I wonder if you have ever felt as a father that parenting is sort of a direct way of engaging and discovering your shadow.
I find that I’m often the most critical of/judgemental of my children and their behavior (internally at least), and that when I stop to think about it, they are often doing things that either my wife or I do, whether that be in actions, attitude, ways of speaking, etc.
Watching my children, to me, is often like looking in the mirror.
Oh definitely!
And what makes it particularly interesting, is that each of our three kids mirrors back different aspects of our shadows, and that applies both for my wife and myself.
Our oldest son (34) is definitely the persona of my wife, while our middle son (33) is a copy of me, while our daughter (31) well, we're not sure where she came from but from a shadow perspective she is definitely some of the less savory aspects of my wife, while her nit picky persnickety-ness about certain things is definitely all me!
You definitely have to be on your toes to make sure you don't criticize your kids too much for modeling you!
We just had our third child last year, ten years after our first. I’d like to think we’ve learned a thing or two about parenting and ourselves during that time, so I’m curious to see what he mirrors back to us. Hopefully, I’ll be a little happier with what I see this time around. 😬