Let's play

“She is a mother who plays, really plays. She never steps off playing, or says it’s too much. And it must be too much, some of the time.”
- Charlie in Marriage Story

“... a kind of aliveness that feels safe ...”
- Dee Wagner (article on the social engagement system and polyvagal theory)

My children have a game that they both love which involves jumping, staggering, rolling and shrieking on my bed. Last month my husband went away for a couple of nights and I found myself at the foot of the bed, shaking the duvet hard so it blew puffs of air in their faces and landed on their heads, knocking them down and making them scream with laughter. In the end it felt like my arms were going to fall off but they both kepting squealing "more! more!" and so I kept going, in the way you do as a parent, in the spirit of a marathon runner on the last stretch.

I realised in that moment that I was Having Fun. I realised that the day was passing with a feeling of relative ease, and it felt like the first time in a long time that solo childcare hadn't felt so logistically tricky and stressful. It seems that we have entered a new phase where the kids are actually playing together, keeping each other entertained and needing less from us. I worried so hard about their (5.5 year) age gap, but more and more I feel that it's character more than number of months or years that legislates the quality of a sibling relationship - that is, something we cannot really control. Although my children have very different needs, it strikes me when I am at my most tired that they can give each other something I cannot - pure energy, the energy of a child, the ability to entirely exist in the moment.

It was just my daughter, me and my husband for so long that we were used to the experience of having to be the main entertainer, the person to always be there to play. And like so many parents the "Can you play with me?" plea often made my heart sink, because it meant an end to the terribly important, or just quite satisfying and enjoyable, thing I was in the middle of. Then follows the guilt, of course: shouldn't we want to play with our children? Mothers who played so freely, who had a naturally playful energy about them, always made me feel inadequate, made me regard them with the same old internal questions - should I be more like that? Is it a problem that I am not, or am not all of the time?

I think there are many good reasons why it's hard to play, and enjoy play, when you're an adult, and yet we really beat ourselves up about our lack of enthusiasm or will. For one thing, when you consider children's brains and their need and preference for repetition, it shouldn't be surprising that playing can sometimes be tedious as hell. And we forget that we're individuals with specific characteristics and preferences, that some of us like doing crafty things with our kids and some of us despise it, some of us like playing in the woods and some of us weep internally when our kids refuse to come inside. I do not really enjoy wrestling or throwing my kids around in the way my husband does, though I like watching (as long as it's not too noisy). I don't mind playgrounds as long as I'm not there for hours and hours, but I have friends who hate them because they are introverts and don't want to have to small talk with other parents.

There are some things I've learnt about parenting, like how to set up an environment in which a child is more likely to play independently. I learned about the idea of "filling their attention bucket" to create a period of more independence before they want you again. I know how much I love watching my children play and I am not sure if there are any humans who could fail to be enchanted by the simple joy and ingenuity of a child absorbed in their own imaginative world.

I have learned that sometimes I think I don't want to play but that I often enjoy myself when I relax and let go. That sometimes this resistance is something to be examined, that it's a product of a culture that breeds in us the expectation of external achievement and endless productivity. And sometimes it's a sign of my own exhaustion or needs not being met, my own play - sociability or creativity - not able to properly flourish.

Here is some nervous system geekery which you can skip if it's too heavy: when a human is feeling playful the social engagement part of the nervous system is activated. Let's remember that when we talk about the nervous system we are literally talking about nerves or bunches of nerves, as in long fibres or bunches of fibres. "Activated" or switched on means electro-chemical messages are passing through these nerve fibres, and certain hormones are being squirted out of glands and into the bloodstream. If you're not squeamish, this picture of a nervous system without an exoskeleton might help visualise it.

Lots of us have heard of the branch of the nervous system associated with our fight/flight response and with adrenalin/cortisol, called the sympathetic branch; and we might have heard of the branch associated with the body's rest/digest functions and oxytocin and serotonin - the parasympathetic nervous system. There's also a lesser known third branch of the nervous system called the social engagement system, and this system at rest manifests as lightness and playfulness. Think of the animal kingdom, when you see big cat mothers rolling and wrestling with their cubs on the ground.

If we are exhausted, grieving, traumatised, lonely, unsupported, on our period, stressed or angry, being expected to play or feel playful is a lot to ask. Yet we still expect ourselves to be able to do it, as if the ability to inhabit a playful state is like a light that we switch on, or the mark of a good mother.

I've been trying to forgive myself recently when I have not always been able to, or wanted to play. I've tried to remember that it will change when things around me change, tried to understand what within me is asking to be understood when playing feels hard.

I watch my kids when they are with their cousins or friends, and I watch the adults: the kids lost in fun or arguments, the adults relieved, knowing it is not all on them, the collective nervous system at play or rest. An aliveness that feels safe. I know this is how things should be, so I try to be kind to myself when I know I am struggling being a one-(wo)man band.

At the same time, I want them to feel deeply familiar with what it looks and sounds like when I play: my face, my voice, my arms, my fingers. I sometimes think of Julia Cameron and Elizabeth Gilbert and their idea that creativity - that is, play - is a force - out there! - that wants to move through you. I think what I might need to do to let this force in, to be in me, to run through me, and how living this might teach my children to embody this very human, very animal characteristic. I want to be flexible, a current that can change direction, someone who can drop everything. I want to hold less tightly to things. A healthy nervous system is not one that is always relaxed and chill but one that can switch relatively easily between states. Loosen up, soften up, be silly. Let’s play.