This is hard to write. As I reflect on the complexities of my relationship with Rosie, one episode still stands out in my memory, burned in with shame and humiliation.
Christmas 2021. As Covid just started to loosen its grip on our lives, Rosie’s school attempted a festive concert. The kids were due to sing a few carols to parents, sat safely spaced away from each other.
It had been touch and go whether Rosie, then eight, would take part. Since starting at the school the previous September our girl had been in a spin, regularly shoving, hitting or swearing at other children and teachers. For weeks she’d said she wasn’t going to take part in the concert. I’d booked myself a space just in case, and the evening before she announced that maybe she would do it.
As I took my seat, I was already feeling emotional. This was the first family event at a school since 2019 and it felt quite momentous that we could again do something as apparently normal as watch our children sing carols. 60 seven- and eight-year-olds shuffled in, draped with tinsel and sniggering. But no Rosie.
She appeared for the final song, clinging like a koala to her adored teaching assistant. I felt so proud of her for doing it and couldn’t wait to tell her, but I was also surprised and guiltily jealous to see her gripping so tightly to this woman.
Rosie has always been a highly tactile child, often keen for a hug. Teachers had been mixed in their responses and this one had clearly decided that maximum cuddles was the way to go.
As the concert ended, all the parents dashed towards their children to hug them and take pictures. It took a while for me to get through the crowds, and when I did, I found Rosie still stuck like glue to the TA.
She wouldn’t look at me or even acknowledge my presence, tightening her grip around the TA’s neck. Hot shame raced through me, as well as a sense of humiliation and confusion. There was no obvious reason for her to ignore me, everything had been normal that morning.
“I think she’s overwhelmed, let’s go outside”, said the TA. I could feel her attempt to comfort me, as well as Rosie, which just made me feel more humiliated. We left the building and headed away from the chattering crowds. Rosie started to relax, and the TA put her down, but she still wouldn’t look at me or respond when I addressed her.
We headed towards the chicken pen. The TA was merrily chatting away to me, telling me how good Rosie was at caring for the chicks, and eventually Rosie joined in. The thaw was painfully slow. I was making was felt like an enormous effort to be bright and breezy, but the sense of unexplained rejection by Rosie was so sharp, it felt like a punch to the stomach.
Added on to that was the humiliation of wondering what the TA thought of my daughter ignoring me. To see an anxious child rejecting their ‘usual’ main source of comfort is confusing and I thought would make her think that I had done something wrong, that Rosie was reacting to something I had or hadn’t done.
Three years on, and I have more perspective. I understand now that Rosie’s attachment style is such that, particularly when under social or sensory pressure as she was that day, she can only focus her attachment on one person. And if she is at school that person will be a teacher, whether I or her Dad are there or not. It’s normal for toddlers apparently, to get fixated on one person, and Rosie regresses to that phase.
This may be because her first three years involved very little attention from her birth parents; the more nurturing and reliable contact came from the social workers that frequently visited the home. Rosie was used to swiftly flicking her attention onto the next capable-seeming adult. All this is a guess of course, but after reading all her case notes, it seems likely.
Added to which, the only scraps of decent parental attention Rosie did get were generally from her birth dad. So even now Rosie has more of an attachment to my partner. It’s likely that on some level she needs to serve me with the rejection that she felt from birth mum.
Where does leave me? To be honest, often feeling like collateral damage. Sad, rejected, and sometimes angry at being pushed away. I’m good at rationalising, doing the FOI request for her case notes, trying to understand so that I can better de-personalise Rosie’s behaviour. I try not to let defensiveness creep into the way I behave around her. But that requires quite a bit of emotional energy from me, which I don’t always have when I feel under assault.
It also makes me worried about how any teachers or social workers who aren’t experienced in disordered attachment styles might judge situations in the future and jump to conclusions that I am to blame for my complex relationship with Rosie.