I'm Not in a Rush for My Daughter to Grow Up

There will be a time when she doesn't need me anymore.

When she doesn't want to hold my hand in public, or lie next to me as she goes to sleep. The time will come when she is ready to make her own way in the world.

That time is not now. And I don't want it to be.

There is so much noise (and so much pressure) in the parenting world. So many books, methods, approaches, and "expert" opinions.

No one is an expert in my child but me.

No one else has been her first home, her consistent comfort, her soft place to land when things get hard or scary or she's tired and hungry and searching for peace.

No one else knows the soft tone of her voice, her clear inflection when she's excited or happy or needs something or wants to tell you how she feels.

No one else has been by her side every day and night of her life, soothing and celebrating in every moment that may arise.

Fuck the expert opinions. She is my love, my heart, my precious child.

I am so tired of the implication that I don't know what's best for my child. The pressure to perform "normal society" when everything in my body screams NO NO NO in response to all the things I'm "supposed" to do.

A non-exhaustive list of the pressures that have been enraging me lately:

• Sleep training

• Teaching her to be "independent" at 16 months old

• Putting her in daycare without a second look so I can participate in capitalism in the way I'm expected to

• Ignoring the deep animal cry in my body when I leave her behind in order to do something "more productive" when all I want to do is be near her, listen to her laugh when she plays and the sound of her feet on the pavement and the steady beating of her heart as she sleeps next to me

We have been taught to ignore our bodies.

I've done it in moments. This is what we're supposed to do.

Every time, I swallow back the bile in my throat and turn my heart off a little more in order to be able to walk away.

I've learned my lesson with this. I'm learning my lesson.

If I need to shut my heart down in order to do something, that something is not right for me - or for her.

Every time I ignore my gut feeling, something brings me back to myself. A steady reminder why I feel the way that I do, and why I should never, ever push that feeling down in order to blend in with my neighbor or my friend or the norm of deep disconnection from ourselves and our children that is required to participate in polite society.

Fuck this.

I will listen to myself and to my daughter regardless of the discomfort.

I will center my feelings and hers. I will center our connection and preserve space for her joy, her innocence, her precious heart.

I will not follow the advice of others who know nothing of my child and whose path I would not desire to walk myself.

I will find other ways of being. I will pull them from deep within me, from ancestral memory, from simpler times, from the safest place within me that recognizes the quiet beauty of slow mornings, shared moments, and secure attachment.

I will not shame myself or my feelings, even when they do not match up with what other people are doing.

The discomfort is great. My daughter is greater.

I will choose her over everything. I will sink into the vulnerability, the intensity, the devotion that this season of my life requires.

I will let it change me, and realize what a gift it is to choose this.

I will be with her when she needs me. I will be close at hand when she wants me, and even when she does not.

I will listen to my body. I will listen to hers.

I will not rush through the most beautiful relationship and the most sacred time of my life.