The Big, Black Boot, Solo Birdwatching Expeditions and How It All Relates to Risk, Love, & Trust

Mary Elizabeth is confined to the boot for 3 weeks.

My my almost 21-month-old has a broken leg. It stinks. Not only because I hate to see any of my babies suffer but because I feel like I should have been able to prevent it from happening. (Oh, and despite her being the peanut of the family, she does start to feel heavy when she’s barnacled to me all day.) I wasn’t in the same room with her when she fell. As I alluded to in a previous post, her sisters have a new habit of stalking the poor child like she’s a wounded water buffalo in the Serengeti. The night before the crack of the leg, she came running to me, arms flailing. She was nervously laughing, not sure if this chasing thing was fun or terrifying, and nearly ran into the wall. I told her big sisters they couldn’t be so rough with her and that she felt intimidated by their close chasing. Well, they learned the lesson the hard way the very next day. I was in my bedroom when I heard the shrieking.

“What happened?” I called out.

“M.E. fell!” Madeline shouted.

I raced into the room to discover her sprawled out on probably the softest spot in our entire home. We have a big foam playmat in her room and that’s where she was crying and crumpled.

I scooped her up and was surprised by her profusion of tears. “What happened?” I repeated. A fall onto a foam mat just didn’t seem like enough to shake up my tough toddler cookie.

“Well, we were chasing her, and she tripped and she fell,” Madeline said.

“That’s all?” I asked, fearing they were leaving out something like: well, we decided to pretend she was a bird and so we threw her in the air to see if she could fly, and we discovered she couldn’t.

“Yes,” Madeline said. “”I hope she’s okay. It’s our fault. I’m sorry.”

“It’s our fault,” 3-year-old Rachel parroted.

I believed them. They looked so worried. Then I did what any nursing mom does when she’s not sure how to stop the crying and I nursed my baby. The tears stopped immediately. Naptime was approaching, and I figured she was just overtired. But when I tried to put her down on the floor after she finished nursing, the tears returned and her entire body started shaking. I picked her up again and held her close.

“Something’s wrong,” I said aloud.

“She did kind of twist her leg funny,” Madeline said.

I called Dr. Daddy who is, of course, never ever around when there’s a medical problem. He told me to palpate her leg. I wanted to tell him to stop being so clinical and to just offer the mother of his child some moral support before triaging our daughter, but I was an obedient nurse and did as I was told. Mary Elizabeth immediately winced and cried out when I started touching her left leg. Daddy said we needed to bring her in to get checked out. So we did.

A few hours and one x-ray later, she sat placidly on my lap perfectly happy to not be moving (which was really weird since I usually can’t stop the child’s compulsion to go places unless she’s nursing or sleeping) with a confirmed fractured tibia. Her leg would heal very quickly, the physician’s assistant assured me. So did my husband in an encouraging text.

But I felt awful, just awful, because here I was with three little girls who were supposed to be more sedate than boys and less accident prone, and we were already dealing with our second broken bone. Madeline was the first victim. What’s worse, I didn’t see Madeline’s bones break either (she broke her arm in two places, so technically, we’ve had three broken bones, but who’s counting?). To be fair, I was pushing Mary Elizabeth and Rae in swings at the playground, thinking Big Sister Madeline would be fine, but she’s our active, daredevil, and she’d decided to swing from the bouncy bridge and took a fall down and landed on her arm – crunch! – two bones broken. I felt helpless then and somewhat culpable, too.

When Rae’s skin just above her right eyebrow split open after Madeline accidentally whacked her in the head with a wayward Wii remote during a pre-dinner bowling game, the feelings were the same. Why wasn’t I closer to keep my babies from hurt? Could I have moved Rae swiftly away so that she could have avoided contact with the remote? Could I have caught Madeline before the fall or at least told her to stop pretending she was a primate? And what about Mary Elizabeth? Should I have really left her alone to play with her sisters?

After the leg incident, I posted something on Facebook, mainly because we waited a long time at the doctor’s office, I was fidgety, and I have an app that makes it easy to post quick notes and updates. It didn’t take long for friends to offer their support. There were two comments that stuck out to me in particular. First, an online friend listed her boys’ injuries that included physical wreckage like a skull fracture and profuse bleeding in the mouth, and I thought that maybe my girls were a calmer bunch, and we didn’t have it so bad. Then a good friend of mine from my old homeschooling co-op wrote, “Welcome to my world! You’re just a relaxed mother who lets them be kids. It happens! Hope she heals soon!”

With those words I sighed a sigh of relief. It happens, especially to moms who refuse to confine their children to a protective bubble (a bubble that still may burst even when they’re holding it closely in their hands). My kids have eaten dirt. I used to feel guilty about that, too. Then I watched the documentary Babies and observed the African baby mouth a dirty bone he’d found in the dirt, and I thought an occasional helping of soil or sand wasn’t going to hurt my kids.

My kids are also allowed and sometimes encouraged to play alone in child-safe rooms without me hovering close by. Madeline is permitted to play in our front yard alone. We live on a safe street. She knows not to go near the road. She’s 6 years old. Yet, I was at a neighborhood function a few months back when I got to talking to someone who passed through our street on the way to her home. She was asking me which house we moved into and when I described it, she said, “Oh, you’re the one who lets her kids play out in the front yard. I’ve seen them out there.” I didn’t know what to say. She sounded slightly accusatory, but maybe I was reading into it. Maybe not. So was I suppose to defend my decision? Or was I supposed to lie and say she must have seen my child on a day when she had escaped my vigilant clutches? The truth is I do peek out on occasion to make sure Madeline is okay. Plus, I love to look out the window and catch her whistling to birds in trees with binoculars pressed to her face. Her favorite solo outdoors activity is birdwatching. But I’m fine with letting her play alone in our front yard, especially since she usually brings our huge black dog out along with her. My husband’s not so sure. He worries about Boogedy Men. I sometimes do, too, but not enough to prevent my child from enjoying an afternoon of bird watching and the opportunity to feel adventurous and independent.

Others have commented (usually in a positive way) on me being a laid-back parent, which always strikes me as funny. I never thought I’d be laid-back about anything, much less the most important job I’ve ever been given. And maybe it’s not so much that I’m laid-back or even that I’m relaxed and completely at ease with my kids doing their own thing, but that I’ve resigned myself to do as my friend said and let my kids be kids. Because that’s what they are: Kids, fledglings who are sprouting wings that need a lot of practice before they take a flight on their own.

What’s really ironic is I’ve also been labeled as an overbearing parent who wants to raise leeches for children because I breastfeed for longer than what’s considered normal and keep my babies close in slings and Ergos. When Rae went on a sudden nursing strike, I posted my sad feelings about her not wanting to nurse on a Christian discussion board (this, by the way, was the last time I participated in an online forum of this nature). I stupidly used the acronym “AP” even though I detest labels and instead of receiving the support I sought, moms started going back and forth about how my comments were proof that attachment parenting is for insecure parents, not children.

Several years ago I was also part of a mother’s group and the term “attachment parenting” came up during a discussion. Again, it was not discussed in a positive way. A mom was talking about how just the sound of it conjured up parents who didn’t know how to let go. I was new to the group and didn’t want to be ostracized, so I kept quiet even though I knew that I fell more into the AP category than any other parenting type. (I also slowly slipped away from that group.) But I was angry and seethed over their AP bashing on the way home and how they didn’t understand that moms who practiced attachment parenting weren’t doing things like practicing breastfeeding on demand, avoiding feeding schedules, sleeping with their babies, or babywearing in an effort to raise children who would never leave the nest. They were doing all those things so that when the time came for their chicks to spread their wings and fly they could do so with confidence. (Please, please do not read between the lines here if you don’t happen to embrace all or any of the AP principles and assume I’m suggesting that if you don’t do these things, you won’t raise happy, confident, little larks.) I personally adopt many of the AP things because it’s often easier for me. Having food on hand (AKA breastmilk), for example, is much less daunting to me than lugging around a whole diaper bag of feeding supplies, and sleeping with my babies – especially those who are frequent nursers – actually helps me to get more sleep, not less.

I’m sure there are some parents who embrace who attachment parenting who are overbearing. Just like there are some who decide that gentle nurturing means never disciplining and let their kids run wild. But in my experience most of the AP parents I know are also free range parents. If someone doesn’t fully understand attachment parenting, they may see this as an impossible dichotomy. But it makes good sense to me. I nurture my little ones and keep them close when their needs and wants are one in the same and then I slowly wean them – not only from the breast – but from needing me in other ways as well. I’m also emotionally attached to them – or at least trying to maintain that connection – but I’m not smothering my kids. I’m not a helicopter parent who swoops in at the first sign of distress; yet, I’m never far away. I’m physically and emotionally available to my children – or at least I try to be. None of this is easy. I know some AP parents who have very different personalities than I do, and they love taking naps with their kids and have no problem ignoring the crusty dishes in the sink to fingerpaint with their preschooler. That’s not me. It can be a challenge to give of myself so completely. Yet, at the same time, it’s often difficult to give my children freedom to make choices – and to make mistakes – and to learn from them.

As soon as my children start solids (usually after six months; Mary Elizabeth was close to a year because I’m weird like that and just don’t want her to grow up. In fact, I wish I was still plying her with mashed avocados and bananas. I’m jesting, of course.), I hand them a spoon. I feed them a bit here and there, but I also let them make a big mess. It drives me crazy sometimes, but I know it’s good for them. The same is true with the rest of my parenting. I give them some room, some freedom, and sometimes they stumble. And that’s when it gets really tough to respect these little people and their burgeoning sense of independence. Every time a child of mine gets hurt or almost gets hurt when I wasn’t around, I have the temptation to hover, to cast my maternal, protective force field over them to keep them safe from harm. But I don’t. I remind myself to take a step back. If they need me, they can find me, but I don’t want to be so close that they don’t have room to grow.

I don’t judge parents who don’t let their kids play outside unsupervised. I try not to judge other parents period because I hate it when people judge my parenting choices and style. I understand why parents hover. It’s all out of love, the fierce mama bear instinct to protect. Even my husband has a harder time with my relaxed manner because his line of work is constantly revealing to him what could happen. Once one of our daughters (can’t remember which one anymore, but I’m betting it was Madeline, who bears the nickname Hopping Cricket) was hopping about with a pencil in her hand. Not a good move, and I put an end to it, but my husband went on and on about the dangers of running with sharp objects.

“I get it. I get it,” I said, slightly annoyed.

Then he pulled me aside and whispered why he was so adamant about it. Turns out that a child had been jumping on the bed with a pencil in his hand. He tripped and the pencil plunged into his eye socket and shot straight into his brain, killing him instantly. The weeping parents carried their dead son in their arms into the hospital. You can bet I never let my kids run with pencils in their hands. I told my husband I didn’t want him to tell me stories like that. I know the world is a scary, dangerous place; I don’t need anecdotes and images of dead, limp children wet from their parents’ tears in my head to prove it. If a pencil doesn’t hurt my daughter, then a stupid boy will someday or maybe a backstabbing friend or worse, and those emotional wounds are sometimes much harder to heal.

But I’m not going to tell my girls to not make friends or to turn down every date (once their allowed to be courted like when they’re 25 or so). Every time we hop into a car, we’re taking a risk. But we don’t let the fear of an accident keep us from taking the necessary safety precautions, buckling up, and then starting the ignition and getting to our destination.

I’m still fumbling my way along this parenting path; however, I’m learning that bearing a child into the world is risky business. When you discover you’re pregnant, you have to be ready to risk loving that tiny kernel of life, knowing that there’s the chance that you might lose the baby to miscarriage. Later on there’s the risk that your labor might not unfold the way you’d planned. Later still, there’s the risk that your child will wander away from you and God. Love always involves a certain amount of risk. There’s always the chance that you – or your child – or oftentimes the both of you will end up hurt.

But love is also about trust.

Recently, when Mary Elizabeth was starting to feel more like herself, I plopped her down for a few minutes because my back was fried from lugging her around so much. I was attempting to make dinner, and she kept trying to climb the chairs at our breakfast bar. Normally, when she finds a safe foothold and ascends, I look the other way, knowing that telling the child to stop exploring and climbing is like caging a wild beast. But not today. I scooped her in my arms and held her close. She tried to wiggle out of my grasp, but I told her that she couldn’t be climbing like that, not with one broken leg. She resigned herself to me and then snuggled close.

Yet, I know it won’t be long until she’s completely mobile and feisty again, stopping only for quick nursing pit stops. So will I constantly be telling her, “No! No! No!”? Or will I once again give her some freedom to run, play, and yes, climb (only on safe, secure items)? Will I allow her to be the inquisitive, active toddler she’s designed to be?

It’s tempting to calculate the risks and then to vaccinate our children against any perceived harm and certainly, there are many, many times when keeping a close vigil is required of parents (those times are often easier, I’m discovering, than giving your kids a chance to step away from you and into life). But what I’ve decided to do instead of obsessing over my children’s safety and happiness is to trust:

To trust myself as a parent that I’ve taught my 6-year-old enough responsibility that she’ll stick with birdwatching in the front yard and won’t do anything too stupid (other than trying to climb a tree and getting stuck there).

To trust that my being there to supervise my children’s every move will not guarantee they would be free of broken bones and hearts.

To trust that when they do get hurt, they will heal with time and a mother’s TLC.

To trust that launching these little beings into the world should delight, not terrify, me.

To trust in a force of good that will always, eventually overcome a world that too often panders to evil.

To trust that letting kids be kids and letting God be God is a good rule of thumb for peaceful parenting.

And above all, to trust that I am only a graced guardian given these children to protect and to love standing in for their real Father, a Father who never lets them out of His sight.

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