Attached: A Different Lens, part one
Should mothers and fathers parent differently?
Donna and Kirsty explore the different strengths each parent brings, and why the difference is often the superpower.
Why this question
Kirsty brought this week's question, and she wrote it deliberately so it could be read many ways: should we expect mothers and fathers to parent differently?
Donna's answer was yes, but not as you might think. When we find our partner, they are usually 180 degrees different from us. So of course we will parent differently, and we would create a lot of harm if we did not, because we would be taking our authenticity out of the picture.
This turned into a two part conversation. This is part one.
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What Donna has seen in families
Donna's starting point is always observation. She has watched parents for more than ten years, and longer than that as a teacher, and she shares real families because real life teaches best.
When dad went away, the whole house wobbled
Donna kept meeting exhausted mums who said the dads were not helping. She does not quite believe it. Mum works very hard, and when you look at what dads are doing, in a healthy relationship they are working just as hard.
One couple had two very energetic children and exhausting bedtimes. Mum told dad he was not doing enough. Then dad went away on business for a week, and everything wobbled. He had been doing a lot. His more avoidant side carried a superpower: clarity, stability and overarching thinking. Donna saw the same in her own home. When her partner was away, or having a bad day, none of them coped, because they had all been circling back to his calm.
The dad who was doing it spot on
Another dad came to Donna's group kicking and screaming, expecting her to take mum's side. She did not. She listens to everyone. In the opening circle she asked how to get children into the car seat, and this dad answered better than she could have: calm, collected boundaries together with kindness, a no nonsense tenderness.
He had been told for years that he was doing it wrong. He was doing it spot on. Mum, meanwhile, carried a lot of anxiety and held few boundaries, and chaos was ensuing at home. Dads need confidence too, because we carry the idea that mums just know how to parent better.
He was supporting her, just not the way she pictured
In a parent and infant class, Donna was helping parents ask what would create the least stress for their family. One mum said her husband was useless and she was so tired. They went through the need cards together, and her real need was rest and support.
Donna asked what happened at home. On Saturday mornings she could hear the children jumping around and getting noisy, so she would put on her dressing gown and come and sort it out. Donna asked: is he supporting you? Yes. Did he give you the chance to rest? Yes. Did you tell him how you wanted it done? No. What she needed was exactly what he was already doing, with one addition: rug up the children and take them to the park, so she could not hear and could truly rest.
Often we miss that someone is trying to meet our needs, because we have never painted a picture of what it looks like. That dad was in partnership with her, just not in the way she had pictured.
Two superpowers, one team
These days Donna runs her Circle of Security work with couples together, never individuals, so each person can hear the other's strengths. When parents are regulated, one tends to bring the no nonsense and the other the tenderness. There are moments when each can be both, but in the tricky moments of parenting, together they are a superpower team.
- Which role belongs to which parent does not matter. What matters is seeing both as strengths.
- What often gets in the way is comparison, or the expectation that you must do it the way I do it. Instead, place the child in the heart of the matter and see what is going on.
- You will grow as a parent when you can look across at your partner and say, how are you doing that? I would love to learn.
- Watch where the children go. They flock to the parent who tops up their needs, because children know the attachment circle better than we do, from around 11 months of age. They know what will and will not trigger us.
- Your red rules are your hard safety boundaries. Get aligned on those, and understand your pink rules too.
Place the child in the heart of the matter.
What Kirsty shared
Where Donna went to the micro with real families, Kirsty zoomed out to the macro.
Broad patterns, not rules
We are all individuals, but across a large population there are patterns. After birth, a mother's hormones generally shift towards nurturing, softness and a broad awareness of what everyone needs and their safety. Fathers change biologically too, a little more gradually, sometimes during the pregnancy. They become more nurturing, and also feel a strong drive to protect the family.
And we are far more than our biology. If you adopt, give birth by caesarean or cannot breastfeed, there is a high instinct towards love that holds us through all sorts of disturbances.
Nurture, and the power of play
Often a mother provides nurturance and a real physical felt safety, while a father's natural role is frequently play. That can be annoying at the end of a hardcore day of tears and physical needs, when someone comes home and gets to be the fun one. But we should not underestimate how powerful that is.
Physical playfulness pushes the boundaries of what is safe, bringing excitement and then regulation. The child learns to try new things and then come back to safety: oh, but I am okay. It works best when the playful parent stays sensitive to the child and does not keep pushing if the child is terrified. That comes back to attunement.
If you are not the one who can provide it all
Knowing the baseline of what a child's body might expect is useful, but it does not mean single parents or same sex couples cannot provide it. If you cannot offer all of it yourself, that is okay. This is when we reach out for community and bring in the influences that might be thought of as stereotypically masculine, though they are not necessarily. It matters for girls as much as for boys.
The crux is communication
Whoever you are, you carry different styles and different backgrounds of trauma, so communication between caregivers is the crux. Kirsty often gave up getting the children into the car seat, and then dad would come in as the bad cop, though not in an authoritarian way. Children are remarkably insightful and flexible: with this person it goes like this, with that person it goes like that.
Having ways to communicate is so important, and in reality it is often the first thing to fall down when there are new babies and toddlers, everyone is tired and everyone is triggered by their own stuff. It is so easy to slide into resentment and overwhelm, passing ships that miss each other as they sail by. So how can you work as a team, and acknowledge each other's strengths?
Some things to ponder
No pressure to answer any of these. Just notice which one catches you.
- What does my partner do that I have been calling wrong, which might actually be a strength?
- Have I painted a picture of what support looks like for me, or am I hoping they will guess?
- Which do I tend to bring, the no nonsense or the tenderness, and what would I love to learn from how my partner does it?
- Where do my children go when they need topping up, and what might that be showing me?
- If I am parenting on my own, where could I bring in more village?
- When did we last talk as a team, rather than passing like ships?
Coming in part two
- The roles each parent plays: the fun one, and who learns about boundaries from whom.
- What it feels like inside when you are always the one who sets the limits, and what that does to the relationship.
- How we create the village.
- Patterns in attachment, and how we carry different wounds depending on whether we felt our mother or our father was not there for us.
Meet Donna and Kirsty
Donna Stichbury
The Relationship Facilitator
PIKLER® Pedagogue and Circle of Security Facilitator
Donna is based in Pukekohe, Aotearoa New Zealand, and works both locally and online. She calls herself The Relationship Facilitator because her modality, Relational Flow, moves across every kind of relationship: adult attachment work, couples, parenting, and children's big messy behaviours.
Curious where to start? Book a free Zoom coffee chat with Donna.
Kirsty Denny
Kirsty Marie Energy
Energetic kinesiologist
Kirsty is an energetic kinesiologist and home educating mother of neurodivergent children. She uses kinesiology to work with the layers of subconscious stress and conditioning that can impact our ability to align to our truest expression.
When it comes to nervous system health and healthy attachment, she believes it all matters, the physical, the emotional and the spiritual, with healthy relationships with ourselves and others as the bedrock.
An invitation
If something here sounded like your family, you are welcome to sit with it for a while. Notice the strengths in the person across the table from you, and the ones you carry yourself. There is no rush.
When you are ready to talk it through, Donna would love to hear from you.
Book a Zoom coffee chat with DonnaMauri Aroha. 🌿
