In the last few months, my 5-year-old hasn’t been wanting to go to anyone’s house without me there. Since he was younger he was okay with spending time with other family members but lately, he wants mom and his home. The place where he feels the most comfortable to be himself.
It was really bad the last time I tried to drop him off. We sat in the car for 50 minutes talking and trying to convince him to get out and enjoy the weekend. I knew if I drove away and he didn’t see this important family member it could affect their relationship later on and I didn’t want to see that happen. He finally got out of the car after I said I would pick him up in 2 hours if he still felt the same way. It turns out he was fine for the rest of the weekend and I did speak to him on the phone a couple of times. Sharing kids is so hard and complicated sometimes and knowing what the right thing to do for your sons best interest is also hard in situations like this!
What really bothered me is that I was blamed for my son not wanting to leave me because I Baby him. What does that even mean? Is it because I listen to my son’s needs, communicate about his feelings and give unconditional love to him? This was said in front of him and this comment really bothered me. I believe this is exactly what is wrong with our society. I feel very passionate about this topic and this is why I’m sharing this. I feel like a lot of men raised in my age group (the mid-late ’30s) were taught to not express themselves fully and not to show their sensitivity. Both my boys and my girl show equal amounts of humanity, empathy and sympathy. Why are we driving these natural reactions and emotions out of our boys? Imagine if we all raised our boys to be allowed to show how they are feeling without being labelled as a baby…at 5 years old! I refuse to ever give in to these messed up views on boys and men and the way we change these poor little humans natural response to life around them. I hope we can learn from our own generation and raise our boys to be comfortable being themselves in the society we live in. The world can be cold and very disconnected at times. I’m going to raise my children to be warm, emotional, sensitive and smart the way I believe nature intended humans to be. Because you know what? My 5 year gets it in a way most adults never will. He is brilliant with his understanding of human interactions and expressing his emotions and I will do everything as a mother to encourage this lovely boy to grow and develop into a warm, caring and empathetic young man.
Jillian