Until recently, I would have categorized my son as a mama’s boy. I don’t say that in a derogatory way. Instead, it’s something I’ve cherished over the past year and a half. Our bond wasn’t perfect from the very beginning. He struggled with breast feeding, and it wasn’t the precious bonding experience that I was promised. Nevertheless, as soon as my son could express a preference to certain people, I was the person he generally preferred. I was the one who could comfort him. It was in my arms that he snuggled when a fever struck. I was his preferred source of humor, protection, and love.
Then one day, several weeks ago, he reached for my husband while in my arms. I shrugged it off. My husband works longer hours, and his son missed him. There was no harm in that.
The newly formed preference for Daddy strengthened over the next few weeks. One evening in Target, PJ screamed when I held him instead of his father, and struggled to find him when he ducked into a nearby aisle. In a moment of imperfection, I immediately responded with thinly veiled hurt. “Here, just take him,” I said to my husband, “he wants nothing to do with me.” I quickly walked further ahead to give myself a moment of composure.
The next several evenings were spent scouring the internet for advice and similar stories. The most common piece of advice I found was not to cause further damage by showing anger at the situation. Oops. I had already failed at this fairly obvious piece of advice. I allowed myself to wallow for a moment in the crapshoot that is the unrequited love of a toddler, and then resolved myself to make it better.
This first thing I did was make more of an effort to actively play with him. He can entertain himself fairly well for a toddler, and until that moment I had an all-consuming focus on preparing our house for sale in the next few months. Instead, I dedicated the several hours between work and bed-time towards playing with him. We came up with new games. I found new ways to make him giggle.
Next, I asked my husband to take on more of the undesirable parenting tasks. I had become the disciplinarian, with my husband being the one who “broke the rules” and brought the fun. My husband became better at saying no, and I became better at saying yes. My husband did more teeth brushing, stopped PJ from hitting the dog, and guided him away from the harmful things he was about to get into.
With these two major changes, our family has seen a drastic change in our interactions. I’ve always had a fun, light-hearted side, and would have regretted losing it as a mom. Even better, our toddler enjoys time with both myself and my husband. I fully expect that he will show a preference to Mom or Dad at different stages of his development, but I am now better equipped to deal with the emotions associated with shifting parental alliances.
