Malone’s little girl is five going on thirteen

The five year old is becoming more… teenage. She said to me yesterday: “I love my daddy more than I love you. ‘Cos he doesn’t live with us.”

I won’t pretend this didn’t hurt; it did. I spend all my energy trying to make sure my child is raised well. I contemplate her emotions, trying to evaluate how to raise her as a interesting, engaging, resourceful, kind and thoughtful human being…

Illustration: Lili Bé http://130cartons.com

“What is a five year old’s interpretation of love anyway?”

I’m inclined to think her comment was an experiment on Mummy’s reactions rather than a truth, or words to hurt me,as she wasn’t angry at me at the time. She wasn’t even looking at me, she was lying on me watching a film with her arms above her head in the air playing with my hands in what I’m sure psychologists would consider a very close and secure physical entanglement. I wonder if I remove the word ‘love’ and replace it with ‘want to be with’ in that sentence, then it’s more understandable: “I want to be with daddy more than you because he doesn’t live with us”. I miss my daddy, is I expect what she is expressing. Badly. Anyone would think she was a five-year-old child…

What is a five year old’s interpretation of love anyway? Wanting something? “I love roller-skates!”

It’s like my daughter has devalued what I consider valuable: that love is the most valuable thing in the world. So to hear that she does not value that I am here loving her on a daily basis feels like a right slap in the face.

I guess it was always going to come. The day when she said she loved him more, even though I’m the one who gets up in the night when she is scared or needs a tissue, even though I am the one who holds her tightly and comforts her when she is teary, even though I am the one who makes her meals with the right ratio of carbs to protein to petit pois every single day.

I knew this day would come. I was expecting it at 13. Not five. At least at 13 I could throw back some hurtful reaction, calling her an ungrateful brat. Instead all I could do was try not to react. She jumped up to see my reaction, asked what the water was coming from eye, as if begging for an emotion from me. I told her it had upset me, there was a mumbled “sorry” and more cuddling. I hope it’s as easy at 13…