Anchoring our Children (A Mother's Day Meditation)

Eliora has been growing her hair long for over a year now, and hopes that it might one day reach to her waist. So I had good reason to believe that she'd be excited to hear I was thinking of growing my own hair out. I was stunned at the vehemence of her response when I suggested it a couple days ago. "No, DON'T!" she insisted dramatically. "Please don't grow your hair out. Please, please, please!"

Eliora forgot that my hair was longer when she was born.

I was flabbergasted that it would matter so much to her. Why is she so attached to my short hair? Then I remembered how I used to feel when my mother permed her hair. Every few months during my early years, my mom would break out curlers and chemicals and self-administer a home permanent kit. We all hated it. Not only did her hair smell terrible when it was over, but the new frizzy-haired Mommy didn't look like the Mommy I knew. It felt a little like a personal offense that she looked so different afterwards. It was a minor shake-up of my secure little world, and I did not like it, not one little bit.

Our young children don't really see us as complex human beings that are always changing and developing. I don't think they want to see us that way. To our children, we are home. They want us to be safety for them, to be a solid, unchanging force. An abrupt change in us can feel like a threat to the stability of their lives. Our children might want to grow their own hair out, to try different looks, to explore themselves and experiment. But it makes them uncomfortable when we do it.

And this is not really a bad thing. According to attachment theory, children need to form a strong attachment to a central caregiver in order to develop in a healthy way. This person (usually their mother) becomes a secure anchor. When there's a healthy attachment, the primary caregiver is a base from which children can go out to explore the world. Knowing that there's always a safe and consistent center to return to, they find the freedom to stretch their wings and fly.

There's a grace and a wonder in this. It doesn't matter that we make mistakes, that we're imperfect, that we're not objectively beautiful. We are the center of our children's world, and ours is the face they long to see when they are hurt, scared or sad, as well as when they're happy or proud. I'm constantly amazed and humbled by how important I am to my children.

Anchoring our children can also be really, really hard. Every mother (or father, or grandparent, or other primary caregiver) who plays this attachment role in her child’s life knows what it is to sacrifice. Although we may not keep the same hairstyle for years on end, we give up big things that are important to us – even more than sleep and sanity (although I don’t want to downplay the importance of those). We hold back on developing ourselves or our careers so we can focus on our children. We spend less time pursuing our own interests and passions and more time helping our children develop theirs. We pull in a little (or a lot) so our children can venture out.

In this, as in all of life, we walk in tension. Sometimes, in order to be the healthy center of our children’s lives, we need to change, develop, and spread our own wings. With a new season of life ahead (this is my last full month of homeschooling), I feel my own wings twitch. It is a delight with terror in it, as I balance a call to new horizons with a commitment to remaining the stable center my family needs me to be.

I love you to the outer edges of the universe and back, Eliora, but I might defy your pleas and grow my hair out. I will still be your mother, though, and you can count on me to remain your anchor.