The Sense of Independence

Why gaining independence is important and retaining it even more so.

My son left for summer camp last weekend. “Oh no, Mummy’s going to cry,” my husband said with a shaky voice, trying to keep himself as much as me together with the squeeze he gave me as the bus pulled away. “You’ve still got me, Mummy,” my daughter reminded me, and I made a mental note not to smother her with enough affection for two while he’s away. We already know we’ll be the first ones there waiting for the bus ten days from now. Ten days!

I confess that we’re a bit helicoptery in our parenting 😬. It started while my son was still somersaulting inside me. My husband would have bought an ultrasound machine to keep an eye on him if it had been possible. Now, our kids both have trackers, my son on his phone and my daughter on her watch. I found this concept strange when I first heard people talking about it, but that was when my kids were small and never left my side. I’m a fan now. We’re aware of our overprotective tendencies, though, and we try to rein them in.

My son will have to turn his phone off and hand it in at camp, which is a good thing – ten days without screens will do him good, maybe it will break the spell his Nintendo Switch has him under 🤞🏻. However, my husband felt a bit bereft not being able to check up on him; he tried after just two hours. When it started pouring down, he worried our son would be drenched in his tent and whether he’d be warm enough in his sleeping bag. They’re allowed to use their phones for fifteen minutes a day from the second day. If he chooses to call us instead of playing online games with his free time, my husband will, no doubt, ask him if he needs us to bring him anything. This is not allowed, but he’ll ask anyway.

We admire the way our kids throw themselves into new activities and groups of people. We’ve always tried to make them feel secure and encouraged them to try new things, despite our sometimes-nagging worries. We try to give them their independence. I've recently become aware of how important it is to keep this throughout life, too. This is something many of us forget as we get older.

I was guilty of this. I went from leaving home at eighteen, backpacking around the world and settling in another country on my own, to having my bedtime decided for me by small people, not even visiting the toilet on my own and hardly leaving our district. From the moment I became a mum, my space was eroded, as was my time and energy.

As my fortieth approached, my best friend asked my husband if he thought I’d like a box set of classic books for my birthday. “I told her you don’t read anymore, apart from to the kids.” He’d laughed as he recalled the conversation. It was true, but I didn’t find it funny; had I had a book in my hand at the time, I might have launched it at him. I was no longer free to read what I wanted. I’d turned into someone who only read loudly and animatedly, mostly in rhymes, pointing at brightly coloured and often disgusting pictures in books with titles which inevitably referred to farting or snot or something equally repulsive.

It took a while for my husband's words to provoke a change. When I finally started reading books I liked again, and took up writing, my family were resentful. They weren't being mean. This is a common reaction when someone in a system (family, group of friends or work team) makes a change. It upsets the dynamic, and everyone needs to find themselves again.

I’m getting more of my independence back as the kids get older, as I mentioned in my post “me time”. I'm going on trips without my immediate family and refreshing skills I let slip. All of this has given me back a chunk of confidence I hadn’t realised I was missing. I’d been encouraging and congratulating my husband on his climb at work and motivating and supporting my kids with their schoolwork and activities. All the while, I had slowly slipped into the background.

Many coaching clients have been in similar situations in their romantic relationships, families and friendships. Some didn’t realise they'd lost themselves in the dynamic until the relationship was over, the kids had moved out, or the friend had moved on, in which case this is a double whammy of the loss of another and of self.

Healthy relationships of any kind need a degree of independence. My husband and I have relatively little in common; our shared interest was partying into the wee hours together, but now we can barely keep our eyes open past 9pm. We still enjoy each other’s company, though, and have more to talk about now that we’re starting to live our lives a little less entangled in one another for the sake of the children. And our little boy is getting bigger. He needs to get wet on that camping trip without us around to dry him off, and we need to learn to let him go so that he’ll want to come back.

So, how can you claw back that independence in personal or professional relationships? Keeping system dynamics in mind, communication is a biggie, and the following could help:

• Try explaining that this is necessary FOR you and is not because you want to get AWAY from them.

• Adapt the explanation to the audience: I used simple comparisons with my kids and an even simpler one with my husband, “How would you feel if you only played games the kids want to play on your PlayStation?” No more Call of Duty!

• Be honest and open when situations arise – don’t let them build up and then explode.

• Take small steps and give everyone time to get used to the new situation.

Now and then, I still get hunted down when I’m on the toilet, and little limbs still pile into my bed for a cuddle. I also still want those warm hands to hold mine for as long as possible, but these are wants, not needs, on both sides. When my kids let go, I like to think we’ll all be ready, and I’ll have enough going on in my own life not to want to circle above them. I might even stop tracking them, at some point, in their forties maybe 😉.