How Leaving My Child In A Day-Care Brought Out Strange Emotions In Me

A mother writes a heart-felt post about the emotional roller coaster she goes through when she leaves her child in a day care centre.

We reach the pretty place

Laced with toys, colours and many glitz to amaze.

You cling to me,

Your tiny feet never had been so colder,

Burying your face in my shoulders,

You think it is only place safe to be

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I comfort, run my hand on thee

I am here, I whisper.

A big lie you know, hearing my voice quiver

You give out a loud cry, your eyes fixated on me

Throwing your tiny arms, pointing those fingers at me

Oh, that is not a pretty sight!

Haunts your sharp voice, comes heavy on me

Amidst the chaos and noise, how could I comfort thee!

You are happy once minute hand moves,

Between two of us every day, you know that I lose

I am the culprit and I am the victim

Of your love, of our love!

We can revel reading and relishing this poem only for a week or two as soon they set their hearts to the place leaving us with a dull ache. Acquaintances become friends, friends become best friends but the sadness befalling us parents is inexplicable and cannot lend any explanation. This feeling is very common. The joy that our offspring finds in some other place or in some other company is very comforting to us yet the pain that he could find joy elsewhere becomes more significant with each passing day and crushes us like shards of glass broken into pieces. Till now, we were the prime joy-givers and the sudden change in them leaves us in uncomfortable position. They wave their little hands at us, keeping the eyes fixed at the attractive toy in the childcare center while half-heartedly smiling at us. It becomes a norm leaving us with sadness. The sadness which was a distant acquaintance till this moment, now suddenly becomes a soul-sister.

We come face to face with the strange emotion that numbs our senses for a good number of seconds the moment we drop our little ones. What a weird kind of emotion this is! At first we aim to make them adjusted to the surroundings and the moment they get adjusted to the rhythm, we feel an ache breaking our insides. It tugs at your heart to know the new found joy beats the emotion that you two had and which you two were only privy of.

Children are the product of now. They know the power of now as against us who stay in our past and fill our minds with expectations for future. It doesn’t serve much purpose other than bringing hurt and disappointment. ‘Present’ gets a step motherly treatment always with us adults but children are the true lovers of present. They know that this moment is the right moment to express, enjoy and embrace and I cannot at any cost let this moment escape out of my hands. They wisely live in the power of now and enrich it with their beauty.

One more thing that they teach us is to trust our loved ones. They know that this moment will pass in sometime and my parent will come and pick me up. The two hands will embrace them, running the hands on their spine and planting a kiss on their cheeks to welcome them to their abode. They understand it completely without an iota of  doubt. Children follow the pattern that we thrust on them but this pattern of leaving and picking them is followed with trust. They enjoy this time, keeping in mind that soon the parent will come and show up. This unquestioning trust and patience is what we have to learn from them. Though the emotions oscillate between the extremes, one moment floating in the cloud of ecstasy and next crashing down to the depths of sadness, it is their trust on us that engulfs us to live this experience with relief.

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