With three years parenting experience behind me now, I still feel like a novice. Often. And I suppose that's the way it is with parenting ... sometimes it's one step forward, three giant steps backwards. Other times it's clear sailing and for ages, you don't see the storm brewing on the other side of the horizon for all the joy that's in the current moment. And still, at other times, I get 'confused' about just who the 'adult' really is in this 'mother/daughter dance' we've got going on.
And then there are the times when I get gobsmacked by the 'bigness' of my little girl's soul and spirit. The magnitude of her personality and the wisdom of her very young life. I have to consciously remind myself, often, that Cowgirl is only 'just' 4 years old. Because much of the time, I feel like I am living with someone who is a shrunken form of a wise old sage (and it often feels that she is a character in the movie 'Honey, I Shrunk The Kids' --- that she's really a well seasoned adult who's just been shrunken down into a pint-sized package).
Before we adopted Cowgirl, we thought we were quite well informed about what to expect from children who had been in care, children who had traumatic starts to their life. Children who had less-than-desirable care in at least their first year of life, children who hadn't been held often and cuddled quite enough - in fact, hardly touched at all. Children who had to psychologically grow up --- Way. Too. Fast. Children who, as a result, take on a very mature role very, very early in their lives.
And that makes parenting, at least for me, a teensy bit (edited to read 'a tremendous bit') trickier! Because besides all the usual parenting stuff that comes with the job ... I have to also work hard, at times, converting my daughter into a ... child! Teaching her that it's okay to NOT have all the solutions in life. Reminding her regularly that she is not responsible for everyone else around her. Assuring her regularly that it's MY job to be the parent. Basically, helping her to relearn 'how to be a child'. Which catches you by surprise even when you thought you'd educated yourself sufficiently. But all this is easier said than done when your child learned, just months into her life, that she couldn't really rely on the adults around her to look after her needs sufficiently. She had to 'take control' - herself. The proverbial 'I'LL DO IT MYSELF' syndrome.
And this is a concept that takes a long time to really 'get'. At first, during the pre-parenting stage, we 'intellectualize' things like this, storing them away in our minds for possible later recall. 'Our child probably won't be like that. We'll give her all the love and nurturing possible. It'll be different for her'.
And then year after year goes by and you realize how much of a child's behaviours are formed -- practically cemented -- into their little hearts, souls and minds -- in those first months of life. So whatever happens at that early stage, tends to set the course for how a child navigates and sails through life.
So parenting, for me, has often been about 'deprogramming' my daughter, and slowly --- VERY slowly --- downloading into her psyche the first edition of 'how to be a child'. With Chapter One being the introduction to having a more secure take on life.
When I imagined being a mother, I also imagined what my child might be like. I think that's typical and just about everyone I know does the same thing. So there was me ... all those years ago ... imagining a little soul who would be dependent on me, who would learn from me, who would laugh at my attempts of humour, who would be in awe of my every move in life. Basically, I imagined a little person who would arrive in the world, and who would need 'filling' up by me, as her parent. Filling up with love, filling up with knowledge, filling up with experiences, filling up with the joy life can bring.
What I didn't imagine was mothering a little soul who, at times (at MANY times), seems to be the reincarnation of Boudicca, Nefertiti, Joan of Arc, Indira Ghandi, Catherine the Great, ... oh, and of course ... Mulan ... (and maybe even a little bit of Marie Antoinette, guillatine and all) -- all rolled up into one bright and bouncy Little Dictator.
Ooops. I meant to write ... 'one bright and bouncy Little Darling'. (There. That sounds much better.)
Apart from the usual bossiness, and making her ladyship's opinions VERY clear to me on a regular basis, and telling me under no uncertain terms about what she LIKES and DISLIKES, reminding me on a minute-to-minute basis that I am a lowly 'slave', and ... well, ... basically making me feel lucky that she is even employing me in this job called 'mother' ... (given the economy and all) well, apart from all that, things are pretty much like I expected them to be.
(polite clearing of the throat)
So even this week, while Cowgirl endures a rather nasty virus with rather alarming fevers at times ... my barely 4-year old is informing me when to take her temperature and educating me on how serious the result is, telling me which particular medicine she wants at any given time, reminding me regularly that she has a 'bad cough' (with the implication in her voice that suggests, not so subtly, 'so what are YOU going to do about it?), advising me when I need to phone school to say she won't be there, placing her order for special 'but I'm sick' meals well ahead of time, and ... well ... you probably have the idea by now.
Can't wait until she learns how to snap her fingers.
E xxx
(Just to clarify, I'm the one who's the 'parent')
Well ... most of the time.