Beautiful exchange between mother and son

[clljhns]

I saw something yesterday that really struck me. I was driving and saw a mother holding her toddler son on her hip. They were standing near the road, as if they were waiting for someone to pick them up. I watched as the mother rocked back and forth saying something. I looked at the child and saw a beautiful smile on his face as he stuck his little finger in his mouth. I had to slow down and stare. In that brief moment, I saw the most beautiful exchange between a mother and a child. I had no idea what the mother was saying, but I realized that it was here energy of love that the boy was responding to. I thought about a baby who does not understand our language, but responds when we smile and coo at it. I realized then that is the energy of love the parent sends out to the child, and the child understands this "language".

This made me think about what my mirroring moments had to have been like with my mother and father. In such an unhappy home, I probably didn't see love in their faces, nor felt it from their energies. I have a picture of my mother holding my middle sister when she was about three months old. She has her in her lap. But she is not looking at her. She is looking away, and does not have a smile on her face, more an expression of hopelessness and helplessness.

If this is the face that greeted me as an infant, I know I learned quickly that I was not wanted or loved. I was a burden. I remember when I was about five I colored a picture and gave it to my mother. I remember the bright smile that crossed her face. A smile that I had never seen before. I was so taken with her smile that I wanted to see it again. So I colored several more pictures for her and presented them to her in anticipation of that beautiful smile. I didn't see it again. I was perplexed. I thought maybe my pictures weren't pretty enough or I had chosen the wrong colors. When I presented the last picture to her, she coldly responded, "Okay, that's enough" and I was dismissed.

I think these experiences, while locked away in my memory spurred me to always look in my daughters eyes since the day she was born. I reveled in everything she did and took delight in all of her presents, even the rocks. 

I don't know why I needed to share this, other than still trying to connect the dots. Has anyone else experienced this or had a similar aha moment?

[AsianSon]

Thank you for sharing two beautiful stories--one from your driving and the other with your daughters.       

[Sunny Side]

Nice share, clijhns.  Thank you.  Being the youngest of three I don't remember seeing my mom or dad nurse or hold infants, even infants of other family friends.  My brother and I being just two years apart and my sister being 10 years older, my brother was my only reference point for parental affection bestowed on someone similar to me.  My parents were not overly affectionate or emotional -- not uncommon for many from the postwar generation -- but I didn't realize this until I was a young adult and saw how other parents showed outward affection to their children.  Ironically I never felt "unloved" but am sure this absence of affection and emotional support influenced my empathic tendencies toward others.  I took great pride at being able to "see" behind people's masks and into that quiet, inner reserve which seems to gravitate people towards one another regardless of how we were nurtured.  The energy which leads strangers to strike up conversation as 'old friends' or of like children -- Were you not hugged, too? -- in adult bodies that hurl towards each other like charged atoms.  I think this tendency resurfaced in my r/s with my uBPDex in that my bond to her -- the trauma bond -- was of one emotionally abandoned child to another.  Add in triangulation, idealization, mirroring, some white knight and rescuing behaviors on my part and the particle was fully charged.

I told my T just this week that throughout my life I have been drawn to displays of helpless suffering -- think: families and children caught up in war, people or animals being harmed or treated cruelly, people suffering from loneliness or alienation from others -- and conversely displays of selfless love.  A stranger leaps onto a subway track to save someone from death, risking his/her own life to do so.  People being kind to others just to be kind.  I suppose it's because this is the energy I want directed towards me.  The idea that no one deserves to be neglected, mistreated, left alone or unloved in fact means I do not want to be neglected, mistreated, left alone or unloved myself.

Just writing this I thought of a memory from my life like the one you mentioned in your post.  Years ago in college I was in a library and observed a young mother sitting at a table reading from a book to her young son.  He seemed to be having difficulty understanding what she was reading to him but was patient as she continued the lesson.  I remember being struck because to me it represented "language" you speak of in your post.   That kid would be an adult by now, and it would be interesting to see the residual effects of this parent-to-child language and if indeed it manifested in love.

[clljhns]

Thank you AsianSon  and Sunny Side. I am glad that this struck a cord with you. I think we are more sensitive to these exchanges because we did not experience this in childhood. It is rather a foreign site for me to witness real warmth and love between a parent and a child. Guess this only shows that this a part of myself that needs more attention.

Last night I spoke with a childhood friend that I haven't talked to in 32 years. For the first time in our lives, we spoke of our experiences in childhood. I told her that I knew on a deeper level in middle school that she was being abused, but never said anything. She confirmed this. I think that you are right Sunny Side. We are far more in tune with people who have similar experiences. It is like there is this energy that reaches out to touch the soul of the other person in recognition.

Journey on---