Innocence sacrificed

Earlier this year I wrote about how I have an ongoing problem with my kids being entitled. How nothing is ever good enough. One of them in particular has a negative, anxious-leaning mindset and I fear she will miss out on a lot in life chasing the perfect moment, not realising that perfection is already here. That if she could let go of constantly wanting “bigger, better, more!” she’d be more able to relax and simply enjoy her life.

Gratitude is a quality that’s super important to me; I use it to keep my own mental health demons at bay, and I would like to teach them how to access that feeling of being blessed. The buzz of knowing you’re lucky and everything is going to be okay. My kids have been born into incredible privilege and I want them to grasp that, not feel sorry for themselves because we don’t have a house with a backyard and a pool and a pony and unlimited TV and candy and three overseas trips a year.

After a lot of deliberation, I decided to drop a bunch of the holidays I usually celebrate with them, offering them the opportunity to take over those holidays if they desire.

So Lughnasadh (pagan bread day) went by unremarked, and though the winter solstice approaches, no decorating is being done, no menus have been planned, no ritual written. They haven’t seen me sneaking gifts into the house, because I’m not buying any. And so, five months into the year, it’s clicked – Mum’s fully serious.

I’m not hosting Yule.

There won’t be an egg hunt at the spring equinox.

I won’t be making Halloween costumes, freezing my buns off trick-or-treating, or mediating fights about who touched who’s candy.

We’re not doing book flood.

I won’t be making them chocolates and health potions for Litha and taking them to the park to run and dance and later complain that the chocolate wasn’t sweet enough or whatever shit they want to whinge about this year.

They’re getting birthdays and Christmas out of me and anything else is going to be on someone else’s effort. Someone else’s time.

They can break someone else’s heart.

The realisation struck hard for the oldest two, with much crying and fighting and blaming my poor husband who had little to do with the decision.

But then came the beauty.

Tonight I shut the bedroom door, so the littlest wouldn’t hear the secrets of the universe, and I asked Bast (10) if she remembered two Eostres ago, how the bunnies didn’t move much and the treats weren’t as good, and I reminded her of the things she and her sisters had said.

She remembered. Spoke openly about her disappointment and worry that the magic was broken.

Context if you need it:
Spring 2021 came, and with it returned the children’s stuffed Jellycat rabbits that move at night, bringing sweet treats and getting up to mischief – similar to elf on the shelf but without the creepy surveillance. Except they didn’t do a whole lot that spring.

The children continued talking about how uninspired the bunnies had been into the next year. How disappointed they were. Night after night the kids would tell me about how they hoped the bunnies would finally give them something big in 2022. Better treats or maybe a toy. Or they’d get frozen in time doing something even more hilarious than when they poured a waterfall of sprinkles out of the pantry.

So, I said to her:

Two winters ago, I was very sick.

I told her how I could hardly get out of bed, how just doing the minimum for her and her siblings was brutally difficult. How I was in pain all day, struggling not to cry. Every day just trying to hold it all together for my family. To cook and clean and help with distance-education (through the covid lockdown) and homework (when school resumed) and try to do my own work, writing books I couldn’t seem to sell. How absolutely devastated and angry I was for Black Swan, ‘cause she was having one of the worst years of her life too. How I felt like I could never be enough for all the people who needed me. How I was tired all day but unable to sleep at night. How I was discovering that I wasn’t a girl at all, that I was an enby, and the fear of losing everyone I love. I spoke about the different ways my body started to break down under the stress.

I asked “do you know why I’m telling you this?”

“No, Mummy.”

“Because I am the bunnies. It’s me. I move them. They stopped doing fun things because I was too sick to make them as cool as I could other years.”

Her face fell. I had thought—because she knows that it’s me that fills and hides the Eostre eggs for their spring egg hunt—that she would also have an inkling about the magic bunnies. She didn’t. Seeing the realisation cross her little face was shattering. I cried, but she didn’t see me shaken, because she curled up in my lap, apologising. “I’m sorry. We didn’t know the things we were saying, we were saying about you.”

“I know.” I said, “And it’s okay. I’m not angry. I just need you to know how we got to the point we’re at now so you can learn the lesson I’m trying to teach you.”

And we hugged and talked about 2022: How I didn’t particularly want the bunnies to return at all. But they did.

I spoke to the bunnies about how they should move when the kids were at school and the adults at work instead of during the night, so the kids would let me sleep. And so, they moved while the kids were at school – IF I REMEMBERED. But so often, I was busy at work and I didn’t remember. I was having a lot of hard, heart-breaking conversations with Deer Heart, trying to save our marriage. Or I’d remember right before pick-up and didn’t have time to pull off a big fancy set-up.

It didn’t work – the kids were sad because the bunnies didn’t do anything great and they couldn’t move on the weekend. The complaints just kept rolling in. And I was less and less motivated to try.

I’m like, “Bast, real magic is just having people who love you very very much. This year, you can be the magic for your little sisters. You can see how much work goes into it. How hard it is to remember and be creative every night. How worth it it is when they get your joke or particularly love the treat you chose – or how maddening it is when they wake you at 5am fighting with each other because they think one of their sisters stole their chocolate during the night. You can fill the eggs, and get the second-hand joy from your cousins finding them. See how much goes into making sure every kid gets a fair share and a challenge fitting for their age.

‘You say I don’t want you to be happy. That I’m always taking away the fun in your life. That our lives are boring. We don’t do enough and I’m too strict. So… you do it, this one time. You do it and then you’ll know how much I love you – how hard I try to give you fun and freedom and opportunities other kids don’t have.”

I’m not going to lie. This was one of the hardest conversations I’ve ever had with her (or any of my kids). I fought with myself for months about if I should spoil the magic of the bunnies or not. But in the end, keeping her young—my baby girl!—would have robbed her of this opportunity for growth and compassion. Hopefully she will have a better understanding going forward of how powerful words are and she will be more open to learning how to voice her displeasure without being harsh. Maybe even to seek solutions.

But tonight I’m sitting here all wounded because the last memories she’ll ever have of this tradition I started will be that I failed. The last two years of her innocent delight were marred by my inability to be the parent I dreamed of being. The bunnies started out great for her but in the end they were crap, and I’ll never get the chance to make that better for her.

I hope I made the right choice.

Miriam Cumming is a queer YA fantasy author, practising witch, halfway-decent spouse, and a parent that tries to fail better every time they inevitably mess up. They are a living breathing coffee-related stereotype. That’s all you need to know!