Monthly Archives: October 2011

Nursery again

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For all I heard other mothers rave about their children simply loving nursery, I remained unconvinced. A convenient delusion fuelled by maternal guilt muttered the three-horned, seven-eyed sceptic perched on my shoulder. Children are happiest with their parents, it said arrogantly puffing up its scaly wings, best keep yours at home for as long as possible – career schmareer, look after your babies.

But my desire for a few hours each morning to do something other than getting chilly on a windy playground was strong enough to clip the sceptic’s wings, if not to entirely push it from my shoulder. Off to nursery they went; and so began two dark weeks. How my little boy protested. Wild dogs could not drag him from my grasp, and he would howl louder than they if they tried. Had it not been for my little girl, by contrast, embracing this nursery world of opportunity, relishing new friendships and basking in the glory of a thousand unknown toys, I would have believed the sceptic entirely vindicated.

Her tangible happiness made me think it was quite likely many children enjoyed it just as much – these mothers had been telling the truth. Fooling themselves, they were not. Still, what about those children – like my son – who could not stand it? I have talked before about our decision to treat his progression into nursery as an entirely different challenge (http://fatgoldwatch.posterous.com/nursery-school-a-familial-divide). The combination of emotions which ensued was curious. First the relief that I did not need to force him to stay when he did not want to. Then the frustrated realisation that by keeping him at home at bit longer I would not have any child-free hours at all. Finally, the disappointment for him, that by staying so tightly by my side he was excluding himself from all this good fun. 

 

Therein lay the answer – I had seen that nursery could be good fun. I knew that if only he could bear to look beyond my shoulder, he, like his sister, would actually like being there with all the goodies on offer. Armed with this parental arrogance (thinking, hoping more like, that I knew what was best for my child), I was able to quell my maternal instinct and leave him unhappy in the arms of the nursery teacher a few days in a row, listening at the door as he immediately stopped crying once the door was closed.

And to my relief, how quickly the farewell scene changed. Now they both trot in, barely pausing to brush a kiss on my proffered cheek. They have learned to be confident in the thought that I will soon be back and they can still spend all afternoon with mum getting chilly at the playground. I have learned that sometimes my most immediate reaction – to stop the crying as quickly possible – is not always the happiest solution in the longer term. I would like to say that the three-horned, seven-eyed sceptic has learned too, but it still sits muttering on my shoulder about some disbelief or other in what other parents say.

You work it out

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We arrive at the flat late afternoon. The children trail pathetically behind us from room to room, whimpering and stretching out their arms to be carried. Familiar toys lie untouched in the living room, neatly stacked where we left them five days ago; the tub of bricks remains tightly closed in the children’s bedroom, no child clamours to prise off the lid. After six hours imprisoned, hot and sticky, in their car seats, only a brief hour respite toddling around the grimy play area of a service station, we had expected this homecoming to be more celebratory. As so often with small children, expectation’s hopes are dashed on the rocks of reality. 

Unpacking awkwardly, both with a child on our arm, we start questioning the sense of our long weekend away to see the grandparents. Of course, we say, the children must be crabby after such a long time in the car, just as we are – that ambiguous numbing lethargy which comes from being mentally but not physically tired. Unlike us, we realise, they must also be confused. They are too young to understand that those claustrophobic, noisy hours on the motorway mean leaving one place, where they were surrounded with loving adults – grandparents, aunts, uncles – and had a garden to explore, and arriving in another, where they only have us, busy parents trying to restart our ordinary lives. Where have all those kindly, ready hands and laughing faces gone? The soft grass, the row of stones, the splendid jungle of flowers, the balcony fence with its gaps for playing peekaboo, the mass of beads and bracelets from Grandma’s old jewellery box? All inexplicably disappeared, to their minds at least. 

Our suitcases now empty but children still complaining if left to play alone on the floor, we speculate that perhaps we should not have gone away at all. They need a hard and fast routine at this age, we tell ourselves sternly; a continuous environment in which they sleep in the same bed each night. (We had all slept badly the few nights we had been away.) Then comes the round of justifications. But it was such a lovely time – those precious days with grandparents and cousins, that chance to explore outside without the fear of stinking dog poo and broken glass, the trip to friends with guinea pigs and a trampoline, neither of which they would ever encounter in our city lives, the few hours we had to ourselves whilst the grandparents whisked them away to the park. All of that made it worth it, surely. 

Living far away from our respective families, this is our constant dilemma, an equation we will never solve: x(interrupted sleep + travel exhaustion + bewilderment) = y(family + new experience + the odd hour of babysitting) 

In earlier times, our and our families’ expectations would have been different. Big fast cars and cheap airfare have heralded an age of frequent visiting rights, no matter how far apart families may be strewn. This is both wonderful and  trying.  That night in bed we resolve we will not travel anywhere for, oh, at least a year – not until they can understand what travelling means, or maybe when they can enjoy colouring books. People must come to us, we say, if they really want to see us. We can say this with such utter resolution, however, because deep down inside we know that once the memory of the car journey has faded and a new compelling occasion arises, we will once again be convincing ourselves that ‘y’ is a much, much larger number than ‘x’.