It was in the middle of our usual lengthy negotiation over who would put on their shoes that the nursery teacher suggested we might arrange an after-hours meeting to discuss the development of my children. I was taken aback. Refusing to put on shoes was hardly grounds for real concern; indeed, I suspected I would have been more concerned had both children been doing everything I told them to do. But, yes, Thursday at 4pm would suit me fine.

The day before the meeting the teacher handed me a page of handwritten questions – she wanted me to spend some time thinking about how well I knew my children, she said. I felt a certain sense of intrepidation. Weren’t we just going to have a quick chat about how the children were getting on, whether or not they had friends and held a pencil properly –  nothing I had to prepare for.  Was there something wrong perhaps? Worse still, did she think I was doing something wrong? Of course I know my children, I said crossly (in my head). But for all my feeling of indignation, my conscientious streak prevailed and of course I devoted two hours that evening to some deep parental soul-searching. If I were being made to sit a parenting exam, I would be sure to pass it and with flying colours.

As I sat at our kitchen table in the gathering gloom, I was at first supremely confident in my assumption that I know both children very well. I am an attentive mother, lucky enough to work flexibly and therefore spend many hours with them each day. I talk to them, play with them, and hold their hands whilst they fall asleep. What more could I need to know. But as I sat there, chewing the end of my pen, I realised that this assumption was based on an understanding of my relationship with the children about a year and a half out of date. As babies, it felt impossible not to know them. They were almost extensions of me; attached both physically and emotionally in such a way that I felt attuned to their every need. But that baby phase is long gone and their obvious distinct demands, ideas and agendas sit in stark contrast to this early intimacy. Their motives these days are far more complex and not nearly so transparent.

Feeling muddle-headed, I moved onto the second question. “Can you relate to why your children respond to you in a certain why?” Thrown again. I realised I hadn’t the foggiest why one morning they ferociously insisted on eating only raisins arranged in a smily face on their porridge and the next morning breezily accepted anything dolloped in front of them. Or why some days they demanded my immediate and committed presence for all lavatorial moments, and other days they banned me from the bathroom with a determined shout. It occurred to me I didn’t actually know them at all.

I made a second cup of tea, and settled myself again at the kitchen table. Number 3: “How do you help your children through particular challenges and frustrations?” Aha – I thought, this was less about understanding their every move and more about creating a general sense of what they like to do and how to keep them bouncing along happily. And, even I manage that, most of the time. Thinking more broadly now, I toyed with a new idea. If we are truthful, we never completely understand anyone else, locked as we are in our minds with only imperfect language and gesture to help us communicate. For the most part, we accept this as the limitations of human nature and stumble along one way or another. But with our own children this feels shocking exactly because they were at first this near integral part of us.

So we find ourselves feeling compelled to constantly strive to understand them, second guessing their every turn and trying to mould them to be more like us so at least a few aspects of what they do are tangible. A mistake I would say. Of course, we should try hard to know them and to enjoy their company as fully as we can but beyond that any deeper, more purposeful character investigations are likely to lead to irritation and disappointment on both sides. It is in accepting them as utterly distinct from us, as possessing their own private, hidden minds, that we are able to make the space to watch them, listen to them, grow with them as we would with any good, close friend. I will constantly be in some new phase of my life, and they will be too – we must reacquaint ourselves constantly by spending time together but by assuming nothing.

The nursery teachers were rather surprised when I pulled out my own bundle of notes, and proceeded to take them through the questions they’d assigned. Let’s say they were somewhat surprised, though not displeased, when I ended my presentation of ideas. They hastened to add that the questions were intended to be a starting point, a way for them to introduce a few ideas about the current developmental stage, not an exam essay with a philosophical twist at the end. Morale of this story – if you want a speedy meeting, never ask a young woman with a tendency for over-anxious high achievement to prepare for anything she may perceive to be a test.