I mentioned to DH and Sons#4 and #5 yesterday that I had a difficult day ahead of me. It's the day The Most Adorable Granddaughter comes in to work for three whole hours! What can I say? It's a heavy burden I bear but someone has to do it! LOLIn case you're reading this blog for the first time, I absolutely enjoy every moment I spend with The Most Adorable Granddaughter. When she comes into work it's as if someone has just turned on the light, and when she goes, part of me goes with her. I just love spending time with her.
However, yesterday was difficult. But not because of The Most Adorable Granddaughter.
Our centre caters to families from a wide cross-section of the community: two-parent families, single parent families, and teenage mums; professional parents, struggling-to-make-ends-meet parents, and still-in-study parents; indulgent parents, sticklers-for-routine parents, authoritarian parents, and discipline-is-not-in-our-vocabulary parents. But all are parents. And most love their children and want the best for them.
But sometimes they don't know how to make that a reality.
In the classic story, Goodnight Mister Tom, when the psychiatrist tells Tom that he wants to delve into Will's background to find out why he is the way he is, Tom replies, "Thought that's pretty obvious. The boy ent had a lot of loving."
Some children I work with "ent had a lot of loving." Or not enough of the right kind of loving. I'm not referring to children that are clearly in abusive situations that must be removed for their own safety. No, but there are children living in homes that are perhaps border-line - where love and respect, trust and security are all lacking or inconsistent. Sometimes they live with fear or emotional distance from the adults in their lives. Sometimes their needs are met by siblings not much older than themselves or there is a succession of "fathers" through the home. Sometimes these children are easy to spot. Sometimes not. But generally over time it becomes apparent that a child "ent had a lot of loving".
I just want to pick these children up and bring them home. But I can't. And it hurts.
I can love these children. I can cuddle them and speak softly to them but at the end of the day they go home to less than ideal situations. But if I can give just one child a sense of security and worth and of being loved and wanted, even if it's only for a few hours each week, then perhaps I have made a difference in that child's life. I hope so anyway.
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As a parent I know I've made mistakes and at times I wish I could undo some of the damage, but I think my kids know that I loved them and love them still.
My youngest son made a comment the other day that really surprised me. He said he and his friends had been talking and his friends were saying they couldn't remember the last time they saw their parents together - and these are parents who still live in the same house and are still "together", yet obviously so busy that their children never see them spending time together as a couple. I was really blown-away that teenage boys would even notice this or comment on it, but when I thought about it, I realised that it's all part of that sense of security that children thrive on. Almost as if they're thinking, "Mum and dad are together and love each other and love me therefore I don't need to worry and can get on with my own life." Sadly, some children - even babies - never know the security that mum and dad will be there tomorrow.