It’s Not Personal, It Just Is What It is

Confronting Ego, taking accountability, and parenting in a society of broken people.

Some people really don’t like what I write.

Some people say I sound pompous, or like I believe I’m ‘better than them.’ Some ask if I think I’m just so perfect. Some ask why I write about things ‘better left in the past.’

I don’t exactly mind these questions and comments. Every opportunity to reflect on my Ego, my actions, and my words is an opportunity for growth.

But more and more, I see that I’m not the problem.

I’m just putting words to things some people don’t want to talk about.

A hit dog hollers

I write a lot about my family, about parenting decisions I’ve made, about the way I dove headfirst into healing, self-examination, deconstructing everything I learned about parenting, life, and putting things back together in a way that made sense to me and seemed to benefit my children.

In doing so, I learned a lot, and to me, the concept of having a ‘village’ to raise children means sharing these lessons with others.

But we are not operating in a very receptive culture.

We are operating in a culture of Ego.

Where I come from (Appalachia), there’s a saying: “A hit dog hollers.” Similar to ‘if the shoe fits,’ it merely means that if you have some kind of emotional reaction to what someone is saying, you need to examine why.

Do you feel triggered? Do you feel defensive? Do you feel like you’re being attacked personally when someone mentions some nonspecific behavior or action?

Same. I hear you. I had a therapist once who was awesome; she was very blunt and real with me. When she would mention something that made me immediately become flustered and defensive, she said, “Whoa! Stop defending and stop getting upset. Sit with this feeling for a minute. Why are you feeling so defensive about what I said?”

Thus began an exercise in which I was tasked with making space in my life to stop when I felt defensive, particularly about my parenting, and ask myself why. Explore the feeling. Explore the root of it.

The root was typically pretty easy to pinpoint. A mixture of uncertainty, fear, and shame was usually to blame.

Uncertainty because I was parenting in a way that was so different than how I was parented, and honestly, different than I’d ever seen modeled in my personal life.

Fear that trusting my gut and changing my parenting style was going to mess up my kids.

And shame that for so many years, I went on autopilot and parented my children in a way that was more in alignment with conservative evangelical Christianity and, frankly, was abusive. I spanked. I was authoritarian and expected immediate compliance and obedience from children far before it was developmentally appropriate.

In those moments, I could have shrunk into myself and just ignored the whole issue. Just give the kids an iPad or something to occupy them while I hid in my room, scared, ashamed, and in denial.

But if I am not parenting my children, who is?

Who is??

The TV? The internet? YouTube? TikTok? Instagram? Their peers? Some random other adult in their life that has inappropriate intentions with them?

My children don’t need another friend, they need a parent. They can find friends at school, on the internet, at the skate park… where can they find another mother?

The only choice I have, the only viable option, is to pull up my big girl pants and figure this out.

My children didn’t ask to be born and they certainly didn’t ask to have me as their mother. A deeply broken, abused, insecure, hesitant mother. For them, I had to put myself back together, heal what I did not break, and find the confidence to guide them to adulthood.

This doesn’t make me “better” than anyone else. Far from it. It makes me real. It makes me human.

Confronting my flawed humanity has never been intended as an attack on anyone else’s.

The problem of Ego

We are dealing with a crisis of Ego in our society. I say that, but there are quotes from ancient Rome indicating that we’ve always dealt with crises of Ego, so I hardly think it’s anything new.

The internet and social media, however, have brought the battle front and center in our homes.

I was discussing parenting with someone born in the 1940s, and they said parents have always had these challenges with parenting, especially adolescents. I replied that parenting before the internet was like parenting during a storm when you live in a seaside village. The storm is close but it’s still ‘out there.’

In the age of the internet, we are parenting with the hurricane inside the house. How do we keep from drowning, much less our children??

We have to start by confronting our Ego. We, as parents, have to get real about our mental health and what’s prohibiting us from being actual parents. Not friends, not roommates, not buddies, because they can find all of those things elsewhere. We were tasked with being their parent, a role singular in their life and ours.

It’s a heavy responsibility, but also what an honor! What a privilege to walk alongside a burgeoning spirit, a blossoming person, and to share with them the mistakes you made to spare them the pain of repeating them, to point out the beautiful and breathtaking joy that’s out there, and to inspire them to reach for heights beyond our wildest imaginations.

Even if that goal is simply a healthy marriage and no divorce. A home with no fighting. A life with no chaos. Peace.

Nobody in my household is expected to be an astronaut or a neurosurgeon. No one is expected to go to an Ivy league college.

Working an honest job to make an honest living, paying your debts, and being a kind and good contributing member of your community are some of the most noble goals there are in this life.

But that pesky Ego seems to always get in the way.

When parents’ motto is “Because I said so,” they’re speaking from Ego. Even a brief explanation of why is sufficient to let your child know that you’re not just making up rules and expectations as you go but that there is a deliberate reason for everything you ask of them and everything that is prohibited to them.

Just as you would bristle if your boss said, “Because I said so,” when you question a strange new company policy, it causes our children to bristle and it builds resentment to not be given the basic respect of explaining the ‘why’ that comes so naturally to humans.

Refusing to go to therapy, refusing to apologize to your children, and refusing to address whatever is happening in your own mental health that prohibits you from parenting — these are all issues of Ego.

Deconstructing the Ego is hard work. It requires a great deal of humility and honesty, which is counter to a lot of what we learn in the American culture. In America, the loudest, most abrasive voice gets the attention.

A spirit of humility is no longer a requirement for a political leader. We are not seeking men who are mentally and emotionally healthy, who have examined their Egos and come to a balanced position of ethical and moral virtue. We reward the loudest, most abrasive, most shocking, most egocentric individuals, and then complain when they are not good leaders.

Imagine that.

Our children are watching all of this. They are absorbing what our collective societal morals are.

If we are to believe CNN and Fox News, our collective social morals are: lying is fine as long as you win, if you do not win you can throw a violent tantrum, you can make fun of others for their physical appearance or even their disabilities, money reigns supreme and the quest to make and keep money is more important than literally anything else, our environment is a disposable resource that we can destroy at will, human beings are merely assets to be used up and disposed of, and people who do not think exactly like us are the ‘enemy’ to be mocked, scorned, and repressed, even through legislation and federal policy.

If you aren’t parenting, this is what our culture is raising your child to believe and be.

Are you okay with that?

If so, carry on. You’re not my target audience and frankly, I do not understand you, and I deeply mourn for your offspring.

If you do have a problem with that, the solution lies right in your mirror.

You’re it, Mom or Dad. You’re it.

If you want your child to be a pleasant person to be around in a few years, when they’re adults and forging their path, if you want their lives to be reasonably comfortable and not fraught with chaos, upheaval, and pain, then you need to act now.

This isn’t me judging you, this is just me stating the obvious.

If you aren’t parenting your kids, the world is, and I promise you the world doesn’t give a shit about you or your kid.

Instead of bristling when I point out obvious, take a breath and reflect on why you’re bristling.

I’m not perfect. That’s totally laughable. I am raising four kids that I gave birth to and they are four very different, unique, and vivacious personalities. Nothing about this is easy.

But my kids are worth the hard work. Their future lives, partners, and children are worth the hard work. Peering into a distant day when my children are adults who have a deep sense of peace and tranquility in their lives, who are healthy mentally and physically and happy with what life has brought them, that is worth every bit of discomfort.

Every time I want to give up and lay in bed, I picture my grandchildren, asking me why their dad is so angry all the time or why their mom is distant and detached. It all comes back to rest at my feet. So I get up, and I address the challenges of parenting head-on. Even when I’m tired, even when I’m soul weary, even when I am struggling myself, I challenge my Ego to step aside and let me be the parent I need to be.

Our society is led around by the nose by a collective Ego. The Ego of politicians and TikTok ‘influencers,’ celebrities and musicians, news anchors and podcasters. Someone else’s Ego problem can become yours if you don’t watch out (I watched my adopter listen to Rush Limbaugh, and slowly the poison of that man’s Ego infiltrated the sweet spirit of that Methodist pastor and turned him into something unrecognizable, full of fear and judgment and anger. Ego transference is real, and it’s everywhere in our media).

Whose Ego do you want shaping your kids? Whose Ego is guiding your family? Whose Ego is going to emerge in your grandkids?

Be so for real right now

Addressing these issues is not popular in our culture today. We live in a decidedly hedonistic society where one’s personal happiness reigns supreme and can be prioritized even over their children’s health (look at the current debate and legislation around children being featured on their parent’s social media accounts for profit).

Talking about Ego redirects someone’s energy from their ‘happiness’ and immediate comfort to a place of intentional discomfort. Addressing your demons is uncomfortable. Shadow work is uncomfortable. Therapy is uncomfortable. Talking about our shortcomings and flaws is uncomfortable.

I challenge you to get uncomfortable, particularly if you are raising children. In decades past, the influence of society on children was limited to television programs and music, much of which was censored through pretty conservative filters. Back when I was growing up, we had just a few television channels to choose from, many of which aired reruns of Leave It to Beaver and The Andy Griffith Show. White, conservative Christian morality reigned supreme (which was also problematic in many ways, but we weren’t watching naked women twerk at eight years old).

Now children can access the entirety of the world in an instant. Pornography, reality television, and all manner of explicit and debauched material are available instantly, and if you aren’t actively parenting, that’s what is raising your kids.

I’ve said before that I’m a bit disappointed (more than a bit, if I’m being honest) with my generation of parents from what I see from our community, neighborhood, and a lot of my kids’ friends’ families. Lots of Xennial parents are being friends, refusing to guide and teach lest their child not “like them.”

I’m not delusional — I’m aware those types of parents have existed forever. Their absence of leadership with their kids leaves a void. But what exists today to fill that void is so massive, so morally corrupt, and so aggressively invasive, that we have to get real about the ramifications of ignoring our children in this culture.

The ramifications are a record-breaking volume of diagnoses of anxiety and depression, substance abuse, and suicide.

If confronting your Ego will save your child’s life, would you do it then?

Don’t shoot the messenger

I’m sure some of those same critics will blast this as just another self-righteous piece, but I’m hoping that some of these seeds do fall on fertile soil.

I’m not here to judge anyone. I’ve talked about my issues with parenting that took many, many years of overcoming, and I still mess up.

However, I tend to believe that a parent working towards self-improvement and altering their parenting patterns is better than one who has thrown in the towel and given up. You can’t give up.

You’re the only parent(s) your kid has.

It’s the start of a new year. A chance to grab a shadow work journal or schedule an appointment with a therapist. To pull yourself up, dust yourself off, and fight the good fight for yourself and your kids.

It’s okay if your kids see you fall. What’s arguably more impactful is that they see you pick yourself up, do the hard work of healing, and move forward in a different and better way, and the entire time prioritize them and their care so they are never left to fend for themselves or figure it out alone.

Let’s go to battle with Ego in 2024. Let’s individually address this issue so that maybe it will have a collective impact as we work towards healing, unity over division, humility over arrogance, temperance and collective good over hedonism and toxic individualism.

Don’t shoot the messenger… focus on the message.

Our future depends on it.

My name is Melissa Corrigan, and I’m a freelance writer/thought sharer/philosopher in coastal Virginia. I am a mom, a wife, a veteran, and so much more. I deeply enjoy sharing my thoughts and receiving feedback that sparks genuine, respectful conversation.

If you like my content, please consider subscribing… click here and follow along as I explore the themes of parenting, political ideologies, religious deconstruction, life as an adoptee, and LGBT allyship and family. Also, check out my two publications, adoptēre- to uplift the voices of adoptees, and Served- to uplift the voices of veterans of the US military.