive and accepting. Even with some friends I struggled to set boundaries, cutting them off altogether rather than going through the discomfort of being assertive when I didn't even feel I was entitled to ask for or insist on anything.

Anyway, to get back to the little conversation in the nursery classroom, I decided there and then that this was not a legacy I wanted to bequeath to my son, So I briefly took him aside and said: "Listen, you can be friends with anyone you like, that is okay. Just don't say this stuff to Tim's face because he might get upset."  

To me this is still not ideal -- I would have wanted to elaborate more on how to choose your friends and to speak out if you don't like the way you are being treated. But I was caught off guard and it was the best I could come up with there and then. I will definitely have another conversation with him about it layer today, a conversation in which I will not chastise him or deny his feelings, whatever they may be.