I Wanna Hold Your Hand

A few years ago, at a meeting for the parents of toddlers, you would have seen a lady with a distinctly uptight twitch to her posture. My hair might have been brushed, but there was no telling if I would have managed an outfit that looked ‘together’. My foot would have been wriggling up and down, and my hands grasped nervously in front of me.  I would have been dragged there by another well-meaning mother from my son’s kindergarten.

We were there to listen to a wise, old, white-haired lady talk about Parenting in the Early Years. I may have introduced myself like this, my voice rising with every sentence.

“I’m Rachel. My boy is three. He is going through a ‘stage’. (Oh-my-goodness-I-hope-it’s-a-stage!) He is defiant, willful, deliberately naughty. The holding of direct eye contact as he does the very thing I have asked him not to do.  The little Dennis the Menace smirk. The panic rises in me as I realize all over again that I don’t know what to do – he’s figured me out!  At three! I can’t do this!!!!”

There may have been other mothers there who understood. A barely audible hum of acknowledgement from people who’d been slaughtered on that same battle front recently, or the averted gaze from another who was too afraid to show her own rising panic.

The wise old lady merely nodded, and moved on to the next introduction.  She said many wise things I’m sure, but one thing stood out.

“Your son is asking you to hold his hand and help him”.

Later, I thought more about what she had said.

Of course I didn’t take the time to hold his hand when he was in the middle of destroying the newly tidied toy shelf.  I didn’t want to hold his hand when I was calling him from downstairs, for the tenth time, and we were already late for kindergarten. I didn’t think of holding his hand when he was struggling with his fork at dinner time, or smudging cake crumbs down between the sofa cushions. To be frank, I was so riled with him I thought if I reached for him when he was being naughty I might be tempted to . . .nah. But no, I had not thought of holding his hand.

Desperation will drive a mother to try many things. And that is why, mid-tantrum, I remembered the words of the wise old lady.  (I know, a girl my age shouldn’t be having tantrums, but I was upset!)  My son had just made a snow storm in his room with talcum powder. Everything was completely covered and I could see the cleaning hours ahead, stretching into the infinity of forever.

I went over to him, and held his hand.

He didn’t know what to do.  I said “How can I help you?”.  And his little white-powdered face crumpled.  We walked, hand in hand to the bathroom, and I helped him get in the bath. We talked about how talcum powder can get everywhere, really fast. We washed it out of his hair and eyelashes, from the wrinkles between his toes. Then we went out and left the snow storm to itself for a while.

I began to try hand holding whenever I felt like I was losing control of a situation.

He liked the attention. The more of it he got, the happier he was, the more connected we were and the more often a good morning turned into a good afternoon. The more attention he received from me, the less naughty he was. I could hold his hand and he would understand! Hand holding was the conduit for communication! On kindergarten days, instead of racing downstairs with all the bits and pieces and yelling for him to join us, I would go to his room, gently take his hand and walk down the stairs.

That wise old lady might have known a thing or two about small people.

All people.

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This post was syndicated with permission to BonBon Break Media, LLC.