Robins

A robin built its nest just outside our window. The nest was deep enough that we never saw distinctive blue eggs, but yesterday a trio of insatiable hatchlings appeared.

Two parents would fly back and forth short distances from the nest, looking for the next morsel to offer the wide mouths of their newborns. The hatchlings stretched their necks up, barely able to support the weight of their own tiny heads.

When the rain started, Momma Robin puffed her feathers up and protected the little nestlings, who don’t have any feathers to protect them yet. They don’t know how to do anything except stretch their little gaping beaks up to get fed. They might aspirate water if a parent wasn’t protecting them. Just because they don’t know how to not breathe rain.

In about a week, though, the nest is going to be getting crowded. In another couple of weeks, those babies will be out exploring the world. Dad will still feed the little fledglings when they’re hungry for a little while, dividing his attention the best he can.

Pretty soon, they’ll start eating things on their own and figure out what’s nourishing and what isn’t. And mom and dad will just have themselves to care for again.

There are times when we might really want to be like those hyper-focused parents. We might even think we’re supposed to be that kind of nurturing protective person all the time. And I’m not just talking about those of us who are literal parents. All of us might feel drawn to be a caretaker in some situations.

And sometimes, that’s a very appropriate role for us to play. Sometimes, though, we’re much more like those little hatchlings, not able to do much more than cry out for nourishment. For a lot of us, that feels really vulnerable. We might even feel ashamed that we can barely know how to do anything except hold our heads up and ask for care.

A lot of the time, we’re somewhere in between. We need care from someone, and we have the capacity to offer care to someone. Life isn’t as simple for us as it is for robins, I suppose. But there’s still a lot we can learn from robins.

It’s OK when all we know how to do is receive care from someone. It’s OK when we choose to extend ourselves a little bit in the short term to help someone else. And it’s OK when we gradually step back and let another person start to figure some things out for themselves. It’s even OK for us to take turns caring for someone when the need is great.

I would say my internal robins are in a lot of different stages. And none of them are shameful or inappropriate or better than the others. They just are.

Where are your internal robins in their development? Are there some you’re ignoring for some reason? Or some that embarrass you? How might you embrace all of what you need and what you have to offer with authentic compassion?

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