When I was a little girl I used to have giggling fits with my sister. These are wonderful memories despite the fact that my father quickly became annoyed with us because we couldn’t stop giggling. And it seemed the more he wanted us to, the less we could.

When I was about 15 I belonged to a youth movement. My reasons for being there were totally social, but the leaders attempted to create a somewhat academic environment. The organization took pride in its focus on deep contemplation of the world. So we were subjected to discussions and debates, which I suffered through to get to the fun stuff.

On one such night, we were all seated in a room waiting for a debate to begin on something. The first speaker stood up. She clearly had taken her task very seriously and hauled out a wad of preparatory notes. She spoke intensely about her “side” and then sat down. We looked expectantly at the young man who was to retaliate. He stood up with a slight smile on his face and had no notes whatsoever. He started to speak but instead began to laugh.

His opponent glared at him and the leaders looked stern but all this response managed to do was to fuel his already fast escalating giggling fit. He doubled over holding his stomach and laughed until the tears poured down his cheeks. I joined him because I couldn’t help myself. When the fit finally died down I think we were both surprised to see that he and I were the only two who found the situation hilariously funny. That was my first real connection with this young man. I have now been married to him for thirty-one years.

There are many reasons I love my husband, but the humour and giggling fits that we have shared over the years form a special glue of connectedness. Our mutual value of laughter has passed to our children. We laugh often and many times uncontrollably. There is no better feeling. It tells me that regardless of what else is going on in my life, the essence of connectedness with those I love most, is there.

“Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home – so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual person; the neighborhood he lives in; the school or college she attends; the factory, farm, or office where he works. Such are the places where every man, woman, and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere. Without concerted citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world.”

– Eleanor Roosevelt

Agreed. In particular, the power of the parent-child connection cannot be underestimated. You cannot get closer to home than this. Freud believed that our personality is mostly formed in the first five years of life. In some sense I believe he was right.

Attitudes, beliefs about ourselves and others, how we feel and how we think are powerfully formed in those first years. Ideas introduced in childhood are learned easily and form the foundations on which all other ideas are built. Healthy attitudes seeded in childhood become powerful lifelong habits. This is not to say that we can’t change throughout our lives. I believe we can but not with the same ease that we can learn things right from the start. It is like a golfer who has played for twenty years with a poor swing. He can correct it but it will take great determination and an extraordinary amount of time to do so.

Parenting doesn’t come with a handbook because it can’t. Each parenting experience depends on the individual needs of the child, the unique wholeness of the parent and the way the two interact and gel. So how do we make sure that we start our child out right?

Parenting is as complex as we are, multiplied by two. However, our child’s complexity is exactly where we need to focus. Value your child’s uniqueness. The most successful children are those who are allowed to be true to themselves, and are valued for this.  When a child feels he has disappointed his parents, the resulting destruction to their self esteem can be enormous. Often parents realize after the damage is done that the disappointment they feel belongs to them and has never been about their child.

How can we steer clear of this parenting pitfall? I have a few ideas that may help.

• Ask yourself the question: How much of this expectation belongs to me? Is this something I wished I had done?
• When ask your child the question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” don’t offer suggestions.
• Create habitual thoughts like: My child has her own journey to travel. He or she is not me.
• See your child as interesting and someone that you have to get to know.
• Don’t let ego get in the way. If you allow it, you can learn from your child.

Don’t overly stress. We all, with no exceptions, make parenting mistakes. When love is at the core of parenting, mistakes are less earth-shattering, can be rectified and can be a lesson to both you and your child.

My eldest son became a father, which makes me a grandmother. Before this, people said, “Wait until you become a grandmother. There are no words to describe it.” Well now that I can speak from the other side of the fence, I am going to try and find some words.

I remember as a kid running relay races. I never quite got their purpose because it seemed like I was trying to pass a baton to someone who was running away from me. For me, parenting has been a bit like that – trying to pass on the wisdom for fulfillment with the persistent sense that I wasn’t quite there.

When I left my son for the first time at preschool, I remember feeling that I had relinquished some invisible hold. I pushed him gently with the baton held firmly in my hand. We had left a place to which there was no return. When he turned sixteen, he refused to give his high school permission to call home if he skipped a class. This time it was his hand that reached back for the baton. When he left for university and then got married I felt that I had finally let go but it wasn’t until my grandson was born that the baton was in my son’s hand facing forward toward his own child.

The love I feel for my grandchild is light and joyful, unweighted by the parental burden of responsibility and unhampered by the kind of worry and anxiety that I feel with my own children. When I’m with my grandson, I think less about his future and more about his present. I can stare at his face, and watch his expressions change for a ridiculous amount of time. I kiss his head constantly because it’s kissable. I love him as much whether he’s crying, smiling or sleeping.

I’m sure there will be times that I will worry about him, but not as much as his mom and dad will. I believe I will be calm and grandmotherly, not through trying, but because that’s the way I will feel.

I have planted and sowed. It’s my time to reap. The baton has been passed.