Overwhelmed Children, Pi**ed Off Mothers

I’m feeling defensive today. Defensive in the face of my children’s fragility. Why is our society so obsessed with our children becoming independent? Is it so that they can stop hanging onto their mother’s work-jacket tails and allow them to scurry back to the office unencumbered? Is it because, as a nation, we can breathe a collective sigh of relief at not having to deal with the time-consuming little tykes any more? Why is it that the outgoing, confident, striding-forward-hopefully children are applauded and their parents congratulated, while those peeping out from behind their mothers’ legs are somehow seen to be letting the side down? Both my children have struggled with the big bad world at times. Both have had periods of being happiest at home, where they know they’re loved, and both, as babies and young toddlers, were hugely sensitive – to emotions, to noise, to any kind of over-stimulation. I say this not as an over indulgent mother, (‘my precious children are so sensitive, they need special care’), but as a mother who accepts them as they are but who has seen the downside of this; the babies who wouldn’t be left with someone they don’t trust, the toddlers who were terrified of the bigger brasher kids, the children who need extra encouragement, affection, love. My son was an anxious toddler, and I lost count of the people who would exhort me to ‘throw him in at the deep end of life’. I didn’t. I held him close. At eight, he is gregarious and sociable, happy and confident; he looks adults in the eye, he’ll address the whole school quite happily in assembly. My daughter won’t speak to the two new teachers at her pre-school. She’s not sure of them yet – why should she be? One of them told me “She needs to say ‘yes’ to her name at register time instead of putting her hand up. It’s a health and safety requirement. If there was a fire we’d need to know she was there”. I suggested, mildly, that if there was a fire, they’d soon know she was there. I think, at three, that you should reserve the right to speak to whoever the hell you like. I think, at three, that your world should be cosy and familiar, your limits small, your horizons close. I think it’s weird that we’re so keen to push our infants out of the door, yet we’re overprotective and won’t let them out to play when they’re older and ready to explore. Above all, I think that you have to advocate for your children at every opportunity. I don’t think that you should have to apologise for shyness. My dear friend has four independently minded little souls - the sort who charge into school on their first day, who beam at strangers, who never cling. They’re gorgeous children, and I love their fearless feistiness. That’s just the way they are. But children are different. We don’t expect them to all walk at the same time, after all. “I just want to be with you”, my daughter explained, refusing to take her coat off one day when I dropped her at pre-school. “I love you so much, so I want to be where you are”, she added, with touching reasonableness. “She’s manipulating you” said the brash, gum-chewing Mum, whose opinion I hadn’t sought, and who grins in mock exasperation and not-so-secret pride as her offspring push and fight their way through the throng, ‘cos that’s what boys do (if they’re real boys, is the sub-text). “She’ll get a shock when she has to go to school every day”. Oh yes, school every day. At four. SATS at six. (She’s a summer baby). Her path has been carved for her – and she’d better be walking down it alone. Can’t have her holding ME up now, can we?