We Need a Change of Consciousness about Crying
What is it like for me as a grandparent? I am hurting. I love my granddaughter, so much that it hurts. I had closed my heart off to love—and here, I couldn’t! My sister has said that she felt that her grandchild was her own child. Me, too.
The hardest part is that the baby’s crying is not understood or welcomed. I have listened to my granddaughter cry three major times when the parents were not around. I could not see her crying and do nothing. Standing by and not doing anything when she was rightfully and honestly asking to cry and scream was unbearable.
When her parents first brought her home from the hospital, she cried for six hours straight. At 6:00 a.m. my son asked me to come. That day was intense and ended so much better than it had begun. I felt that I had brought them the gift of discharge. But still, it did not (yet) make a dent in their allowing the baby to cry.
I visited them the day after writing this and had a much awaited “back and forth” [conversation] with my daughter-in-law that “cleared the air” [ended the misunderstanding between us]. I put out that as mother-in-law and daughter-in-law we can be the best of allies for each other, despite any folklore to the contrary. I appreciated both of us for the great lengths we had gone to be loving to each other and the baby.
I am reaching out to organizations that deal with infants and babies, and to parents’ groups, and giving talks about listening to discharge. I have asked friends to set aside twelve minutes for me to address them seriously, professionally, about discharge and have had huge successes with this.
We need a widespread change of consciousness in our societies about crying. Even in RC, I think we are only beginning to explore discharge.
USA
Reprinted from the RC e-mail discussion list for leaders of parents
(Present Time 206, January 2022)