Empathy and Buckets: Finding Emotional Authenticity in Parenting

Jun 14

The Authenticity Principle

The concept of authenticity refers to a general expression of self that is consistent with one’s core values and identity. As Brene Brown describes in The Gifts of Imperfection, “Authenticity is the daily practice of letting go of who we think we’re supposed to be and embracing who we are. Choosing authenticity means cultivating the courage to be imperfect, to set boundaries and to allow ourselves to be vulnerable.”

Empathy and Buckets

“What about me?” echoes in my mental background noise when I read certain parenting books or scroll through some experts’ soundbites on social media. Do we need all of this instruction about how to have empathy for our children, which seems pretty natural, because we aren’t getting enough empathy ourselves? Do we need to be reminded of filling our children’s “buckets” because maybe our own are empty? Especially when I was in the young childhood years of mothering, I felt like crying when reading these nuggets of expertise, wondering “what about my buckets?” (Okay, so I felt like crying, and did cry, easily about many things like when I couldn’t find my favorite peanut butter at Costco, but still.)

“Staying connected to our authentic self as a parent can feel as gargantuan an effort as keeping a toddler on a tight timetable.”

My reading and internalizing of the positive parenting advice pushing empathy and buckets was that it was all about the kids without much regard for the parents and our emotional needs, or reasons we may be struggling with doing these critical, emotional parts of parenting. Even if this is not the intention, I know I’m not alone in my experiencing positive parenting this way, as I’ve heard the same from many friends.

As part of my quest to balance the well-intentioned, yet child-centric, parenting guidance over the last 30 years, I advocate for the value of embracing our own authenticity in our parenting roles, to better integrate who we are as humans with who we are as parents. I argue that if we can do that, we will indeed more effortlessly and fully meet the emotional needs of our children.

In this blog post, I explore the benefits of parenting with emotional authenticity, including why we should all be expressing instead of repressing, the role of yelling, and allowing rather than avoiding conflict,. When we support emotional authenticity in these ways, we give ourselves the gift of less pressure in parenting, and make way for our children to find the their own authentic selves.

Expression Over Repression: From “Good Girl” to “Good Mom”

In my practice as a therapist, I work day in and day out with all ages on healthy ways to express emotions. Psychological research supports the risk of repressing “negative” emotion for developing anxiety and depression, which women are more susceptible to experience over our lifetimes.

In the socializing of girls and women to please others and behave well, we learn to push down those unpleasant emotions that also make others uncomfortable. Possibly the number one culprit is anger. Females are not only not allowed to show anger, we are punished for it in a way men simply are not. Where men can pound tables, raise voices, and issue insults in the workplace with little repercussion and sometimes for reward (I’ve been in the room with that very successful man, pounding the desk between us and yelling at me), women do not have this leeway. Women have to work hard to figure out ways to express our whole range of emotions without discipline or exclusion.

Bringing this to the home front, this socially constructed need to be the “good girl” transforms into our constant pursuit of being the “good mom.” So, when we learn that we need to stay calm, kind, and loving across all interactions with our children, no matter their impossible and exasperating behaviors, we are used to this expectation. We have internalized this expectation. Don’t get angry. Stay calm and be a good mom. When we inevitably blow, we then internalize the resulting blame with the guilty thought, I am NOT a good mom. This shame may then combust with other factors, like our child’s unique temperament and struggles, our support network, and the myriad of life stressors raining down on us, to result in so many Moms struggling.

Let’s not leave out Dads. Social and cultural norms around emotional expression constrain men too. Just this week as we prepared for my 5th grader’s graduation, the kids focused on how much the Moms will cry, and I couldn’t help but say, “Dads cry too!” to which they replied, “well, maybe on the inside.” For the sake of my son and his future mental health, I desperately hope we can all work on shifting these norms because this current norm sets up Dads for their own authenticity struggles. Moms may get their share of blame and media attention about Mom shame, but Dads should get air time as well about how to navigate what it means to be their authentic, emotional selves. Like it’s okay to cry on the outside, not just on the inside. Because then their sons will too, and they will express instead of repress.

What can we do while social and cultural norms take their time to shift (accelerated by our collective investment in them doing so)? A few strategies for managing uncomfortable emotions that we tend to repress (this could be an entire book, but for the purposes of a blog post you only have a few minutes to read, I kept it short and sweet):

Acknowledge the emotion, without judgment: “I’m feeling ashamed that I just lost my temper.”
Show yourself compassion: “All parents lose their patience; I wouldn’t judge my friend for it, so I don’t need to judge myself.”
Allow yourself time to actually feel it rather than push it away. This can look like closing your eyes and breathing with it to truly feel it, discomfort and all.
Use the emotion as a signal: “What is this telling me about what I need right now?”
Take action to fill your needs (constructively): “Kids, I’m going to take 10 and I’ll be back.” Then do what feels restorative, like a brief meditation, watching a funny YouTube video, texting with a friend, escaping briefly into a good book.

Yell Less, Not Never

Speaking of repressing, let’s move on to yelling, and how much we all try not to do it, and then end up doing it. Ironically, using all of our willpower to refrain from yelling during an epic tantrum, can result in bigger yelling when we reach our breaking point (cue two tantrums instead of just one). I may (definitely) speak from experience.

Based on personal and professional observations, I worry about the recent emphasis on not yelling at our children. To be clear, I am not promoting a new brand of parenting called “Just Yell,” but I want to reclaim a more balanced way to think about the role of yelling in day-to-day parenting. Less yelling is better, but it doesn’t have to be zero yelling.

My Washington Post article, Yelled at your kids? Here's why you should let go of that shame, goes into more detail about the scientific basis for releasing shame about yelling in parenting and how to yell less, but the big picture is “never yell” does not need to be the goal. Yelling doesn’t feel good, it is by no means an intentional discipline strategy (in most cases), and it happens. Yelling provides a discharge for overwhelming frustration, as I know from being the morning routine point person in my family for the past two years straight. Every. Morning.

There is zero evidence that the yelling itself, as practiced by most parents doing their best to avoid yelling, harms children. What unequivocally harms children is any abusive element, such as name-calling, insults, or attacking a child’s character. That does not need to happen at a certain volume for its psychological poisoning to infiltrate a child’s sense of self. Verbal and emotional abuse should have a zero-tolerance policy; yelling should not.

How does this fit with authenticity? Sometimes, we just need to yell; better when it’s not at people or meanly, but it can serve as an authentic expression of how we feel in that moment. Sometimes, I even yell jokes in a dramatic bid to shift the family energy from tense to playful; it releases my own tension and my kids forget what they were bickering about in the first place.

The Authenticity Argument for Arguing

Yelling segues nicely to the topic of family conflict (although conflict of course does not require yelling). What’s more authentic than a family fight? The degree of conflict and type of arguing varies based on each family’s own culture, but regardless, most families fight. There should be ground rules so the fighting can be constructive instead of destructive and offer real relationship benefits. First, it’s the ultimate expression over repression, right? We express ourselves when we fight, and when we fight “right,” it also shows we feel safe. In the ultimate display of a secure attachment, fighting with authenticity demonstrates we know we can be our full selves and the person we love will not leave us because of it.

Keep in mind some key components to extract the positive from family arguments, including between parents, and between parents and their children. First, it’s important to follow ground rules such as no name-calling (this is why I didn’t include sibling conflicts – that’s a whole different topic!), staying away from attacks on character, avoiding insults, and of course, no physical aggression.

The conflict resolution process in families, often referred to as “rupture and repair,” can actually increase closeness and connection. As the key to healthy conflict, the repair step may include apologizing, taking responsibility for mistakes, and re-connecting, like with hugs or laughter. These genuine interactions of our authentic selves are ingredients for building deep trust and closeness.

When it comes to conflict between caregivers, research has shown that children actually benefit more from witnessing this conflict than never seeing any arguments, but the instructive learning comes from watching how the conflict is resolved. This teaches children that an argument does not sink a relationship, giving them a healthy relationship model for their future. My children do a lot of relationship learning as my husband and I rupture-and-repair our way through his driving in Chicago traffic, for example.

Filling Our Buckets to fill theirs

Staying connected to our authentic self as a parent can feel as gargantuan an effort as keeping a toddler on a tight timetable. I view authenticity as a critical piece of my whole parent first parenting philosophy because we know how easy it is to lose touch with the core of our identity when we become parents. This becomes exacerbated by a sizeable chunk of parenting guidance that does not account for us as whole humans. When this happens, we become unmoored from what anchors us. One step toward re-centering our core selves is to reclaim our emotional authenticity in parenting.

As Google told me, the term “emotional authenticity” can represent a range of ideas, but my definition is allowing and honoring our genuine range of emotions, including the less pleasant and less culturally approved ones. This requires facing parts of parenting and family life with vulnerability and bravery, which ultimately, is what can help fill our buckets. Think also of what a gift this can be for our children: showing them our authentic self teaches them to build and express their own. And what greater testament is there that we are indeed “good moms” (and dads) than our children figuring this out?