Randi Rubenstein - The Parent Gap: Tools to Keep Your Cool, Stay Connected & Change Unhealthy Patterns

TOOLS TO KEEP YOUR COOL, STAY CONNECTED AND CHANGE UNHEALTHY PATTERNS

Randi Rubenstein

NEW YORK

NASHVILLEMELBOURNEVANCOUVER

The Parent Gap

2017 Randi Rubenstein

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or otherexcept for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Published in New York, New York, by Morgan James Publishing in partnership with Difference Press.

www.MorganJamesPublishing.com

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ISBN 9781683503040 paperback

ISBN 9781683503064 eBook

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016917106

Cover Design by:

John Matthew

Interior Design by:

Megan Whitney

Creative Ninja Designs

Editing: Grace Kerina

Authors Photo:

Paper Heart Photography

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DEDICATION

To Scott, for being my perfect puzzle piece.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thanks to my three kids Alec, Avery, and Cory for being my patient teachers most of the time. The biggest lessons you each brought into my life are:

Alec the value of perspective taking and how it is the key to building a connected relationship

Avery triggering me as you entered the girl world years and helping me realize my desire to build a community of supportive sisterhood as an antidote to the destructive female social cycle

Cory its not nice to talk badly behind peoples backs

Thanks to my husband, Scott. We really lucked out with this life we share togetherdont ya think?. You have supported and prioritized me and my work in more ways than I can even begin to list. I love you for being my detail person and looking out for me when I forget some pretty significant details. I love you for writing your own acknowledgement because I forgot to include you. Ya, I chose to write this myself but thanks. You take good care of me. I always feel loved unconditionally by you and thats something really big. Also, I think youre funny and good looking so Im going to keep you around for a bit.

Thanks to my parents, Tommy and Barbara, for always loving me unconditionally, which gave me the self-confidence to want a better life and to seek the resources to make it happen.

Thanks to Aunt Carolyn, for being my best friend and soul sister. If you hadnt become my family through friendship, everything would have been different. I like my everything and I love you. Also, thanks for not breaking my legs as I paid back the loan.

Thanks to Peta, for your generous editing gift of lending me your Mama brain and perspective. The gift of time and attention towards this project truly means so much to me.

Thanks to all the friends who allowed me to pick their brains and showed up to the honest conversation vulnerably and courageously. Thank you from my whole heart.

Thanks to my Facebook community for your virtual love and support. A comment or even just a Like can be the pick-me-up this girl needs when Im starring in the going to school naked dream.

Thanks to the mentors, teachers, and coaches who have helped me over the past eighteen years, many of whom I quoted in the book. There are too many of you to name, but it is because of your willingness to share your work that I was able to utilize you as a supportive and healing resource. This book is my tribute to your work and my contribution to pay your healing gifts forward. Your generosity in sharing your learning, teaching, and writing helped to heal me of many old wounds. I hope to follow in your footsteps.

The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL

You swore to yourself that youd do this parenting thing differently. You had big plans. Really big plans, in fact. It may have begun with an actual birth plan that involved a holistic approach to bringing life forth into the world without epidurals or C-sections. Quickly followed, of course, by skin-to-skin contact as your perfect, ten-fingered and ten-toed newborn earned breastfeeding awards for the quickest and best latch that any lactation consultant this side of the Mississippi had ever seen.

You may very well be the kind of mom who is drawn to words and phrases like holistic and bringing life forth, and there is a lot that you plan not to repeat from your own childhood. Your parents believed in McDonalds and spanking. Bathing wasnt even required daily, for the love of God. Terms like holistic, conscious parenting, and mindful living might sound like witchcraft or voodoo to your parents. What you want for your kids is a far cry from the way you grew up.

The truth is, the details of that fantasy family vision are now a little hard to recall and youre pretty sure it didnt involve yelling, or tossing the little people you brought forth into bed as quickly as possible so that you could escape with your well-deserved first glass of wine and maybe even a cigarette. Youre also fairly certain your big plan didnt include the secret desire to distract yourself with food, television, work, technology, friends, drama, substances, and almost anything other than hanging out and spending quality time with your kids. Or, perhaps, your bambinos arrived after much expense and time, through the gifts of modern science, an incredible fertility doctor, a surrogate, or adoption. (Luckily, we have many avenues available these days, especially if you have the resources to pursue your parenthood dreams.)

One thing youre pretty sure of, though, is that your fantasy didnt involve feeling so stressed out and exhausted that you were constantly in search of any way to feel better. And that the way to feel better would come in the form of standing in your pantry binge-eating your way into momentary bliss, even if it only buys you a few minutes of relief from your life.

When you begin to hear your moms words coming out of your mouth, or you experience anger seemingly similar to your dads temper, it is simply too freaking depressing to even admit that this is your life. You find yourself yelling day after day and it feels terrible for you and for your kids. As a result, you distract yourself to avoid thinking about your shattered plans to change this story for your kids. Facing your reality feels downright hypocritical considering that, not so long ago, you had sworn to yourself that your kids would have a better childhood than you had.

At this point, before you put this book down and head to the nearest drive-through for a French-fries-and-Frosty fix, please note that you are reading this book and this counts as a step in the right direction. Stay with me, because the information in the following pages is going to be exactly what you have needed to reconnect with your original intentions, before life happened and those dreams were temporarily put on hold.