As many of you may know, I am a mother of two boys:
Bailey is 15 and Brendan is about to turn 12. They are my life. I try my best
to be the best parent possible and always put them first. I think I do a pretty
good job now, but in the past there was a time where I fell short of being a
great parent. In fact, for a short time I was a lousy mother. It hurts to admit
this, but I have accepted it and have used this realization to make me a better
parent now.
Long story short, about 7 years ago I was a 25 year
old single mother who was struggling to make it. I went through a crisis where
I lost my job in Real Estate and subsequently ended up bartending down on 6th
street in Austin. This was not a healthy situation for a girl who had become a
parent at the age of 17 and who had not had the chance to party and do all the
things normal adolescents do. Unfortunately, I fell into the trap of alcohol
and hanging out with bad people. My parents ended up watching my boys more and
more often as I began working more shifts and partying afterward. Eventually, I
was barely seeing my boys at all because I worked all night and slept all day.
When my parents protested I did the worst thing I could do: I sent my boys to
live with their father and I moved downtown with a coworker at the bar. I spent
the next few years being a lousy parent and a mess of a person. I look back now
and I don’t even know how I got to that point. I try to imagine not having my
boys with me now, or not seeing them often, and it breaks my heart. But at this
time in my life, I was able to push those feelings aside and become numb. It is
scary and I never understood how I did it until I started studying Cognitive
Dissonance Theory. Basically, this theory states that people have a need to
maintain consistency between their attitudes and their behaviors; if their behavior
deviates from how the person believes they would normally act then they will
experience physiological discomfort. In order to alleviate these feelings the
person will sometimes change their attitudes to match their behavior
(Festinger, 1957).
Once I learned about cognitive dissonance it made
perfect sense to me how I was able to seemingly turn off my motherly feelings
for my boys. In essence, because I was under the influence of alcohol and bad people, I was behaving selfishly and acting like I
didn’t care about them (which did not match my actual attitudes about my
children). This resulted in me changing my attitudes in order to not feel the discomfort and shame from my
behavior. In fact, the less I saw my boys and the more I focused on my own
needs the easier it got for me to continue on that way. It was almost as if my
feelings had been completely extinguished. It frightens me to remember how I
was during this time period…almost like a robot.
Thankfully, I got my shit together (excuse my
profanity) and started working towards getting my life back in order. My boys
have been back living with me for 2 years now and I am the happiest I have ever
been. I could not imagine my life without them, and I will never ever hurt them
again or put anyone (especially myself) before them. Once again, my actions are
consistent with my behaviors (but in a good way). By working hard in school and
focusing on positive things, it has allowed me to be a positive force in my
sons’ lives. By being a good student, a good friend, and a good person in
general, these actions have helped me shape my attitudes about myself so that I
now act in line with these values. No more cognitive dissonance; and I am thankful
for that!
n = 671
n = 671
References
Festinger, L. (1957). A theory of cognitive
dissonance. Stanford University Press.
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