Underneath the Monkey Bars

When our children were little, we spent a lot of time at playgrounds. Our daughter loved the monkey bars, and they made me nervous every single time. I would stand right below her, not touching her, but close enough to catch her if she slipped. I told myself I was simply being careful. I was spotting her. Staying near. Being a good mother.

Later, when it was time to learn to ride a bike, I found that I could not do that either.

Her brother picked it up quickly, but she struggled. She was older than most children by then and still did not know how to ride. I could not bear to watch the wobbling, the false starts, the almost-falls. She did not want to keep trying, and I did not want to keep witnessing it. Eventually, instead of changing my parenting, I hired someone to teach her. Professor Pedals. Yes, that is a real person. Somehow it felt easier to bring in a stranger than to sit with my own discomfort while she figured it out.

At the time, I did not think of any of this as too much.

I thought of it as love. Children need us close. They need our presence, our attention, our readiness when something goes wrong.

What I did not understand then was how easy it is to keep doing the same job long after the job has changed.

Most of us do not notice it while it is happening.

We stay close a little longer. We step in a little faster. We keep spotting long after they have begun reaching on their own.

There were later versions of this too, and they were not about monkey bars or bicycles. In recovery, that old instinct returned in more serious ways. I wanted updates. I wanted reassurance. I wanted to know how things were really going beneath the surface. I created weekly check ins with staff so I could keep close watch on meeting attendance, step work, school work, hygiene, the small signs that helped me believe things were steady. But I still felt the need to stand underneath it all, watching carefully, trying to make sure there would not be another fall. Too many had already happened, and the stakes felt far too high.

It took me a long time to understand that this was part of the same pattern.

There was a time when I could barely watch a child wobble on a bicycle. And yet years later, I let our daughter spend her first college semester abroad in Europe at seventeen. Now she is traveling for months, making her own decisions, finding her own way.

I did not get there all at once.

Parenting asked something new of me, and slowly, imperfectly, I began to answer.

That may be one of the hardest parts of loving our children as they grow, especially when the road has been complicated. We learn one version of love early. Close by. Hands ready. Eyes always on them. Then, over time, we are asked to offer another kind. Not absent. Not indifferent. Just a little further back.

Because stepping back is not the same as stepping away.

We may not always stand underneath the monkey bars anymore.

But we are still there.

Watching. Trusting. Ready, if needed, to catch them.

That is still love.

It always was.