School holidays can really highlight the minutia of parenting that can be otherwise missed during the day-to-day grind of breakfast, school runs, work, football training sessions and (reluctant) bedtimes.
A few days ago, somewhere between a glorious woodland trail around a lake and the third time I’d said ‘no’ to ice cream, I found myself walking behind my two older children. They didn’t notice (obviously, being two teenage boys) my awareness of them. They were deep in conversation with one another; laughter occasionally punctuating whatever it was they were discussing, that I wasn’t privy to.
As I trailed behind, I had a sudden and intense realisation.
Their world no longer revolves around me.
It was a beautiful day and a beautiful moment. One I will carry and remember, for as long as I’m able to remember things. The happiness. The independence. The connection – not to me, but to each other. And yet, as I walked behind, a wave of something lodged itself in my chest and throat. An ache that offered an uncomfortable message ‘they don’t need me the same way anymore‘. Of course, this is exactly what I’ve been doing all these years right? Raising them to not need me. But – oof – it stings.
As a mother and a psychotherapist, I often find myself navigating the waters between professional knowledge and personal experience. In the therapy room, I can talk for hours about attachment, family systems, child development…but on the tree-lined path of a school holiday walk? Theory doesn’t cut it. There is no theoretical framework that can soften the blow of your children no longer looking back to see if you’re keeping up.
Parenting is sold to us in highlights – first steps, first words, first day at school…but what is talked about significantly less is the quiet grief behind all these moments. Because with every first? There’s also a last. The immense joy and overwhelming sorrow become intrinsically intertwined in a confusing this-feels-good-but-also-not-good way that is difficult to accept.
There’s a particular kind of grief that comes from knowing that you’ve done your job. It sticks its head round the door and waves at you in ordinary, mundane moments – when no-one needs your help buckling a seatbelt, when eyes are rolled rather than hands being held, when their world slowly, but surely, tilts towards their friends and away from you (what do you mean you’d rather go to the cinema with your friends and not me?!).
It’s not that I want them to stay small – my goodness, I adore getting to know these wonderful, messy, interesting individuals, and I am not one to romanticise the toddler years (that shit is hard) – but there’s this odd, mournful longing for a version of them that no longer exists and never will again. And, I guess, also for the version of me that mothered them. She’s long gone, now.
This – the unspoken cost of raising humans who were never really yours to begin with – is actually the price of doing it right. It’s love, in its most honest, vulnerable form. The quiet contract we signed without really knowing what we were signing up to.
So, if like me, you’re feeling this bizarre cocktail of pride and sadness trailing behind your children on a woodland (or metaphorical) path – know this; this dance between closeness and separation is not a flaw, with you or with them. It’s nature at work. We were never meant to walk the whole path side by side.
Thanks for reading. If something in this piece stirred something in you, or you’re wondering what it might be like to explore these themes in therapy, you’re welcome to reach out. I offer sessions in-person at the therapy and counselling centre I run in Cheshire, and a limited amount of online sessions across the UK. You can find out more by heading to Insightful Life – Therapy & Counselling Centre
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