Letters to my daughters (March ‘23): PLANT

Photo: Csaba Talaber @ Unsplash

My darling girl,

This is the time of year to open your eyes wide – to notice those snowdrops winking from beneath scrub on the side of the road and spot the first daffodils daring to open their petals to shed their much-needed sunny glow.

These early signs of Spring mean so much more than just the flowers themselves: they say ‘more light’, and ‘summer’s coming!’. There’s hope in these small but mighty blooms.

After we had those brick paths laid in our garden last summer, I didn’t get round to planting out spring bulbs in the flower beds, and I am feeling a bit bereft now the moment has come for them to emerge from the frozen soil. The bulbs instead sit stacked in a pot at my feet – their potential lost for now, just waiting for me to get my trowel out next year instead. A missed opportunity.

It has made me think about the power within us – sometimes unleashed, sometimes held back – and what it means to ‘fulfil your potential’. I find these natural metaphors so helpful – especially at this time of year when we are planting seeds, each full of their own magic.

You, my smallest bulb, are currently finding new ways to exert your power in your world. You have always been expressive and unselfconscious – a beautiful mix of being in motion and song and play. But I am already noticing how your first year in school is altering that power in you. You are unpredictable on what you like and don’t like – and testing the edges of being the one in control of your world. Small but mighty, indeed.  

The upshot of being contained in a pot just too small at school is that you seem to have a more urgent need to exert your power at home in new ways. The release valve seems to be a firmer ‘No!’ to something you don’t want to eat, or the negotiation when it’s time to get pyjamas on. ‘Just five more minutes Mummy’ you moan, wagging your plump little finger at me. ‘I’m busy, I’m in charge, and I’ll take none of your nonsense here thank you very much’ (you seem to say).

***

One day you might read about all those theories that, as a baby, we believe we are omnipotent! Godlike and all-powerful. That we, in fact, control our mother to meet our needs. Those same psychologists claim that babies even believe that they created their mother, rather than being created by them! Deluded, a baby learns that they manipulate their environment; they are sucked into an illusion of control.

And in a way, it’s true. As a baby you orchestrated my every move – I, a puppet to your needs and your desires, rightly mesmerised by your gaze and smiles and giggles. I was putty in your hand (and have been ever since…). I remember too those night time wakings, when I could only drag my exhausted body out of bed to meet your nocturnal needs. I felt barely alive. You were all powerful.

The thing is, we need to live with this illusion, this belief in our own power. It is a fundamental building block of our sense of agency and forms the basis of what we later call our ‘self-belief’. Those same psychologists (funny bunch) trace this illusion back to the beginnings of our confidence and an awareness of our agency: we press into the world, and we leave our mark. Without self-belief, we can never really find and exert our ‘full potential’.  

There are so very many things that will dispel us of this illusion over the years – and my darling girl, your first year at school shows me that you’re experiencing that bitter taste of things routinely being out of your control – line up! Sit still! Wait your turn! It must be exhausting. 

As a 2- and 3-year-old seedling during the lockdowns, you had your doting family providing you with every dollop of attention you sought. What a change it must be now, and how disappointing to realise that you are not, in fact, omnipotent after all.

***

The book I am currently reading* argues that teaching you to manage this disappointment is the core element of being a ‘good enough mother’. I talk about this phrase all the time but think I may have missed an important element. The phrase ‘good enough’ suggests that mothers must accept that they are in some way imperfect and will only ever be ‘good enough’ thanks to the demands of ‘the juggle’. There is compromise and acceptance to negotiate; they are spread too thin to be more.

But in fact, being ‘good enough’ as a mother is a necessary part of the development of your sense of self (not mine).

 ‘Through not being entirely perfect (e.g. always available), the mother allows the baby to experience small frustrations which are accompanied by a dawning awareness that magical control over reality does not exist. ‘The mother’s eventual task,’ Winnicott wrote, ‘is gradually to disillusion the infant, but she has no hope of success unless at first she has been able to give sufficient opportunity for illusion.’ (‘The Well Gardened Mind – by Sue Stuart-Smith)

I told you they were a funny bunch. Funny/clever I think. It seems that me being a ‘good enough’ mother will actually enable you to find your own power, your own magic, confident that you can manage frustrations as they arise, knowing you have the agency to cope.

And I hope that you will do more than cope – but indeed continue to believe that you are powerful, whatever the world outside suggests. You really are gloriously powerful. So full of the same potential for beauty and joyousness as those bulbs sitting beneath my desk. So small but so very mighty.

But you know, the pyjamas do have to go on, and the teeth do need to get brushed. So it’s a fine line: who has the control? I can’t just give in, give up or go against my beliefs or values to satisfy an illusion that you are omnipotent! Jesus! I’m not mad!

It’s hard, this parenting lark. A series of tests and questions, learning that being ‘good enough’ is better than ‘best’.

***

I want to mother a daughter who knows her potential, regardless of the forces that work against that sense of control: that she could plant any seed in any ground and that she could make it grow.

I want her to feel her own potential, and for her to know the power she was born with. It is not illusion. That bit is real. We just have to recognise eventually that our real power comes not from being able to control our sleep deprived mothers, but from the pure magic we have inside.

That will come. But for now, can you please just get your pyjamas on? I’m tired and that thing I want to watch starts in 10 minutes. 

As ever, with love and (residual) patience and in awe of your increasingly sophisticated ability to negotiate,

Your loving mother x 

* The book I am reading is called ‘The Well Gardened Mind’ by Sue Stuart-Smith. A psychotherapist and horticulturist, she shares my enjoyment of all the many metaphors natural growth offers us when we consider the ways in which we might develop and grow as people. The chapter ‘Seeds and Self-Belief’ is well worth a read.