There’s a wisdom-y nugget that gets bandied about these days that goes something like this: be the adult you needed as a kid. I don’t know who said it first. I could invoke my magical former librarian powers and confirm attribution and the exact quotation by consulting authoritative sources, but that sounds like work. Plus, I’ve a hunch it might confirm nothing more than that, just as to my knowledge no one has yet proved that Margaret Mead said that one thing about never doubting yadda yadda yadda, no one is certain who first said the “be the adult you needed as a kid” thing, either.
Since I first encountered the notion several years ago, I’ve wondered, if I were to be the adult I’d needed as a child, what would that look like? What would such an adult have said and done on my behalf when I was growing up? What would such an adult me say and do now? I’ve grappled with this repeatedly, as in my volunteer work I run in the sorts of circles where this maxim and ones like it get a lot of airtime—circles where adults endeavor to reduce the incidence of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), and, where ACEs have already occurred or can’t be avoided, to minimize their impact.
Granted, for people who have children, this idea may be no revelation. For many parents, it may be a part of the package and perhaps even what drives their approach to raising their children. My husband and I do not have children, so the idea, while not exactly a new on me, was not one to which I’d given much thought.
The presence of one caring, supportive adult in the life of a child who is experiencing or has experienced a traumatic event (or, more likely, multiple traumatic events or circumstances, since those suckers tend to run in packs) can lessen the effects of ACEs. So, as you might imagine, since many of these circle-running adults experienced trauma during their own childhoods—statistics and stuff!—the question of how best to accomplish this never gets a moment’s rest.
Each time I’ve tried to conjure up this version of “adult me”, I’ve drawn a blank. I have failed to identify what kind of adult support might have mitigated the damage done, way back when and in the long-term.
At last it has dawned on me why I keep coming up empty.
[To read the rest of this blog post by Agnes Birdsong, click here.]
[Photo: Pixabay]
Comments (0)