I don’t mean to use this term lightly, but there are moments in my relationship with our youngest (currently a few months from being 4), where it feels like I’m a victim in a controlling relationship. Gulp.
By design young children are ego-centric. Whilst they are learning kindness and early experiences of empathy, generally speaking, on the whole, it’s all about them. Development wouldn’t work if it wasn’t and we all get to start out in life with glorious levels of self-prioritisation. I have felt this most intensely with Scout than our other two children, or at least my memory has gone to town on those earlier experiences and given them a light dab. His more fixed personality traits I see emerging are a bit of a potent mix with those transient characteristics that come with being 3. This too shall pass, and it already is, but it's been a slog.
Everyday in the life of a 3 year old can feel like a battle for power. You set the boundary, they see how much it bends. Whilst I take a pretty child-led life, I don’t parent in any kind of extreme - pick n mix living is my approach to things, so he’s got to learn to pull the boat a bit. There are realities to our and therefore his life; people need to get to work and school, teeth need to be brushed, socks need to be worn, uniforms have to be worn, ipads and YouTube are banned even though his older siblings have them, dinner happens at the table and so on and so on. I know how to carefully pick battles, but they cannot all be left abandoned. We have to find a way to move through some kind of rhythm and routine, and for a little person that can be a pain in the ass. I get it. It is for me too.
When I put Scout to bed he makes me change whatever I’m wearing to a specific t-shirt that he likes the texture of. Sometimes I feel nothing but love in the service of doing this and I am more than happy to deliver this little bit of comfort that means something to him and helps him be soothed. But other times, when I’m tired or late or when hormones are coursing through me, I feel furious that he doesn’t understand that I’m actually freezing my tits off.
I can’t even wear a jumper, I think.
This barrier to my own comfort, privacy and even fun is hard-going. At the moment he has a particular dislike for me enjoying any kind of meaningful conversation with other grown-ups, including my husband. There I’ll be enjoying a lovely little natter and he just won’t allow it. No gentle parenting tactic will solve this one. The internet can make you feel like that. Like you’re one reel away from finding the solution. Not always. Often it’s a case of how do I make my patience last until this fades away.
When I’m really lacking in energy I feel like he constantly tries to have this control over me, which I realise sounds way more sinister than what is actually happening, but in those red hot moments when I’m running on empty, that is really what it feels like. That is a very lonely, raw and ugly feeling.
From his arrival on this Earth, Scout has always been jostling for his place in the family noisily, trying any tactic possible to remind us he’s here like somehow we hadn’t noticed. Perhaps that just comes with the ‘third child, smallest person in the house’ territory. I find that this feeling of ‘being controlled’ manifests in a specific variety of FOMO. Not the kind where you want to be out doing all the things with all the people and having all the career opportunities, I’m not talking about that kind, it’s more an overwhelming sense that I don’t have freedom over my choices, especially very basic ones such as personal space, how fast and far we can walk, having privacy in intimate moments like going to the toilet or having a discreet conversation, those are the things that if I have a long run of not being able to feel them, I really struggle. I already have a high need for independence, having been that way since I was a child. I always found my own jobs, organised my own play dates, explored my local area which led me eventually explore the world. I like my own company and having autonomy is one of the things I value most in life. It’s also what makes me feel most deeply saddened in situations when it’s unfairly taken away from people.
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