In my view, the world for children would be a better place if we adults could bear to remember how anxiety-provoking and full of hurts, large and small, a childhood can be. Even the best of parents do things that perplex and trouble their children, making them feel silly or belittled.
I have always wondered if these occasional 'attacks' are a sign of our envy as adults at the pleasures a child has in their new, unfolding world.
I saw a mother looking over a playground fence at her young daughter, who was newly able to swing herself. Her face was an extraordinary mixture of pride in her daughter's achievement and some sense of loss that she as a parent was no longer needed to push her daughter's swing. She turned to her friend and said angrily, 'She's deafening me with all that screeching' as her daughter's cries of pure pleasure floated towards us.
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