The Chocolate Spectrum of Childrearing
Babies are milk chocolate because…
They are warm and cuddly and comforting and you can hold them close and feel unconditionally loved and loving, and you feel like you are in heaven and that time stands still when you hold them in your arms and nurse them.
Toddlers are semi-sweet chocolate because…
They are mostly warm and cuddly, but with a little bit of devil to keep you up at night and sometimes a bit of bite too.
Preschoolers are bittersweet chocolate because…
They choose when they want to be warm and cuddly, and definitely have creative and stubborn minds of their own. But they also perceive what is magical in the world.
Schoolers are like a mocha latté because…
Without them, you wouldn’t get up in the morning and then keep on going all day (chauffering, teaching, school volunteering, answering, coaching, helping with science projects, listening to their concerns, etc.).
Schoolers grow into high schoolers, and then into college kids or young adults, and then (perhaps) into the parents of our grandchildren. Does parenting ever really end? Maybe not until you’re the one in diapers.
Each of these stages has different needs from your parenting. But…each of these stages benefits from having grown to know your child through breastfeeding.
Like the saying goes, infantile needs met in infancy won’t have to be met in adulthood. If you have learned your child through breastfeeding (i.e., developed your mothering skills through breastfeeding), you usually know best what your child needs from the baby stage on up. When you mother your older nursling with breastfeeding, you are meeting his or her needs, and sometimes meet your own too. You get to put your feet up knowing exactly where your child is…right there in your lap on the couch or next to you in the family bed…and he or she is not getting into trouble. And while you sometimes feel that this long-term breastfeeding is a burden or you feel touched out and tired, you are comforted knowing you nourish the heart, body, and soul of your aging nursling.
Then one day, you both wake up and the nursing is over and done with…your child is past that intense need. A simple hug and kiss or a supportive word at the right moment will do. This doesn’t mean you won’t be faced with challenges and quandaries about “what to do!” and that question every mother hates to ask herself: “Am I doing the right thing?” Trust me, one evening when you go in to simply kiss your child goodnight, your 11-year-old will tearfully say to you “Mommy, how come Julia has a best friend and I don’t?!” or whine begrudgingly “Mommy, how come Sam always gets the soccer ball and no one will pass to me?!” Then, wracking your brain to come up with the right answers for these unanswerable concerns, you will spend 30 minutes going over the details with your child while in your head you are asking yourself: “What can I do to help my child through this RIGHT NOW, because it’s 9:30 (or 10:30, or even 11:30 pm), and I really just want to go to bed and get some sleep!” And you will wish, wistfully, that you could solve these dilemmas with something as simple as a mouthful of breast as you lay back on the pillow enjoying some peace and quiet.
* * * * *
But many years later, you will taste the creamiest milk chocolate when your 16-year-old son, about to embark on a school trip to Europe, stays last in line through airport security so that he can call you over and get one last hug good-bye (mind you, when everyone else is completely and thoroughly through the gate so that no one else can see him get that hug). Or, because your advice is the one that counts, you will savor the bittersweet chocolate of young adulthood when your 19-year-old daughter invites you along to get her first tattoo (and even solicits your advice on its design, size, and location).
These rare, precious moments will be the delicious truffles of your middle life–letting you know that you have done the right thing after all. At every stage and every level of dependence –> independence, our children need to be nurtured and to be reassured they are loved and respected and cared for. The challenge for ourselves is to find the chocolate in the experience.
originally drafted 4/10/10, edited 11/21/11
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