The Parenting Fear No One Discusses

The unexpected way your child's social life reopens old wounds

No one talks about this part of parenting

You hear of the endless laundry and the dishes. The power struggles over the blue or green bowl. You hear of the stressful mornings and the delayed bedtimes and middle of the night awakenings. You hear of snotty noses and skinned knees.

We talk about doing it differently than our parents. The rerouting of the giant ship that was generational conditioning and how many of us are learning to parent for the first time in real time.

We talk about all of these things, but there is a part of parenting we keep to ourselves.

No one seems to talk about how your child’s social life can rip open old wounds.

Photo by Lucas Pezeta

You don’t share about the pit in your stomach when your child is rejected at the playground. How a random toddler ignoring their bid to connect can make you feel small and rejected, too.

No one mentions how you will want to turn invisible when a schoolmate hisses at your son that his team “sucks”.

Your child is still oblivious, but you know.

You know the heartbreak of rejection and the social death that can accompany the slightest embarrassment. You know what’s coming and how painful it’s going to be.

“Is it happening already???,” you wonder anxiously, eyes darting around the yard for the next threat. You weren’t prepared for their innocence to be stripped quite this soon.

You hold their hand a little tighter and give them a little extra squeeze when you hear them say “hi” to a group of kids who promptly ignore him. Did they really not hear him? Did he even notice?

You grip so tight that they wiggle away and suddenly they’re running after those same kids and you imagine racing ahead and scooping him up and scolding the other children to be kind.

Your child is special, funny and kind. He’s sensitive and whip smart. He’s not “too much”. He’s not too loud, too hyper, too silly, too wiggly, too broody.

He is right-sized. It’s the world that’s not big enough.

You hear laughter. Is that snickering? You imagine gripping your child in your arms even tighter.

And that’s when you realize the child in your arms is not your son…

He is the one laughing, none the wiser with the very same group of kids who you thought slighted him earlier.

The child in your arms is you.

No one talks about this part of parenting.

The part where you are nurturing your inner child right alongside your child.