Reverse Parenting
It can be hard
watching you grow up
towards independence
Loving you so
feeding you
‘open wide’
changing you
‘not again’
I push you in your stroller
you walk a little more each day
tumbling less
The joy
You learn language
sounds develop into words
words become sentences
Your world expands
At night I gently lay you
on your side
you curl up snug
foetal again
I kiss your forehead
the skin so fine
my lips sense the steady pulse
of your life
Your heart
certain of tomorrow
Parenting Reverse
It can be hard
watching you grow down
towards dependence
Loving you still
feeding you
‘open wide’
changing you
‘not again’
Stumbling more
you walk a little less each day
I push you in your wheelchair
The sadness
You unlearn language
sentences diminish into words
words become sounds
Your world contracts
At night I gently turn you
on your side
you curl up snug
foetal again
I kiss your forehead
the skin so fine
my lips feel the feeble pulse
of your life
Your heart
uncertain of tomorrow
“My patience, resolutions and beliefs are tested to the limits – sometimes daily.”*
Right at this moment one of my challenges is the constant, tuneless whistling from my elder son. When my boys were babies it was getting them to sleep or trying to figure out why they were crying. On any given day now, it might be squabbling, fighting, teasing, screaming, shouting or rudeness. Who’d be a parent? We might well question ourselves after the event, but we can’t very well put them back! Just how we find those inner resources, how we constantly demand more of ourselves, how we keep marching up that hill with a smile on our face and gladness in our heart at the sight of our ‘babies’ is one of life’s mysteries.
* © from Being Mummy by Anne‑marie Taplin published April 2007