My son is blossoming at three years old, five months shy away from his birthday. Today, he asked my husband if he could “start preparing for my birthday, please”. He loves attending his friends’ birthday parties from his “school” ie. Montessori daycare, so every weekend he asks if we’re “going to a birthday”. Oh, how heart-breaking is it to tell your child that not every weekend is someone’s birthday? I’m just constantly surprised at the little things one has to teach their child, the mini-heartbreaks one must deliver. If only the world was just how our toddlers imagine it–every weekend is a party, and the jungle and forests with the lions and elephants and all the animals is just a car ride away, and everyone eats pizza and Old McDonald’s and all is well in the world. (My son calls McDonald’s, Old McDonald’s because he can’t seem to differentiate the fast-food chain from the song, Old MacDonald had a farm, so it’s all Old McDonald’s to him)
For the past few weeks, he’s learned to communicate how much he does not like going to school. It was especially hard after March break — he would resist in any way he can, pretend to be dead weight while I’m carrying him out of the car, and just walk lumpy and sad. And then when we’re at the front door, parting with him is so difficult, because he’d hide behind my legs and hug my knees from behind, and try to run away while his teacher calls out to him. There were definitely tears and every time I start thinking of ways to have him stay at home, how I can fit him into my routine, knowing fully well that it would detract me from getting any work done, plus it would rob him of his opportunity to learn and socialize with other kids his age.
I do love our morning routines, and am very appreciative of it. I wake him up slowly, sometimes we’re in bed together because either he travels to my bedroom in the middle of the night or I end up snuggling with him in his bedroom. I hug him and tell him it’s time to get up — sometimes, he leaps up with excitement and would turn on the light but more often he would snuggle right back and we’d roll around in bed in each other’s arms until we both grudgingly get up.
And then I’ll get him ready for school, have a quick breakfast and play or watch TV until 8:20 am rolls around. He does not like hurrying so I make sure he has a quiet morning routine where he does everything he wants to do before going to school, as he tends to be more complacent about going when he’s had a little bit of playtime beforehand. It doesn’t mean it still doesn’t break my heart when he tells me he doesn’t like going, however. He sometimes tells me all he wants to do is stay home with his mom and dad.
However, he recently has been saying, “I had fun at school today!” And I love to hear that. He is even able to tell me that he waited for me all day, that sometimes they go outside and he starts calling for me, and that his teachers tell him his mom isn’t here yet. It’s a wonder how much his life has opened up ever since he’s been able to communicate his thoughts to me. Now I know how his days go, whether or not he misses home, and whether school was a good day for him or not. I long for every update, every tidbit that colours in the gaps in my mind–it gives me a picture of his silent, unknowable world, one that he inhabits when we’re apart. It’s a blurry picture, yes, but I can’t wait until he develops the words to tell me what life is like through his eyes.
I still feel this huge, powerful conflict inside me–that excitement to see the person he is becoming fully, and that anxiety that looms over every second that pass by, dreading time, wanting it to freeze so that the future where he is fully grown and independent of me never comes. They never told me that motherhood is an eternal battle of conflicting emotions. That I would forever be questioning whether or not I’m doing the right thing, if I’m leading my child correctly, or if I should protect and defend him from the world, or let him experience the world for himself, good and bad? Every day, the questions mount. The more I’m aware of the things I cannot know, the heavier the burden becomes.
Motherhood makes you question everything, makes you doubt everything. And in the end, the only way you know you did a good job, is to have them walk away, to have them live their life without you– all this work so that you can let go.
There is no other experience that requires such selflessness of us, such sacrifice. But mothers know that the moment their child exists, because from the moment I became pregnant I realized this body is no longer my own–I existed fully to serve another human being–my child, who started inside of me and will always be a part of me.
They never told me how much I would miss my son, even as he sleeps gently above me, in his bedroom, while I endlessly wrote about him in the living room. I wouldn’t trade this life for anything else.
Fellow parents, how do you navigate the daily tug-of-war between holding on and letting go? Share your thoughts and stories in the comments—I’d love to hear how your little ones are teaching you too.
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