When the kids were little, a friend and I used to classify mothers as runner or non-runner. A runner was the mother who at the slightest stumble, abandoned the conversation and coffee and rushed to the child to provide comfort and cuddles.
We were firmly in the non-running camp.
'Can you see blood? Do I need to call an abulance? No? Then get up. You're fine.'
It may seem harsh but I witnessed kids who would actually cry louder once in their mother's embrace, inevitably attracting even more soothing and on occasion, I swear, I had smug eye contact from the perpetrator as I looked on with what must have been my 'disapproving face'.
Perhaps I'm just justifying my own approach! But where do we get our mothering style? It's a question I've been pondering.
My mother was a non-runner but another friend admits her style is almost the opposite to her 'smother'.
Does it come from our experience of our own mothers? That we innately replicate or reject? And did that come from their mothers? Has it evolved over hundreds of years and generations? Are there repeated patterns of hands-off and hands-on in each family? Or is it all our own and just built in?
What do you think?
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