From Oneness with Mother to Growing Autonomy

The end of the preoperational period (around age 7) marks the decline (although not the obliteration) of a child’s egocentricism (his belief that what he thinks and feels is felt by everyone else as well). The ability to (begin to) take another person’s perspective means that children understand in a new way that other people think differently than they do, that other people may literally and figuratively “see” things differently.”
Cognitive Development in 6-7 Year Olds, Michelle Anthony PHD

“I wrote
All over the walls with my
Words, coloured the clean squares
With the wild, tender circles
Of our struggle to become
Separate. We want, we shouted,
To be two, to be ourselves.”
From “Catrin” by Gillian Clark

One of the many things “they” don’t tell you about being a parent is the way that children grow in spurts, and not just physically. The times I have woken up in the morning and noticed my children newly pushing through the feet of their sleepsuits have been matched by the manner in which they have woken up and reached for an object in a new way, or reached for a new understanding that was impossible the day before.

They change so our experience of being parents changes too, endlessly, the moments ranging from the incredible to the dreadful. It’s so obvious but in the middle of some intense phase, I cannot remember that what I am finding hard is time-limited and situation-specific and not related to something broken in me (why can’t you enjoy just being a mum?!) 

My daughter will soon be seven. She is frequently delightful, independent, hilarious and interesting. She has started to be able to really, truly empathise, so different from being able to understand in theory that she has done something problematic, has caused hurt or harm. If she notices me getting stressed she often comes to help, or says “poor mum!” She can analyse and imagine in hitherto unimaginable ways. She is experimenting with lies, both fanciful and serious. She hacked a chunk of hair off but claims she definitely didn’t. She says “mum I need to say something to you” and when I am listening the thing she needs to say to me is “Violet Beauregard is not that bad.” 

She wants time alone: she sits at her desk and listens to The Goblet of Fire on repeat and “writes letters” that she folds into tiny shapes and covers in stickers, rendering them almost impossible to open. She retires to her room for 15 minutes and comes out with 3 hairbands, 5 hair bows, 4 pairs of socks, trousers under a dress and a skirt and a tutu and a massive grin. She still talks quietly to her animals, her unicorn and her doll as important to her as real friends. Often she does NOT want a hug and instead wants me to GO AWAY.

Educator, mystic and kook Rudolf Steiner followed Chinese medicine and various spiritual disciplines in dividing up a human life into rough seven year cycles, each with their own set of challenges and lessons. Though this structure should be taken with a pinch of salt, there is lots that is true, interesting and beautiful about this conception. The ages 0-7 were described in one article as From Oneness with Mother to Growing Autonomy, at which I felt a sob rise in my throat, both a profound sense of relief and loss. 

I could not have known what it would be like to mother a seven year old, just as I cannot know the joys and lows of 11, 15, 20, 40. It is better not to know, I suspect. It might make us worry or expect too much. Better to let it unfold and marvel on how little we understand right now, how little we know ever, really. 

The same article said that between the age of 0-2 “a child can hardly distinguish between himself and his mother” but that crawling, standing up and walking are signs that “the energetic umbilical cord is being tested. It is stretching and eventually is meant to be broken.”

I am out of the tricky phase of the first months of this year, when my baby wanted to hold my hand to walk everywhere and my back killed and I didn’t love it. I kept thinking how much easier I had found it to go back to work when I was a first time mum rather than continue engaging in full-time childcare, but also how I had not necessarily found it “better”. 

The oneness with mother can be agonising (I know the growing autonomy can too). Too much, too much, but that can flip so quickly to not enough. Choice, too, can be agonising. I realise I both want more time for myself and to continue to be with him, to not miss any of it, a reality that cannot exist. If I seek childcare I can’t shake the feeling that I am running away from my responsibility, from the oneness. When does the oneness turn to twoness? How is it possible to want both? When do we separate? Why do I always feel that we should be more separate? Why can’t I shake society’s disapproval of this union, which is seen as so healthy early on, then seen as a bit much?

I am stuck here, I want to be here, I want to not, I am always looking for an out. I furiously research childcare options in the same way that I Rightmove houses in the Scottish Highlands I will never live in, an escape route in case I need one. 

It is hard to find a balance between martyrdom and pushing on through because it might be the right thing for me. Knowing it’s hard but feeling also that I need to be there, waiting out a hard part, that I must stick not twist. That the only way out is through. The intensity of motherhood can be a crucible in which we are remade. But when does this become simply a reflection of the belief that we must subjugate all our own needs for the welfare of our children?

The baby totters from end to end of the house, turning in a circle whilst squeaking “ahhhhhh” and falling on his arse. He runs away laughing and shrieking when I threaten to change his nappy and runs back to me when he tired or afraid or just to connect, to give me an open-mouthed kiss. He guffaws at his handsome face in the mirror. I eat biscuits with my back to him until I turn around to say “boo!” and see his face break into a smile. Sometimes I see myself, I am a gentle parent, present. Others I am scattered, rageful. Finally I think, it’s all ok. 

Part of me feeling I should always be here is about protection as well as devotion, I think. In my first years of being a mother I naively thought I could lessen the blows life would launch at my child. I would bring her up to be confident, self-aware, wise and content! She would not have to suffer in the way I did. Now I stand in the ashes of this belief and I sometimes feel dizzy at the challenges they will have to experience, the losses, the mistakes, the hurts, the lessons. I cannot impart wisdom, they need to obtain it themselves.  And I have to let go in order for this to happen.

My job as a parent is to steer a steady enough ship through each of their seven year cycles, for each of their crises and triumphs, my love an anchor. I don’t need to do it perfectly, and it’s even ok when I am in crisis myself. Years 35-42 are crisis and questioning. Sorry, kids!

We never stop learning. We teach each other. Sometimes I have no idea what I’m doing and sometimes the internal light guiding me is strong and clear. I forget everything and come across it again. At so many points I have felt wracked with indecision, but not knowing what to do is normal and not a sign of failure. If only we would allow ourselves to not know! 

Everything is a season: things will be different and become clear before they become murky again. We splash in our water tray, pour and blow bubbles, revealing the shapes below. I make snacks and tidy again. The days pass. There is so much to be here for, and so much to look forward to.