Free-Range Parent, Injured Kid
In the face of trauma that challenges who we are, who will we become?
pixdeluxe | Canva I love the idea of free-range parenting. I love it just as much as I hate the fact that free-range parenting is radical enough that society feels the need to brand it. At ages five and four, my kids were old enough that I could yell at them to “go outside and play,” and they’d just go.
Much of the time, I wasn’t even out there with them. They’d run circles around the house, picking weeds to bring back to their play set to “cook” with. I could be assured that all was well when they triggered the Ring camera by the front door.
And then, the four-year-old broke her leg.
She wasn’t doing anything particularly dangerous. I was being far less “negligent” than I often am, standing a mere ten feet away and watching her play. She simply jumped — off a foam block about six inches high — and fell with her leg bent behind her. That was all it took.
I’m not here to talk about the harrowing forty-eight hours that followed, involving drugs you would never imagine being given to a preschooler and major surgery to repair a femur fracture so high up on her leg that it necessitated a spica (full body) cast.
I’m not here to talk about the crushing devastation of her ten-day follow-up appointment when the surgeon informed me that the bone had drifted in the cast and that a second surgery was required to place pins in her leg to stabilize it.
I’m not even here to talk about the overwhelming relief of watching her come out of that second surgery with the cast removed, the injured leg simply kept straight by a removable brace. To be rid of that horrible cast, which made sleep difficult and bathroom trips perpetually messy, was the ultimate get-out-of-jail-free card. I had joined an online support group for parents of kids in spica casts, and the survivor’s guilt is real.
No, with two weeks left to go until she should be cleared to bear weight on the leg again, my mind has shifted to everything that comes after. I have no concerns about her. She’s learned to whip herself around corners at astonishing speed in her wheelchair, and she’s basically become a celebrity at her preschool (for the wheelchair, yes, but more so for the fact that she doesn’t wear shoes).
I’m told that children with this injury only rarely require any physical therapy; most of them just up and start walking as if nothing had happened. It’ll be about another eight weeks until she can really run around again, plus a third surgery months down the line to remove the pins, but none of that scares me.
What scares me, after all, is said and done, is not who she will be, but who I will be.
I’ve always prided myself on being the parent who gives her kids the space to roam and discover and play. I don’t run around with them or insert myself in their games; I’m of the mind that imposing adult logic on children’s play will ruin the magic of it. But with this trauma fresh in my mind, will I be able to hold myself back?
I write this now, with my daughter two weeks away from being medically cleared to walk, because I already know what I want the answer to be. I want to put this behind me and allow my daughter to be exactly who she is — fiercely independent, insatiably curious, and deeply engaged with the world around her. Her ordeal diminished none of that, and I don’t want my own ordeal to take any of it away from her.
So, in two weeks, I plan to return to re-read my own words. I will remind myself that just as imposing adult logic on children’s play ruins it for the kids, projecting adult trauma — infinitely more complicated to process — onto a child is not only ruinous but unfair. She deserves to live her life unfettered by the worries that keep me up at night, even if one of those worries is her personal safety.
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I will read these words, look in the mirror, and tell myself to sit on my hands.
Even though I may watch her energetic, imaginative play with my heart pounding, I won’t interfere. And one day, when my own memory of emergency rooms and X-rays gets fuzzy at the edges long after hers has faded completely, I can only hope I’ll have peace knowing I did the right thing.
Elise LaChapelle is a writer based in Philadelphia, PA. Her work has appeared on PopSugar, Medium, Today’s Homeowner, and other sites.