When Death Begets Life

22 years ago, I was pregnant and determined to have a home birth. I attended hypnobirthing classes to learn how to do the impossible: relax throughout the birth process. I listened to meditations where a soothing voice walked me through the process of relaxing every muscle while visualizing my baby peacefully journeying through the birth canal. The voice reminded me that I was not to resist the pressure in my body, but embrace it, “relaxing as if my life depended upon it.” In retrospect, I see I was being trained to accept the limits and very death of my body, in order for life to be released from it. 

My practice paid off, and I had a successful, mostly beautiful, home birth. 

Now a psychotherapist, I see birth as a metaphor for the entire relationship between a parent and child. The principle fostering a healthy birth is the same that underlies healthy child development: parents must embrace their limits and very death in order for the child to have life and to flourish. In other words, our death begets their life. 

In order to better understand, let’s look at what happens when parents don’t abide by this principle: the archetype of the Devouring Mother (Parent).  

The Devouring Parent refuses to respect where she ends and her child begins. She’s depicted in many stories, both fiction and non-fiction, as a controlling, demanding, or guilt-inducing parent who can’t tolerate her child’s differentiation. This can include prohibiting the child to separate not only physically, but also mentally, as the Devouring Parent cannot abide the child having their own distinct thoughts, beliefs, feelings or interests. A Devouring Parent refuses to accept the inevitable disappointment all parents must embrace, as a child’s job description is to learn to be true to themselves, disappointing the hell out of everyone else in the process. 

A Devouring Parent might entail being fine with their child going away to college, but only to study medicine. Or she might demand the child stay close and never leave town. She might guilt-trip the child whenever he returns home from spending time with a friend, or force her own unrealized life-ambitions onto him. A Devouring Parent sees the child as an extension of herself, nothing more, and she experiences anxiety whenever this umbilical cord is threatened, because she believes the child’s role is simply to keep her company so she never has to feel alone. 

The irony is, even though a Devouring Parent wants to engulf the child, she really doesn’t know him at all. She’s not interested in learning who he is inside, only how he makes her feel. Objects that have distinct personalities don’t make good objects. His personality and uniqueness threaten her ability to objectify him. 

A devouring parent doesn’t want to break up the original unit they have w/ the child. The child will find a way to differentiate, which could be by suicide, or by bonding with a romantic partner to extricate himself. Most often it is by dissociating, which is like emotional suicide, in which he cuts himself off from all his feelings, and becomes zombie-like. 

Another way parents objectify their child is by talking at them, but never listening to them. A Devouring Parent wants to be heard, but isn’t interested in hearing the experience or perspective of the child. In other words, the parent devours by making everything about herself. 

These parents are often jealous of the relationship the child has with their friends, yet they aren’t interested in changing to foster a better relationship with them. 

As a teen, I remember hearing my mother lamenting to my best friend, “Julie, how can I get Bronwyn to open up to me like she does to you?” She seemed utterly perplexed as to why I never wanted to talk to her when she refused to listen to a word I said. So she just concluded it was unfair, and saw herself as an innocent victim of my prejudice against her. 

Devouring our children never satisfies, because we were created to be whole within ourselves. There’s no substitute for our own choice to self-attune and integrate with our inner child. There’s no substitute for self-nurture, because it is life giving. A life that we alone can give ourselves. 

This brings us back to the symbolism of birth, as embracing our own death begets life. Accepting our limits and loneliness can impel us to stop outsourcing our nurture to others, and finally integrate with our inner child, learning to self-nurture and becoming whole. 

When I’m able to self-attune to my feelings, I am freed to no longer expect attunement from my child, but am able to listen to her and validate her experience. Now I can fulfill my job description as a parent: to be a mirror to my child, vs. making her my mirror.

When we listen and validate our kids’ feelings, it teaches them they matter. This is the most powerful gift we can ever give them, and they will carry this gift into the rest of their lives. A child who knows they matter will someday have the ego strength to walk away from the abusive relationship or from the abusive boss. We give them that gift by listening and being a mirror, reflecting back to them their importance to us. 

When I give myself my approval, I no longer need my child to make me feel important – I give this to myself. My child’s distinct feelings and thoughts are no longer threatening to me, because I no longer fear her abandonment. I’ve got me now, and I won’t ever abandon her ever again. 

Accepting death can lead to wholeness, and wholeness begets life. 

Here’s the practical piece: we are all children, and the question isn’t IF you have a devouring parent, because all humans have a natural bent to devour, including yours truly. All parents are on the Devouring Spectrum. The question is how we respond to our parents. Many people want to forgive their parents, which is a good inclination. But what does REAL forgiveness entail? What it doesn’t entail is enabling the parent to continue devouring. 

The fact is, we are all blind to ourselves, and it takes another person to mirror us in order to see ourselves. That’s the job of the child: To give the parent a true reflection. That’s what kids do. That’s what we’re supposed to do, at every age. 

What matters is the response of the parent. Do they listen, or do they refuse to see? A listening parent is a loving parent. 

I myself was devouring with my daughter, and I had no idea. I thought I was such a good parent, yet for years I refused to listen to her, but instead demanded she be the daughter I wanted her to be. When I finally woke up, I started taking her feedback seriously, changing accordingly. As hard as it’s been, the changes she’s helped catalyze in me help me in relation to others! I’ve learned to be more self-aware, cautious and considerate, and it’s served me well all around. 

My daughter now forgives me in the truest way: I have earned, and continue to earn, her forgiveness – and trust – through my actions. That’s what we do with a Devouring Parent: we give them an opportunity to wake up and stop devouring. This can entail an ultimatum, and it may necessitate a cut-off, but it’s ultimately an act of love. 

We say, “I love you – and me – too much to allow you to continue to hurt us both.” We stand firm, choosing ourselves and no longer betraying ourselves. This is where the death of the parent leads to the life of the child. 

This is the offer of hope for a parent: to reincarnate themselves in this lifetime. To resuscitate. To awaken. To come to life. 

Death begets life, and it’s always darkest before the dawn.