The Taoist mother

There really is a synchronicity to life, if you're on the right path.

I realized such a synchronicity between two very different parts of my life - my Taoism and my motherhood.

I am the proud mother of a little boy, whom I shall dub PreciousBoy, who is almost 3 years old. PreciousBoy is curious, smart, and a little spitfire who has fully lived to the expectation of what "Terrible Twos" are supposed to be about.

Now, what makes them "Terrible Twos" is the fact that they are developing their own personality, trying to assert their independence from their parents, and so they will disagree and say no, for the sake of saying No.

This can be a terrible thing when you need them to pipe down and stop making a scene in public. And with my son, this is all the more pronounced since he has inherited every ounce of stubbornness from me and my husband, My Darling Redhead.

I am also a budding Taoist, having been a Tai Chi Chuan practitioner for a number of years.

So here is the confluence of things. The Tao translates as The Way and at the heart of the philosophy of Taoism is to follow the Way, to go with Nature. To basically go with the flow. (This is a very limited bit of Taoism, but I am only a budding Taoist).

Anyway, I have discovered with PreciousBoy that when I mother like a Taoist, trying not to fight him, trying to let him follow his Way, so to speak, then the temper tantrums stop and I can actually witness him growing, developing, learning about the world.

There is a book about this parenting style, the Parent's Tao Te Ching, which I recently bought from Amazon, but have yet to read. (It's number 4 on my reading list at the moment).

But in the meantime, I am trying to be a Taoist mother.