Suck It Up

 I am a Gen X kid. I was born as the last "official" wave of military started being brought home from Vietnam. 

Kids those days were expected to be seen and not heard. Not in a "be silent, you're bugging me", but a "you don't have a say in your life, so just push through, suck it up, and deal" kind of way.

"Suck it up" wasn't what my dad would say. It was "Stop crying, or I'll give you something to cry about". It wasn't what my mom would say, either. It was "You're being overly-dramatic" or "Stop being so sensitive!".

My parents were a perfect product of their age and how they were raised. I know, logically, that they loved me the best way they knew how. The fact was, though, this meant they frequently dismissed my own feelings as unimportant or inconvenient.

I know now, at 51, that how they'd been raised (I'd heard the stories - CPS would have been ALL over my grandparents) created a lot of who they became. But instead of recognizing that the trauma they'd experienced was not something they should internalize, they chose instead to create a barrier between themselves and their children.

I know a lot of my friends who had parents that were the same way. "Laugh or Leave", "Suck it up", "Get over it", "deal with it", "just let it go"... These stick in my and my friends heads as a daily mantra of how we "should" be acting, whenever we end up in a situation where we feel overwhelmed, or hurt; angry, or frustrated. The volume turns up to 11 as we hear our parents saying "Oh, you're over-reacting. It's no big deal. Just push through it, you'll be fine."

Except our own experiences taught us that we're weren't going to be fine. We hadn't been fine then, so why would this time be different?

We are all working to get better with this, by the way. We are very self-aware of our faults, our missteps, and our challenges in life. We are also raising our own kids, painfully aware of the knowledge that we need to do better with them - be better listeners, better supporters, and better human beings.

Checking in with your kid regularly about how they're feeling, and providing a safe, supportive space for them to tell you anything - that doesn't make them (or you) weak. It gives them a building block of knowledge about themselves, and starts them on a path of self-awareness. It gives them strength to say what they need to, and nurtures self-respect. It starts with us as parents.