Ten Circles.
The guilt says play more; the memory of her own mother, resting while she ran ten circles, says the child has enough.
Bella writes this from her bed, a six-month-old crawling over her, and names the thought that arrives on schedule in that position: what a bad mother, not playing with her child. She calls it what it is – something handed to us from all sides, not something that grew in the room.
What dissolves it isn't an argument but a memory from the other side of the same scene: she was the child once, an ADHD whirlwind running ten circles around a mother who sat and rested – and it never once crossed her mind that this was a bad mother. The photo under this post is from those years. Coming Alive calls the move she makes here setting down what was never yours – the borrowed rule goes, and what remains is enough. For the child too.
The guilt in this post never wins. Watch how she does it.
I'm lying in bed right now with my six-month-old daughter. She's crawling around me: grumbling, then crying, then laughing. She wants to touch everything, pulls everything into her mouth, can't hold still in one position for a second. And I'm trying to invent games where I get to lie down while she does something next to me.
And sometimes the thoughts come: “What a bad mother I am, not playing with my child.” Well – all the things they impose on us from every side.
And then, for some reason, a memory surfaced – I literally heard my mom's voice. I remembered that when I was little – by the way, I had ADHD, which made being my mom doubly hard – she would also lie down or sit from time to time while I wound ten circles around her: always running somewhere, always doing something. And mom would say: “Bell, maybe we could sit for a bit? Maybe rest?” – something like that, half-joking. And I kept running, jumping, playing next to her anyway.
But it never once crossed my mind that I had a bad mom. That she sat while I ran around her. The opposite – for me it was an insanely great time with mom. It never seemed to me that she wasn't giving me time or anything like that.
And all these ideas that we must super-entertain children, run after them all the time and be their entertainers – I honestly don't know where that came from. It seems to me a child doesn't always need it. Sometimes a mom can simply lie nearby and watch her child play – and that's completely normal too. And the child doesn't need more.
Thank you for reading.
If her words reached somewhere mine don't – good. That's what this blog is for. Take what fits and leave the rest.
– Jan