Parenting Without A Roadmap?

In my perinatal mental health training, one of the things I learned that stood out to me was the concept of the parenting roadmap - the means of knowing how to be a parent, feeling confident in your ability to raise a child, and feeling capable of meeting the emotional and physical needs of your child.

However, if we feel we are not given that roadmap, we can feel lost, alone, and overwhelmed in our experience as a parent, especially as a first-time parent. This can often be a domino effect, being passed on from generation to generation.

I believe that there is also a roadmap that children follow, when it comes to developing a healthy relationship with food and their bodies.

I think about the maternal line in my own family. My Grandma Elaine struggled with her weight for as long as I knew her. She and my grandpa lived a comfortable life, and there was never a shortage of food. Even though she was a nurse, there seemed to be a lack of knowledge about nutrition as well as lack of connection with her hunger/fullness cues. Food seemed like a way where she showed love, however, it came off as her pushing food onto you, even though you would say you were not hungry.

My mother’s relationship with food and body has also been a painful one. She has battled physical illnesses throughout her life, and she found a sense of control through dieting. I grew up seeing SlimFast drinks in my fridge and SnackWells in my cupboard. She lost a significant amount of weight on the South Beach Diet, and supported me in doing the diet, too.

It seemed like my mom found dieting as a way to connect with me; however, she soon turned it into a competition, and then later villainized me when my diet turned into an eating disorder. While my mother and I have a beautiful and healthy relationship now, it has been a LONG road. She has also found more healing around food and body, and she knows to not make any unhelpful comments about food and body around me and my kids.

Since I have become a parent, I have made an effort to break the generational cycles around food and body that has run in my family. Fortunately for me, my own eating disorder recovery; my education and training as a therapist; my experience working in eating disorder treatment; and the therapeutic skills I have gained has given me a North Star on this journey.

That being said, it has been tiring work to be the one to break the generational cycles and to create new ones, moving forward.

I truly believe my mother did the best she could, with the information and life experiences she had. I am grateful for all the work my mother has done in breaking these generational cycles, and there is a part of me who wishes she had done it sooner so that I didn’t have to.

And, it is still important for me to create a different experience for myself and my children, so that they can have a roadmap around navigating their relationships with food and body.

If you are wondering how you can make a positive change, awareness is the first step. I created a course to help you get this journey started, and you can find out more here!