Resilience
All of my agonizing the last few months about Dutch's daycare have made me think a lot about resilience, which is the quality that protects a child from emotional damage in a bad situation. The proverbial Poor Kid Who Overcomes Great Handicaps To Become CEO is a resilient kid. Some kids are amazingly resilient, and some are amazingly not, and part of that is genetic and part is not. I have no idea how resilient Dutch may be.
It can be very hard to see the line between protecting your child adequately and overprotecting her. I go back and forth. My mom would say I read too many parenting books, and it's probably true. By leaving Dutch in the daycare where she's adequately cared for but not nurtured in the way I would like to see, am I allowing her to gain confidence from coping with a difficult situation, or am I destroying her spirit? Is she learning skills she will need to live in the real world, which can be a difficult thing to do, or is she learning that she has to be miserable every day?
It would be nice if I could get into her head and see what's going on in there... the fact that she is actually a separate person and not part of me is such a hassle. The fact that I can't foresee the future is also unfortunate. But maybe she'll call me up in 30 years and say "Mom, I just wanted to thank you for putting me in that daycare! I built a lot of character there, and here I am married to my former daycare classmate Q, who bit me once when we were both 2, and we're living this wonderful, stable, rewarding life. Thank goodness you didn't put me into that Waldorf preschool, where I would never have learned to overcome obstacles."
It could happen!
It can be very hard to see the line between protecting your child adequately and overprotecting her. I go back and forth. My mom would say I read too many parenting books, and it's probably true. By leaving Dutch in the daycare where she's adequately cared for but not nurtured in the way I would like to see, am I allowing her to gain confidence from coping with a difficult situation, or am I destroying her spirit? Is she learning skills she will need to live in the real world, which can be a difficult thing to do, or is she learning that she has to be miserable every day?
It would be nice if I could get into her head and see what's going on in there... the fact that she is actually a separate person and not part of me is such a hassle. The fact that I can't foresee the future is also unfortunate. But maybe she'll call me up in 30 years and say "Mom, I just wanted to thank you for putting me in that daycare! I built a lot of character there, and here I am married to my former daycare classmate Q, who bit me once when we were both 2, and we're living this wonderful, stable, rewarding life. Thank goodness you didn't put me into that Waldorf preschool, where I would never have learned to overcome obstacles."
It could happen!
Comments
I could always quit my job and become your personal nanny :)
I miss you guys, a lot!