The smaller and younger you are, the larger moments are. When an infant, moments are the world. They are everything.
And they are not remembered. This is fascinating. Many people’s entire lives are virtually governed at the deepest level by things they cannot recall.
I say this, because I got to such a moment this morning. It was painful, but bittersweet. It was not a memory, per se, but an image that led to a body feeling that told me it was a memory. Your body remembers, or “keeps the score”, as Bessel van der Kolk put it in his excellent book.
I will share an only semi-related story that I offer as what I think is good advice.
With both of my kids, when they were old enough to understand language, whenever they were trying to do something I would ask them to try to do it on their own, and only after an effort–I think I usually used the word struggle–could and should they ask me to help.
Now, when very little, that “struggle” might last all of five seconds, and then I would help them. But over time it became longer and longer. The idea was there. They knew they had to try, and they knew I was always there to assist in the end.
Much of the pleasure in life–most of our authentic and earned happiness–comes from struggle, which gives rise to flow. As Milli Chicksentmili (I think I am just going to spell it that way in the future so I don’t have to look it up every time) describes it, the flow state is riding a wave between too little challenge and too much.
Virtually all useful learning comes from voluntarily placing ourselves in a state where we have some control, but not complete control. We have to let the world work on us while we work on the world. It’s a dance, a pas de deux.
I believe I must have told this story some years ago. I mention it now because I mentioned this to my oldest the other day, and she had no memory of it. But the power of her own will is in her body. The lesson was learned.
I would strongly encourage anyone with children to do this. Your first impulse, because you love them, is to do things for them. But they will leave you. This is their destiny and birthright. You prepare them for adulthood in infancy. Your job is to raise children who do not need you at all.