Thursday is crazy day at our house. Thankfully my husband gets himself to work, but I need to ferry three children to their respective educational facilities within a time frame of just half an hour and high-tail it to work myself. That scant thirty minutes needs to include the preschool sign-in, kids’ school drop off, five sets of traffic lights, eight kilometers of busy main road, trying to park and arrive at work on time. Optimistically, I try to fit in grabbing a coffee on the way but, alas, something has to give. While I visualise myself strolling nonchalantly into the office with coffee in one hand and coat elegantly slung over an arm, it seems the reality for this working mother is somewhat different. I’m doing well if we’ve all got our lunches, my son has remembered to bring his gear for soccer practice and I’ve managed to scratch on some mascara while waiting at a red light.

I am thankful that this is not my everyday existence, and I take my hat off to mothers everywhere for whom this is the daily grind. My years as an at-home mum have perhaps spoiled me for the realities of modern motherhood. But one thing that is universal among mothers is our fully functioning worry gland.

We worry that our children don’t eat enough, and we fret that their social skills/motor skills/ maths skills aren’t what they should be. We feel physically sick when they are ill or in pain and we wake at unearthly hours during winter nights to check they are covered up and cosy. When they are away overnight, there is a strange empty ache when we walk past their bedroom and see their empty bed. We fuss about things like wearing singlets and jumpers, having short fingernails and insist on the use of soap.

We want the best for our children. We want them to be capable and independent and strong, healthy and smart and generous. We also want them to be safe and healthy and nurtured, protected by the invisible silver net of our love that binds us together like the umbilical did. As mothers, there is the constant struggle in our hearts. Our instinctive desire to care, protect and shield is in direct competition with our need to train up and release, allow our kids to learn, (occasionally the hard way) and give them the freedom to enjoy their childhood. The tension is, at times, utterly exhausting.

Every day we make decisions with and for our children and our family as a whole. Every day we have to balance all the possibilities in our minds and hearts and come up with a considered decision. Sometimes our fears and worries overcome us, and our children are denied an opportunity for growth or a tiny taste of independence. Other times we are able to hold down the rising bile in our stomachs as we think of what could happen as opposed to what is likely to happen. Our offspring are then gifted with a chance for development and learning responsibility, unfettered by our nagging admonitions. It is a hard balance to find.

All these things go through my mind as I drive to work on a Thursday. The familiar battle of worry and common sense rages - the fear of something happening to my babies compared to the long term effect of preventing them from growing up and into themselves. Here’s the thing: to enable us all to get where we need to be on the day I go to work, I allow my children to walk to school, unaccompanied. It is a short walk, just a couple of blocks that we have walked together many times. There are other parents and kids on their own way to school and there is only one quiet road to cross to get onto the school grounds. The whole trip takes about five minutes. But I play it over and over in my mind. I wouldn’t allow them to do it if I didn’t think it was safe, yet I still carry the nagging dread of news stories where children are kidnapped on their way to school.

We have talked ad nauseum about stranger danger and sticking together and what to do if something happened. They know who the safe people are to ask for help and also to scream like hell if something bad happens. I wish I didn’t have to teach my children these things and I wish they didn’t need to be worldly-wise when they are in primary school.

I wonder if, instead of exposing them to the gritty realities of the world should I just take the five extra minutes to deliver them safe and sound at the school gate? Some will say yes, I should protect my offspring from any possible danger at all costs. Conversely, some parents will agree that kids need a chance to spread their wings and fly, and that a small measured risk is worth the dividend of growing confidence, resilience and maturity.

I have always regarded myself as more of a free-range parent, as opposed to the helicopter variety. But I can see where the helicopters are coming from. Perhaps the only real difference between the two is that free-rangers are more often able to stifle the inevitable fears and worries that come with parenting, in the hope of giving their children a chance to learn and try something new. As with many parenting issues, there are no easy answers or simple solutions. I’m sure our parenting approach will adjust and develop as our children grow up and encounter new challenges. I’m guessing though, that the tussle in my heart will be a constant reminder, a little like the stretch marks.

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