“You’re only as happy as your least happy child.” I don’t know who came up with this, but it has always felt like a truism to me. Does it need to be true? Should it be? Is allowing yourself to get caught in your child’s suffering serving them or you? I will never not care when my kid is in distress. That’s my baby and my heart will always hurt right alongside theirs. This is particularly confusing when the source of one child’s distress is my other child. Or, as I have learned as the mom of neurodiverse kids, when the source of distress is themselves. I have actually been mad at my son’s brain for the pain it is causing that very same son. Talk about ambivalence! I’ve even blurted out, “I’m mad at you for being mean to you!” My kids always look at me a bit like I have two heads when that happens.
Part of me would love to have my kids sail through life unscathed, but life always includes struggle. And, if your kids have more chronic “stuff,” unhappiness is likely to be a significant part of their (and your) day to day. Can we chase joy anyway? Can I find ways to be okay so that I am not always as unhappy as they are? Can I find a way to be a beacon in the darkness instead of just a passenger or partner in it? I think that this is not only possible, but necessary.
It is a heavy lift…one of those ideas that is easier to recognize the necessity of than to actually start moving toward. I don’t have a magic formula. I don’t think there is one. But, I think that the capacity for human connection and joy in the face of disaster and unimaginable pain has been shown again and again and again. I think we have to give ourselves grace. I think we need to be fierce in our self-care. We need to marshal our resources so that we can care for our suffering child without being undone by it. We need to be sturdy so that we can provide the empathy and partnership they need. Otherwise, we are likely to rush to problem solving, fixing, or invalidating, not because they are about to break, but because we are afraid we might. When your child loses hope, there is no way that you are going to not be terrified. And, you also need to hold the hope, to be the reminder that there have been and will be better days. Sometimes that will be enough and sometimes it won’t, but it’s what we’ve got to offer.
