I’ve heard it said that parenting is like a balancing act. Lean too far off the balance beam one way, and you’ve got problems. Lean too far to the other side, and there are problems there, too. There are natural and sometimes very severe consequences for messing up the balancing act, not to mention trying to respond well while juggling the opinion of the judges, experiencing competition from the other gymnasts, and the distractions of the crowd. Parenting takes grit, determination, strength, knowledge, and so. much. effort. Like the balance beam, parenting is a risk. But, most who have done it say it’s a risk worth taking.
Then, there’s coparenting and blended families. Two households; two balance beams. Two different ways of handling all the pressure. It’s so tempting to give in to the desire to compete instead of cooperate. The kids are right there watching in their front row seats, so more than anything in the world, you want to stick your landing for them. Parenting already requires a great deal of teamwork, but now you and your teammate are no longer wearing the same uniform. Still, you show up and keep giving it your best effort. Eventually, you find coaches and fans who cheer you on from your different corners and you each find ways to meet in the middle. With the right commitment and the right training, it can be a beautiful performance with plenty of variety and creativity that benefits everyone.
There’s also the solo parent who never planned to train alone. One person. Two events at the same time. Your teammate would have done the second event, but they aren’t here for the foreseeable future. Or, they may never be here again at all. You’ll have to do your own training as well as theirs. The gold medals you see other people taking home feel way too far out of reach for you. It’s okay to feel angry and disappointed, because it is straight up impossible what you have to do now. Still, you dry your tears, dip your hands back in the chalk, and choose to listen only to a coach who recognizes that good enough is still plenty good enough. You learn to stop comparing yourself to the gold medalists who hear the crowd go wild and glisten in the spotlights. You show up anyway because the kids in that front row matter so much more than the opinion of some judge handing out scores on your hardest day.
Next, there’s the older parents who had to wait a long, long time for your spot on the team. Or, the ones who are back in the game after finishing one competition only to discover you’ve suddenly got to do it all over again. Your bodies are not like the other much younger athletes. Regardless of whether you fell after slipping in the shower this morning or in the middle of an intense competition, there’s a lot less cartilage to absorb that impact. Thankfully, less cartilage usually comes with more experience. You know how to slow things down so you can play smarter, not harder. You’re more likely to keep your eyes focused on the end goal rather than getting thrown off balance by distractions from the crowd. You know when to say no. You overcome the inertia of your age by recognizing that every day you get to be here with your kids is a privilege.
Finally, there’s another category that many people don’t realize even exists until they have experienced it for themselves: the counter-parents and protective parents. I know about this one because I live here on this island. I have always found parenting to be the hardest job in the world, so please understand that I am in no way attempting to invalidate the difficulty that is parenting in general. I’m just trying to help people understand what it’s like and perhaps leave those of us navigating this isolated path with some hope. Above all, I want to encourage a greater sense of community among everyone who is involved in this balancing act we call parenting.
You see, it all started when I spoke up about my teammate hurting me when no one else was watching. Whenever he had a misstep in his routine, I was somehow the one falling to the ground. Before long, I realized I was actually being pushed by him because he couldn’t face his own mistakes. I learned to tell him to stop pushing me down. I learned to say how I wanted to be treated instead. When he didn’t listen, I chose to take space from him for a bit. All the while, I was still seeking to give him another chance so we could try again. There were ripples of disbelief from the judges and the crowd when I wasn’t around anymore. Still, I wanted us to stay in the game even if we needed to remain on different teams.
The trouble was, that’s not how he felt. Without me around to take the shame and blame for his missteps directly, he pulled the kids out of their front row seats and started hurting them because it was the only way he could still hurt me. Since I wasn’t there, I didn’t know it was happening at first. Then, when one of them spoke up just a little bit, I had trouble believing what I didn’t see. I could accept that he was willing to hurt me, but I couldn’t accept that he’d be willing to hurt our kids, too. Over a period of several months, I started to see signs of the hurt that I could no longer ignore. And, eventually, one of the kids came right out and said what was happening. Detail after detail began to come out. I begged and begged for someone to help my children. To help me know how to help my children. The answers were always the same:
“No one believes you. You’re crazy.”
“No one believes them. They’re just kids.”
“You’re the one who is hurting them because you won’t shut up about this.”
“Just be quiet and stop bothering everyone.”
Protective parenting is less like a balance beam under the lights, over the padding, surrounded by people. It’s more like walking a tightrope for the first time, alone, between two mountain peaks, in the dense fog, with who-knows-what at the bottom. There is no one around to catch me if I fall. I am not even sure how I got here, let alone how to make it across. On one side of the tight rope, I have the option of protecting my kids. On the other side, I have the option of not protecting them. Either way that I choose, I will fall off. Within the broken systems of the country where I live, I am supposed to place my feet exactly on the fine line between protecting them too much and not protecting them enough. In the eyes of the court and child protection, if there is a dead body, that is a problem because everyone will know. However, if there is a dead soul within a live body, that is not a problem at all because those ones can be kept quiet. On a tightrope, your performance must be absolutely perfect. Rule number one of walking the tightrope: systems are built on radical prioritization. You can’t trust them to help you, but you still have to use them because they are the only legal options for protection.
I used to try carrying my kids across the wire with me, but realized quickly that if I didn’t surrender my grip on them, we’d all die. They each walk on their own ropes now. I’ve heard that this is how it feels to send kids off to college. Except the kids of counterparenting and protective families have to do it at ridiculously young ages including babies who are still breast feeding. Imagine placing your nursing infant alone on a tightrope for 50% or more of their week! Rule number 2 of walking the tightrope: Survival depends on radical surrender.
As if those two rules aren’t making things tough enough, there is a nice wide, sturdy bridge where the counter parent gets to walk. They aren’t expected to walk the tight rope, because they have convinced everyone around that they are the real victim of your craziness. Have you noticed that tightrope walkers use a long, weighted pole to keep their balance? There’s only one pole per counter parenting/protective family, and the one on the wide path usually gets to hold it. But, you see, he doesn’t need it because the path is wide. So, he uses it to try to push me off of my wire. (This is another reason why the kids need to have their own ropes). When I slip off the fine line of protection, I get in trouble. And each time, he gets a wider path and a longer pole. And let me tell you from my own experience, when you’ve been knocked down for the third time in a row without any chance for recovery in between, it takes everything you have not to just let go of that wire and fall onto the rocks below. At least down there you couldn’t hurt anyone like they say you do. (Please get help immediately if you’re feeling like this.) You’re going to slip, because you are repeatedly being pushed while doing something that requires perfect balance. So, learn how to slip and fall without completely losing your grip on the wire. Be willing to haul yourself up one. more. time. Your kids need you more than you know. Rule number 3 of walking the tightrope: Survival requires radical resilience.
Since most custody arrangements in my state allot 50% of the week to each parent equally, my kids get to spend part of their time on the wide bridge with their other parent. Here, they get to run free! Here, they get to enjoy their fun loving theme-park parent, but must also accept the storyline that the tightrope-parent is not a good one. They can eat as much candy as they want, but they are also fed foods that make them sick while Theme-park Parent says to them that Tightrope Parent makes up their dietary restrictions. They have access to money and all the things they want to buy, but they have little to no access to Theme-park Parent’s emotional bank account. They get to stay up late, but aren’t allowed to freely express their differing opinions. They get to explore risky activities, but don’t receive medical treatment when they are sick or injured. As long as the kids passively accept that the wide path is better, they get to play there. However, if they assert themselves, they are banished back to their wire like me.
If this sounds like a terrible way to live, you are correct. The only thing worse than protective parenting is kids growing up without a protective parent. Worse still would be a legacy of abuse being passed on from one generation to the next without anyone trying to interrupt it. This often lonely high-wire life is a requirement of breaking these generational patterns. There’s simply no other way but to walk across. It sure would be nice if the long pole could be removed from the hands of the counter parent, but many, many policies and old ways of running systems will need to be changed for that to be possible.
But, what if I told you there was another option for crossing the great divide besides the old tightrope? First invented in the 1980s, the sport of slacklining started taking off around the globe in the early 2000’s. Even just the name “slacklining” seems less horrible than “tightrope.” The line is bouncy and designed for plasticity so that you can spring right back up to try again when you fall off. The whole culture around slacklining is based on focus, community support, and resilience. In order to rig up a slackline, you need people on the other side. You absolutely cannot set up your line, let alone cross, without a community of others who know what they are doing to guide you. In slacklining, you do still walk your particular line alone, but not without your slacklining community nearby to cheer you on when you start to lose focus or feel like giving up. You need your main line, but you also need more tools to anchor yourself like carabiners, rings, tethers, and a tensioning system. You work with the natural features of the place where you are crossing to choose where and how you will anchor both ends of the line. It takes lots of creativity and many witty inventions. This is where that community comes in again with its fresh ideas and unwavering support. You are also careful not to damage the natural world around you when setting up the rigging. You use padding between the ropes and the rocks. This not only protects your environment, but it cuts down on friction that might damage the ropes. You don’t use a long pole to change the location of the central point of your mass like in tightrope walking. You use your brain and your breath to focus only on the immediate next step and the anchor point ahead of you. When you don’t do this, your line will wobble all over the place and you’re more likely to lose your balance. Some slackliners say, “Calm the breath, calm the mind, calm the line.” Success depends more on focus than it does on perfect performance. When you fall, there’s a tether that helps you climb back up again instead of plummeting to your death. There are multiple points of contact among the rigging so that if one component fails, the whole thing won’t give way. The more relaxed you become, the more you can learn to perform tricks and have fun–even while falling. You’ll get to see the world’s beauty from a viewpoint that perhaps no one else has ever seen before. Within this environment of relative safety and radical resilience, your kids can also find their own great heights to explore. The wide bridge and the tightrope don’t have to be their only two options. They will make their own choices one day. What if they have watched you learn to spring back up and find joy in the crossing? Maybe they will want that, too. Rule number 4 of walking the tightrope: Maybe don’t. Try a slack line instead.
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