Mum, can we have a sleepover?

In that moment, all is right with the world.

May 22, 2024

Hot tea and tears

Having ventured on a ‘me and he’ midweek trip away to Marrakech recently, we found ourselves returning home on the Friday just before midnight - to a cup of tea, a plate of freshly baked pastries and floods of tears. My teenage firecracker daughter, Taz (Tasmanian Devil), was navigating some tricky situations with friends both in and out of school, and it began to spill out within ten minutes of our return. Her older sister Fiver (anxious Watership Down rabbit) expressed her gentle and quiet joy at us being home with a pot of tea and baking, whilst Taz held herself together with a shaky smile until the hot tears needed to find that place that used to be somewhere on my chest until she outgrew me, and is now located in the space between my neck and shoulder.

I remember acutely the pain and joy of teenage friendships, the wonder and the meanness, the sweetly poisonous concoction of everyone’s anxieties thrown into one big pot, swirling around with liberals seasonings of hormones and pinches of envy and self loathing. It’s hard to watch, and whilst I can rationalise it as an adult, and pass on my wisdom, I know that does little to assuage what is happening in the moment and I can still recall that sick feeling of being ‘out of sorts’ within the pack, or worse still, not being in the pack at all. We talked into the early hours, hugged and reassured, came up with some plans that would no doubt be revised or ignored, and then very wearily found our beds as the clock ticked on towards dawn.

Expanding and contracting

My husband went back to work on a three-day shift the following morning (he’s a fire fighter and international rescue worker), plunging us straight back into the ‘girl world’ that we exist in for about 1/3 to 1/2 of our time. The strange single parenting existence I find myself in where I don’t hand over my children to another parent every other week or weekend, as we’re still married and live in the same house, although he is so often absent. The peculiar construct we have been in since they were born, where each of us as full time shift workers would look forward to the other returning so they could ‘hand over the baby’, only to be met with ‘I’ve just come off a night shift…I need to sleep’. My shift working days are long behind me, but I remain on the ‘receiving’ end of a demanding schedule that strips him of his sleep, so that days off are often written off. Our world where we continually cycle between contracting to a group of three, then expanding to a group of four. Each dynamic gently (or not so gently) interrupting the rhythm of the previous pattern that had only just began to settle. And on it goes.

That Saturday evening, with Himself at work, I settled into bed with my cup of tea - possibly reading, but most likely scrolling with an abandoned book face down, yet expectant, on the bed next to me - when there was a gentle knock on my door at midnight. I rarely shut my bedroom door due to the lingering but unwarranted hangover from the toddler years of wanting to be able to hear any distress, but Fiver had a friend staying over so I had afforded us all that extra layer of privacy. At the sound of the knock I whispered ‘come in’, and there stood Taz in the doorway, a ‘well-loved’ fluffy Pooh Bear in hand, asking ‘Mum, can I have a sleepover with you?’

In a simple gesture, I cleared the five half-read books and pair of headphones that had populated my husband’s ‘side’ of the bed, pulled back the covers and opened my arms. She came in for a snuggle, then got herself (and Pooh Bear) comfy, and we spent a short while scrolling next to each other, before I turned off the lights and we slept. We didn’t need to speak, there wasn’t the energy or the need for talk or advice in that moment, it was purely about sharing a space, and providing emotional safety, warmth, comfort and love.

In that moment, all was right with the world.

Girl world

When Taz and Fiver were little they rarely slept in our beds - more by accident than design. They were both very happy in their cots and in their own spaces. Even when Fiver was brand new and still poorly and vulnerable (from neo-natal meningitis), I would cocoon with her after a feed, but she wouldn’t settle until back in her own little basket. So from about 3 months old, they both happily slept through the night, largely in their own rooms. That’s just the way it was, and the way it remained. They would come into us when they were scared, anxious or ill of course, and they still do, but they rarely stay all night. When we travel together in twosomes (I do a girly weekend with each of them on their own every four years) those are really the only times we share beds, although hotel beds are often delightfully oversized. In those spaces I can escape the extraordinarily long limbs of Fiver as she ‘starfishes’ in her sleep, whilst wondering at her wisdom and grace; and Taz and I can eat sweets in a huddle in the middle and giggle like little kids about absolutely nothing at all, before retreating to our own edges. Having a ‘sleepover’ for us, is a rare treat - and one definitely reserved for when Himself is absent.

In our girl world, we come together in a different way than when we are a family of four. There is less silliness, sharp banter and atrocious ‘dad’ jokes; and also less practicality, order and common sense. There is more mess, more ‘snack tea’ dinners (we love a ‘carpet picnic’ of olives, cheese, avocado and houmous), and often quite a lot more crying; but there is something else. Here I find myself softening and holding a space of mutual understanding and vulnerability. There is emotional breathing space and a strong sense of safety amidst the chaos.

Between us we manage a blend of neurodiversities, including my own, which I try my best to hold. Alongside this runs my chronic fatigue and and the ups and downs of their lives and emotions, as well as the domestics, exam revision, uni applications, driving lessons, elite sport commitments, multiple health appointments and general life that continues relentlessly every day. We are very lucky in that we lead a predominantly happy (if often random) life and have a hugely supportive family and friends, but it isn’t easy. The challenges for any family living with aspects of mental and physical health vulnerabilities whilst trying to operate within a societal construct that has way outgrown its design parameters are not insignificant.

Caro Giles

writes on these topics with great depth of understanding and experience, and with heart aching insight and empathy - I highly recommend her work.

So in girl world we find our way amidst the ebb and flow, moulding around the one of us that is most in need at the time, drawing upon all our reserves when any of us fracture at the same moment, but knowing that we are kindred in every sense, and that there is always tea, popcorn, and Pooh Bear; and the door is always open.

Kidulthood to adulthood

Himself gently tells me that I do too much for them, that I am too available, or too soft. He fondly describes me as a ‘melt’. There’d be no sleepovers happening if he was home in bed - not a chance!! I reluctantly agree when he suggests that perhaps the girls rely on me too heavily, certainly emotionally, but I also know I thrive on that reliance. Part of that is no doubt down to some misplaced guilt from their early years where I was full-time, the breadwinner, travelling and shift working. At a point in their lives where EVERY other mother I knew appeared to be working maximum 2.5 days a week with a husband working in ‘The City’, thus financing their coffee mornings and lifestyle choices, I was getting up at 4.30am to control aircraft or flying to Washington to meet with NASA. [I absolutely know it isn’t the case that I was the only one existing like this, but that is how it felt being the one on the catch up end of all the social groups, missing all the school events, and being whispered about as ‘Supermum’ at the dreaded school gates as if I actually wanted to ‘have it all’ - a phrase that irks me to this day].

After the breakdown and ill health that led to the loss of my aviation career, I now find myself living and working as an author. Our kitchen is my office, and I am present here nigh on every day when they barrel in at 4pm, at the stage of life where it turns out they need guidance the most. I am witness to the minutiae and the drama of their teenage existence, reminiscing about the similarities from my own girlhood whilst aching at seeing theirs tattooed into visibility by Snapchat. Trying to steer, hold, guide, comfort, listen; whilst absorbing, absorbing, absorbing. Intuiting when to stand firm, when to discipline and hold ground, and when to melt. Where to place the boundaries in order to…well…keep them bound without forcing them out of bounds.

Taz is particularly attuned to my ‘melt’ status, cannily knowing when best to ask me for something like a second or third ear piercing, a trip to Thorpe Park, or some canned cocktails from the fridge for a party; whilst Fiver grits her teeth in the background as although she is older, a mild congenital heart condition precludes her from having piercings at all. Taz either slipping a request in when I’m knackered (although I am very wise to that), or more cleverly when she notices I’ve been listening to my ‘Mum Songs Just for Me’ playlist on Spotify and quietly shedding a tear to ABBA’s ‘Slipping Through my Fingers’. Knowing that whilst I am no pushover, my love is a fire that can never be put out, no matter what.

I wrote about this fierce love in my piece ‘Mothering on the Edge’ recently:

“As teenagers, where I can no longer use my grip, nor my voice in the moments where it is needed, as I may not be with them, I have tried to instil in them instead this mantra of fierce love:
‘Whatever happens, I can’t promise I won’t get mad at you, but I will always come and get you, I will always rescue you, I will always make you safe, and I will always love you.’
This is their magic feather. This is what binds us now.

As they navigate the path from kidulthood to adulthood, I know (some of) what lies in their way. I know they will encounter alcohol, vapes and sex as a minimum. I know that I can’t ‘prevent’ this, and nor should I - it’s part of the experience of life, but this is where I try to carefully balance the line between what I think of as ‘mothering’ with fierce love versus ‘Parenting’ with a capital ‘P’: the Parenting of 'should’ and' ‘shouldn’t’, of getting it ‘right’ and getting it ‘wrong’, of opinions and judgments - the stuff that pales into insignificance behind the value of opening the door and turning down the duvet with open arms when they stand in your doorway at midnight, even though they’re on the verge of adulthood.

Clover Stroud

wrote a brilliant piece on this yesterday - where she differentiates between ‘mothering’ and ‘motherhood’, with the former being about purely loving our children, and ‘motherhood’ more about the societal constructs and imposed expectations. Here she speaks of shifting away from moulding and shaping our children, but leaning into unconditional love:

“I return to that single most important piece of parentings advice that I wanted to share here.
Here goes: I believe that the influence you have over your children is relatively minor, that they are born as almost fully fledged characters, and that your role isn’t to make them into great mathematicians, or become ace sportsmen, or show them how to be writers, but simply and purely to love them.”

As the blast through their teenage years, this feels more important than ever.

A game of trust

A week after Taz joined me for that post-Marrakech sleepover, Himself was on another three day shift, and Taz and Fiver both had a party to go to that evening.

I say ‘party’, but in the UK that often consists of big groups of teenagers heading to a park with some alcohol because there is nowhere else to go and very little else to do. This is not something that fills me with joy, in fact it is something that fills me with faint dread, but ‘twas ever thus, and I have learnt to accept this as part of my gradual practice towards ‘letting go’. It has become the basis for one of our biggest exercises in trust. I cannot stop them ‘teenagering’, but I can help them to be safe whilst they do it, and by being realistic about what they will and won’t do, I can set boundaries that are much more likely to be adhered to. I can have sensible discussions around alcohol and give them a canned cocktail from the fridge, as if they don’t have their own they are much more likely to drink the neat vodka or other vomit juice that gets passed around in litre ‘water’ bottles, much as happened when I was that age. That’s the stuff of ambulances and stomach pumps. When we talk openly and realistically, I know what I’m dealing with as our game of trust plays out.

Me trusting them to be sensible with alcohol, to make sure ‘no girl is left alone’ (one of our rules amongst parents to ensure no-one is left vulnerable), to keep their phones on and charged and to return home by the agreed hour. Me knowing that every kid will try a vape (and that mine have), but hoping that the phase passes rapidly, and that Fiver in particular will heed the warnings of her cardiac consultant and steer clear (I will write more on this at another time as she transitions out of my medical care into being responsible for her own). Them trusting me to have their back, to keep them safe, and to love them even when they make mistakes. They have never let me down, nor I them.

That night as they went to their respective parties, I sat at home on my own, watching TV with a cup of tea, so I could drive at a moment’s notice if needed, trying not to check my phone too often. As I tried to distract myself from the inevitable latent worry, despite my trust in them, I attempted to do some work for my book. Having just emerged from the post-edit phase of Breaking Waves I still felt hugely under-confident and anxious about that so that was no help. I then tried to make a dent in the interminable life admin which very quickly became too difficult, too much. I logged onto Substack and saw lots of people making strides and ‘growing audiences’ whilst I felt I couldn’t keep up. I reflected on how much I missed my husband when he was away, on whether he’ll ever stop working shifts, on how it will feel if/when Fiver goes to University next year - how will she be? How will I be? I pondered the opportunity I have to potentially go to Antarctica and how I will be judged for that no matter if, or when I go as that does not fit the ‘Parenting’ guidelines. Over the course of a few hours I successfully managed to transfer all my latent anxieties about knowing that both my girls were sitting in separate ‘parks’ with separate groups of people in the dark with alcohol, and my deep rooted worries as my control over their safety was ever diminishing, and ploughed them into every aspect of uncertainty and overwhelm in my own current world. Whatever was on the TV barely even registered.

All wrapped up

I finally turned to my new hobby - crochet, and found some peace in the gentle rhythm of creating, and the comfort of knowing that this in itself is an expression of my unconditional love. I have recently begun to crochet a blanket for when Fiver leaves home, and I will then do the same for Taz. I’m playing around with sizes and colours, but this feels like such a perfect expression for my love, and somewhere to weave a layer of ‘forever’ protection. A blanket they can be wrapped up in and always have a piece of me with them. Something for them to melt into when they need to. The thought of them leaving home fills me with wonder, agony and excitement in varying measures, and my work now is to prepare us for it - them and me.

When they both returned home from their evenings out, in tact, before their ‘curfew’, and accompanied as we have strict rules about walking home alone, I allowed myself to finally relax, and head up to bed. Both were safe, happy, and barely even tipsy. Not much alcohol had been drunk, my trust justified.

Despite this, I couldn’t quite let the anxiety go. It gnawed at me on a deeper level as I observed them dancing on the verge of their adulthood. Striving to keep hold of their hands, whilst knowing that soon I need to let go. A bewildering dichotomy of watching them slip through my fingers whilst simultaneously prising myself from their grip.

I went to bed restless, mind whirring, unable to settle. After a while tossing and turning, I felt the urgent need to connect. A primal need to feel that sense of emotional safety, warmth, comfort and love. Fiver was with her boyfriend, so I knocked on Taz’s door, poked my head round and softly whispered ‘would you like to come for a sleepover?’

She beamed, and jumped up out of her bed, Pooh Bear in hand, followed me to mine and snuggled right in.