Growing pains

Hermaphrodite Mum

Three kids and a single mother

Middle Child told me at bathtime last night that he wanted to stay living with me until he was 40 years old (his equivalent of old age). This was in response to my lament that he was growing up too quickly. With tears in his eyes, he told me he didn't want to become a big boy. We are both afraid of his increasing independence and what it spells for our relationship.

This is the central contradiction of parenting: on the one hand we want our children to progress and meet all their milestones, but on the other we can't bear the idea of our babies growing up and living beyond our influence.

Don't grow up too fast, baby!
© Photographer: Rebecca Abell | Agency: Dreamstime.com

Last week I was dropping off my nine-year-old, the Quiet One, at school. Normally we say goodbye in the school hallway - public kisses are no longer permitted. I have to content myself with a wink and discreet shoulder squeeze. On this occasion, however, I popped into her classroom to remind her about some homework that needed handing in. She was horrified by my intrusion. "Mum, you are embarrassing me!"

Girls, particularly in the West, seem to grow up too quickly. I was listening to Libby Purves a few weeks ago on Radio 4's Midweek programme. One of her guests was reminiscing about attending school in India: he recalled how 17-year old girls were content to play hopscotch in the playground. That would never happen here. A slew of factors - pop culture, commercial pressures, the fashion industry and rafts of examinations - means that our children are too eager to ape the grown-ups. They cast off their innocence like a Boden party dress, in the race to keep up with their peers. Suddenly it's all about skinny jeans, Gangnam Style and rather inappropriate dance moves.

When my two eldest children were babies, I thought it would last forever. Now I see how quickly those years pass. I watch Non-Walking Toddler's progression with a crushing sense of nostalgia. And yet I am desperate for her to start walking! When she took a few tentative steps between the sofa and the coffee table the other day, I cheered her on like she was running 100 metres in the Olympic finals. We are hardwired to push our children onwards, even if our hearts protest.

Quiet One brought some friends home this week. Over sausages and chips they discussed which of the boys they liked most in the class. "Girls," I said, "don't grow up too quickly. You can always go forwards, but you can never go back to the past." They looked at me like I was talking nonsense. They were right. How can we expect them to resist the culture we impose upon them? Their budding minds are designed to absorb these formative influences. The challenge lies with us - we need to give them less screen-time, more adventures, more time outdoors and some immunity from everyday pressures. 

Parents will always have an eye to the past and an eye to the future. The trick is striking a healthy balance. When I was putting Middle Child to bed, he amended his earlier statement. "Actually Mummy, I think I will only live with you until I find a wife and build my first house." Yes, very wise, little man.

Hermaphrodite Mum is a fictional creation of Emma Clark Lam

Previous posts by Hermaphrodite Mum:

Favoured chicks

Prehistoric parenting 

Favoured chicks

Hermaphrodite Mum
Three kids and a single mother

Sunday evening finds me packing the kids' snack boxes for school. There is a golden rule in my house - everyone gets the same snack, no arguments! Last weekend the cupboard was nearly bare but I found two cereal bars peeping out from the debris of crisps, biscuit wrappers and loose raisins. As I gingerly extracted them, I noticed that they had different best-before dates: one was fine, but the other was a month out. I hesitated for a moment and then I gave the out-of-date bar to Middle Child and the in-date bar to the eldest child (the Quiet One). Job done.

The shoebill: a mother with a favourite 
© Lukas Blazek | Dreamstime.com

It wasn't until Non-walking Toddler was safely tucked up in her cot that I gave some thought to my decision. Why had I damned Middle Child with a packet of mouldy grains? Was Quiet One my FAVOURITE child? Or was Middle Child my favourite? Perhaps I gave the fresher bar to Quiet One to compensate for a shortfall in love! From this cereal-bar index, could I extrapolate which child I might pull first from a burning building?

I had stalled at an unlikely spot - the intersection between maternal guilt and Darwin's theory of natural selection. One thing stuck in my mind: a piece of footage from a BBC documentary on Africa's Savannah. Deep in the swampy marshes, a stork-like shoebill looks after her two chicks. While she waddles off to find water, the eldest chick attacks the younger hatchling - a fluff-ball on wobbly pins with barely the strength to lift his own head. On her return, mummy shoebill notices fluff in the beak of the aggressor - like most mothers she knows what has been going on. The little fluff-ball gropes his way towards his mum, seeking comfort in her feathers, but heart-breakingly she brushes him aside and bestows her gift of water on the stronger chick. Shoebills, it turns out, rarely raise more than one chick. The younger one is merely an insurance policy in case the older one fails to thrive.

According to research conducted by Catherine Conger, a professor at the University of California, 65% of (human) mothers also exhibit a preference for one of their children - often the eldest one. Just like the shoebill, we apparently orientate toward our eldest, healthiest child - a throwback, perhaps, to earlier times of high infant mortality.

I think back to my pregnancy with Non-walking Toddler and remember how I couldn't imagine loving the new baby as much as the other two. But love comes in a feverish burst, along with the breast-milk and the cracked nipples. We are compassionate creatures. Our capabilities - love, empathy, imagination - set us on a different path to the shoebill. 

For the record, I love my three children equally, but in different ways, according to their strengths and weaknesses. Naturally Non-walking toddler takes up more of my mothering time, but less of my adult space which I am beginning to share gladly with the older two. Middle Child needs more cuddles and reassurance, while Quiet One is sustained by a current of mental sympathy that flows exclusively from me to her. 

And the fiasco with the cereal bars? I worked it out. It was a practical decision. Middle Child has a stomach like a cast-iron bucket. Mouldy cereal bars are no contest for his intestinal juices.  

Hermaphrodite Mum is a fictional creation of Emma Clark Lam
Previous posts by Hermaphrodite Mum

Prehistoric parenting

Hermaphrodite Mum
Three kids and a single mother

I feel as if I am emerging from a dormant state. I open my eyes wide and I finally exit the kitchen. No more slaving over a hot stove, no more clearing up. The e-cloth is threadbare. Christmas is officially over.

At the same moment, a tiny prehistoric creature emerges from an egg the size of a full stop. It has become the newest member of our household: a Triops! This species of crustacean is blessed with three eyes and has existed for millions of years, just hanging out in ponds. The Triops ancestors shared an ecosystem with Tyrannosaurus Rex and now we have one living in our kitchen in a petri dish.

The un-parented Triops 
© 3drenderings | Dreamstime.com

Middle Child was given a "Terrible Triops" kit for Christmas. Ever since we have been peering into our puddle of Volvic spring water, attempting to spy our tiny vibrating hatchling.

I explain to Middle Child that the Triops is a hermaphrodite. "What's that?" comes the inevitable reply. "It means," I say, picking my words with care, "that she doesn't need a daddy to have babies." 

Middle Child pauses for thought. He wipes away a layer of snot laminating his top lip. "So you're like a Triops then," he says, looking me straight in the eye. "You are a herm-afo-dite."

In a manner of speaking, I suppose I am (Errant Husband has taken a sabbatical from parenting). It is also well-known that I have an all-seeing eye at the back of my head. So that's what I am: some kind of human-Triops hybrid.

My eldest comes downstairs - the Quiet One. "What's for supper?" she asks. It is pretty much all she has said today. 

"I'm not sure," I reply, "I've only just cleared up lunch." Then in an attempt to distract her, I say: "Look! The Triops has hatched."

Quiet One leans over the dish. "It's a shame it never gets to meet its mum." 

"What?" asks Middle Child.

"Read your booklet nim-wim. The adults live for about a month, hatch their eggs and then they die. When the babies hatch, it starts all over again."

Middle Child looks to me for affirmation. "So they never get to meet their mum?" he asks in a trembling voice.

"No, love." Middle Child promptly bursts into tears. 

Upstairs there is the echo of a wail. Non-walking Toddler has woken up early from her afternoon nap. I go wearily up to fetch her. Maybe mother Triops was onto something when she cut parenting out of the loop. After all, the species has survived in identical form for more than 200 million years.

Non-walking Toddler stands up in her cot, cheeks flushed and arms akimbo. I pick her up and breath in her warm, yeasty smell. Ah! Maybe there is something to be said for evolution and intensive parenting.

Middle Child appears at the door. "I love you Mama," he says, his face still smudged with tears. I hug them both tight until they shriek.

Downstairs, Quiet One gives an uncharacteristic yell. We all thunder down into the kitchen to discover another hatchling. It is a conundrum - how has this species made it to 2013 without evolving? Middle Child gives his best T-Rex roar to welcome the new arrival.

"Is supper nearly ready?" asks Quiet One, covering her ears.

I sigh and glance round at my four walls. Oh well, I may live in the kitchen, but at least I don't spend my days swimming around a petri dish. Evolution has won me that much.

Hermaphrodite Mum is a fictional creation of Emma Clark Lam