Cherish the Children
Cherish the Children
This one hit home a bit!
There’s almost as much pressure these days to have a ‘labelled’ child as there is to have a ‘normal’ child. In a desperate quest to belong to one group or the other, I feel that we can often ignore overlook our children’s charming quirkiness that make them the unique individuals that they are.
Instead of embracing a child’s ‘weirdness’, ‘otherness’, ‘oddness’ we often find ourselves withering under the disapproving looks of those who appear to have their parenting acts together or, perhaps, that’s just our own internal voices making us believe that we’re just not good enough!
Once upon a time I was the mortified mom at the back of the hall at school concerts. Once upon a time I was the red-faced mom with hot tears stinging her eyes and threatening to spill over if I caught one look of pity from the moms whose children were onstage giving the performance of their lives. I was the mom of the little dark-haired thunder cloud who stood with folded arms, scowling face and stomping foot, the child who refused to do any of the actions or say any of her lines. I was the mom who was up late at night feeling all alone and wondering where I had gone wrong as a mother.
If school concerts were bad then sports days were the stuff nightmares are made of. Sports days were hard. She would be clutching the hand of the assistant leading the children to the starting line…and that’s where she would stay. As the other children ran their little hearts out my beautiful child would look on with tears streaming down her face as a prelude to the piercing howl that was soon to follow. I would run to pick her up, to try and comfort her as her rigid little body went into sobbing convulsions, silently apologising as we made our way to the nearest exit hoping no-one would remember this next week.
I was, of course, being ridiculous. If I look back now (because hindsight is a wonderful thing!) I was so consumed by the way I thought she should be acting that I forgot to pay attention to what she was trying to tell me but guilt can be a terrible thing when you’re a parent. And every day we can beat ourselves up about something different.
Parenting is not easy and, upon reflection, I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone say that it is. And, if you happen to have a child who doesn’t quite conform or who always seems to do things a little (or even a lot) differently all I can tell you is: Enjoy the Ride! It may not be the easiest parenting route but it is most certainly the most scenic route.
