© David Staume 2007

How to nourish our children and remain sane

As a parent I know that our children can drive us crazy, but I also know that they provide us with a wealth of opportunities to learn and grow. The interesting thing about these different possibilities, however, is how they seem to go hand in hand: it’s the things that drive us crazy that probably offer us the greatest opportunities to learn and grow.

Our children provide us with many lessons: lessons in tolerance, discipline, and sacrifice come to mind. They certainly chip away at our selfishness. They teach us to be simple and uncomplicated; they teach us the value of fun; and they require us to set a good example. So how can we maximise the learning and growing, and minimise the going crazy? Is there a skill we can use to learn our lessons, and help our children learn theirs, while at the same time remaining calm and sane? In my opinion, the skill that can accomplish all of these things is the understanding and application of the energies known as yin and yang.

Masculine energy is active, and we call it ‘yang’. Feminine energy is passive, and we call it ‘yin’. We are all blends of these energies, irrespective of our gender. The term ‘masculine’ is therefore not synonymous with ‘male’, nor ‘feminine’ with ‘female’. If I take a step toward you, or talk to you – that’s yang; if I step back from you, or listen to you – that’s yin. If I push you away, or give you something – that’s yang; if I draw you into my embrace, or receive something from you - that’s yin.

When you put yin and yang in these terms it’s easy to see that to be a fully functioning being we need to possess both sets of qualities. We should use our masculine energy to sing to an audience, then our feminine energy to drink in their applause; our masculine energy to seek out a wise teacher, our feminine energy to absorb their wisdom; our masculine energy to create ideas, then our feminine energy to give them form and structure; our masculine energy to push away a sexual predator, our feminine energy to embrace a distressed friend; our masculine energy when in the presence of the weak and immoral, and our feminine energy in the presence of something greater than our self, such as Nature.

In the context of parenting, it is typical of masculine energy to distance ourselves from our children, to push them away, while it is typical of feminine energy to draw them toward us, to open our arms and heart, and comfort them. Pushing away, at the right times, can be the perfect expression of love, because without it our children will not learn to be independent. Children provide women with opportunities to be yang, as well as their natural inclination to be yin. A child that stays at home into adulthood should probably be pushed away. Sometimes love expresses itself by pulling together and embracing, and at other times it expresses itself by pushing away. Children also provide men with opportunities to be yin as well as their natural inclination to be yang. When we love our children we realise that following our masculine tendencies is not always the right thing to do. When our child is hurt, for example, the attitude of ‘get up and be a man’ may occasionally be the right one, but if we make it habitual, our coldness and inability to empathize will damage them. To be good parents we have to be able to be both yin and yang – and to know when it’s the right time to emphasize one and when it’s the right time to emphasize the other.

If our child isn’t concentrating on their homework, a yang ‘I want you to sit there until it’s finished’ is probably the best thing to do, to focus them and assert our expectation. And if that doesn’t work we should probably try again – assertively not aggressively – and with a reminder of how it will benefit them. But if yang doesn’t work the second time, escalating it by being louder, more forceful, or threatening, will only be counter-productive. At this point we should polarize ourselves the other way – by being yin – and invite them to talk about the situation, and listen. Maybe there’s something going on that we’re not aware of.

If our child is exhibiting the ugly side of yang – if they’re stomping, cussing, and angry – polarising ourselves as yang by being angry and threatening in return, can only make the situation worse. When yang meets yang it’s like pressing the two positive poles of a magnet together. It’s confrontational, and whoever is the stronger will win. But the end result of a yang-yang confrontation is always the same: for the ‘winner’ (presumably the parent) it’s remorse, because given enough time, we will always regret our words and deeds; while the end result for the ‘loser’ (presumably our child) is resentment – a feeling that can last a long time, and resurface many years later. The consequences of yang meeting yang is always counterproductive. Putting the two positive poles of a magnet together prevents them from coming together, and therefore prevents resolution.

The consequences of meeting yang with yin are very different. Resolution becomes a possibility, and so does transformation. If we can step back from a physically or emotionally aggressive situation, and refuse to retaliate, we will find that the yang will eventually run out of puff. And it is at this moment, when the yang energy has been spent, that the aggressor is capable of transformation. It’s a precious and beautiful moment, because it is here that they can see their error, and they will make the decision – consciously or unconsciously – to change. When we polarise ourselves as yin in response to aggressive yang, we keep the door of resolution open, and put ourselves in a position where we can act as a catalyst for transformation. It requires practice and experience to do this well, to polarise ourselves like this, and we have to overcome the feeling that walking away isn’t addressing the situation – because it is. In fact it is the only way the situation can be resolved.

If our child is exhibiting the ugly side of yin – if they’re withdrawn, trying to make us feel guilty, or carping incessantly about something – we have the same choice to respond as yin or yang. Responding to yin with yin, though, is just as disastrous as responding to yang with yang. When intense yin meets intense yin we have the unattractive scenario of two black holes sucking in everything that isn’t nailed down, fighting for every last scrap of energy and matter, and hoarding it away. The end result is that both participants will feel hollow, bitter, and unfulfilled.

There’s a problem with polarising ourselves as yang in response to yin, however, because if we don’t know what we’re doing we’ll be sucked dry and end up resenting it. But polarising ourselves this way has the same potential for transformation as when we polarised ourselves as yin in response to aggressive yang, because we have the opportunity to raise the other party’s yin energy, to make them receptive at a higher level and assist their personal growth. But to do this well we have to be yang only in the higher realms of thought and explanation, and give nothing at the lower levels of material things and self-centred feelings. If we only give at the higher levels we force the other party to rise to meet us. By not giving at the level of material things or self-centred feelings we encourage our child to rise above these things. However it’s not all roses and cherubs, your child may hate you in the short term – but it won’t last.

The way I look at it, yin and yang are tools. We should be able to pick them up and put them down like a set of spanners, using whichever is right for the job at hand. The great spiritual teacher Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov said ‘mastering the use of this knowledge is said to be the greatest power within creation’. It should certainly be able to help us as parents.

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