The illusion of “Fitting in”
The adults gather around the new baby. “ I think she looks like you!” somebody says. “I think she looks like her Grandma”. “Oh ya, she definitely looks like Grandma”. There is much excitement. The baby sleeps unaware. It is hard to say who a newborn looks like most of the time but the adults are eager. Its a family game. All families do it. The baby belongs to this family and she must look like someone. Everybody would like some ownership. And the baby belongs.
A couple of years go by and it is more obvious who the baby looks like. Mum does not really get along with Grandma. When little Ally gets fidgety and Mum is tired, mum gets frustrated. “Oh, you’re going to be a handful. Nothing is good enough for you, just like your Grandma!”.
Or - “Look at her long fingers, definitely a pianist!”. Or - “She is so independent”. Or - “She is so good at math”. We hear these comments all the time. Families look at children and see or don’t see themselves. Adults project their fears and fantasies onto children who are marinated in them, unconsciously. Sometimes a child falls in the shadows while a sibling stands in the sunshine. The golden child is in a cage, he has to stay golden. The child in the shadows wonders why the sunshine doesn’t come their way. Older children get forgotten when babies come along and steal the spotlight. Single children have nobody to share the glare of the spotlight and nowhere to hide.
Children are like and un-like their parents, all at the same time. It is easy to “fit” in the beginning. The baby is forgiven for the ways in which she doesn’t fit. There is time and the baby is “cute”. Gradually she grows out of her babyhood. The expectations that parents carry within them start slowly oozing out. Parents are simply people who had children. And differences are a concept we all struggle with. We do not really expect or anticipate our children to be very different from us. And we respond variably when they are. Ideally, a parent leans forward with curiosity and flexibility as the new baby unfolds in front of them. The baby receives the space she needs to spread and flap her new wings, to move around, to try out her new voice, to grow accustomed to new foods at her pace - to feel permission to be her own special self. The trouble starts here. In the rush of life, we might be looking more for compliance and agreement than uniqueness. Complicating matters is the fact that some children , by temperament , are able to comply better than others. These babies are labelled - the “easy” ones - and little Emily was always the “angry” child or the “picky” child or the “colicky” child. The label sticks since it is in place long before the child is aware of this identity at all. It implies that Emily was born angry or colicky or picky. Emily believes it. She wishes she were the ‘easy’ one so that she could fit in and not stick out in this negative way. She internalizes that something about her is not working. Sometimes the Golden child and the Gifted child struggle to fit in and not stick out from their peers.
Come to think of it - there is no other person who has this particular combination of elements that make up any given individual. But there is much natural comparison as we stand in line and look at each other - in our families which is the first group, with our friends in school which make up our next group, in dance class or soccer, our other group. We walk around thinking - “Do I fit? And how?”. In teenage, as the body goes through its awkward transformations, the discomfort and anxiety heightens. Without adequate ongoing support, the young person struggles as they moult. Or , in the case of an eating disorder , a person decides to not moult. I will stop where my body freaks me out. I will grow into adulthood in my 14 year old body. If I were 95 pounds, I might “fit”. I will fight with biology all my life to stay in one spot.
Teenage is the period of differentiation. Where a young person notices their differences and is helped to realize and celebrate the unique adult they are becoming. Ideally. It is not always the case. Fear is a common companion in all families and cultures. Differences bring fear and fear closes the door. Fear causes adults to have clear ideas about where the boundaries of change lie and the young person who wants to cross them is strongly discouraged , or at least not encouraged. The family knows what is ‘safe’. “ We love you” they say “Don’t cross the line”. There are lists of Do’s and Don’ts. We all know them. They are reflected on our parents faces. They don’t need to be said in so many words. We know because we see our parents living inside those rules. The children who break them know they might have to do so without permission, with guilt, with discomfort. And they have to run the risk of not “fitting in” and survive.
We carry adulthood well when we can align with our own selves and our own emotions. The freedom to be oneself comes with the risk of separating from the unquestioned values / beliefs of the family system to explore and find one’s own. And one must find the resources , inside and out, to do so for this exploration: to grow into that new space that holds a special shape where only I fit and nobody else can. And learn to inhabit it. It is different from the space in my original family home. It is different from anyone else’s. But if I stay for a while, just long enough, I start feeling myself inside my own new shape, my own space and it starts feeling cozy. And unique. Others recognize me in this new shape and gradually I can decorate it in my own way. with my own colours.
And one day I will get comfortable not “fitting in” with old shapes but just “fitting in” with others in my own unique way. Celebrated for the gifts I bring. How would that be any contribution if I was simply the same colour and the same shape with the same story and the same smell as the collective. The collective is safe but it is for my younger self. Outside the collective is freedom - to grow and be myself. To breathe free, to not be contained, to think my own thoughts and bring to others my own offering.
