Blogging has taken second place to
everything else in the past few months. School holidays, return to school,
fundraising for Macmillan.
There have been various themes that I’ve been
considering for a blog post. In the end I am writing about one of the things I
find hard as a parent.
Clinginess.
Dearie me, it is hard work at the moment.
Susannah doesn’t like to be left alone in any area of the house, except on the
rare – and we’re talking blue moon rare – occasion that it suits her or she is
distracted enough to forget. She trails up and down the stairs after me and
drives me to distraction when she won’t even stay eating her breakfast in the
kitchen for the whole 9 seconds it takes to go to the hall and back to retrieve
a school book bag, lunch box or whatever else you are chasing your tail sorting
out that morning.
Clinginess is so draining. They want to be
near you and cuddle you all the time. In some ways that sounds sweet, but it
can be suffocating. Sometimes we need a bit of space. I’d like to have a shower
on my own. I have personal needs I would rather tend to alone.
It can become a cycle. You know your
children need reassurance, but you still push them away to get that bit of
space you need. When you try to create space, they cling more. Pushing them
away without it being a rejection can become a challenge.
Susannah is four and you expect her to be
more independent. She was doing her own buttons at the age of two, and capable
of entertaining herself for sustained periods.
On the other hand, she is only four. A lot has happened in her
short life, and she has had joining Reception year at school to contend with. I
know really it is only a phase. Come teenage years I’ll be mourning the loss of
cuddles.
What’s more, I am well aware that if a bit
of clinginess is all you have to worry about, then you have a lot going for
you. I was at the Macmillan Cancer Voices conference at the weekend. There you
learn what hardships some parents bear and you know there are some truly
terrible awful things that some families have to go through. Being told your
child has a cancer they are unlikely to recover from for example. It is hard to
imagine worse.
On a note of hope though, one mother I met
who had gone through this experience was there with her daughter who
had been so poorly (who doctors did not expect to live). That same daughter is now in her thirties and campaigning
for support for survivors of childhood cancer. She may have long term health
issues as a result of what she went through as a child, but she is very much
alive and kicking, and her mother also here to tell the tale.
So, newly humbled I’ll try again to accept
that my physical presence is needed. I’ll do my best not to push away. I’ll try
and make the most of every cuddle. I can’t promise not to find clinginess
suffocating from time to time, but I’ll try to do my best, which I guess is all that
any parent can do when it comes down to it.
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