Marie Benoît looks back on her experience of bringing up her two daughters but still asks: how are we supposed to bring up our children?

Picking your way through life is an awesome task and we all want to give a helping hand to our children. Even at this late stage, when both girls are married and mothers in their own right, I sometimes wonder whether we had equipped them properly for a world which seems so often irrational. They sat there, on the sofa, our two lovely girls, expecting to be brought up. The only reference at the time was Dr Spock. I could almost recite it by heart.

But then it was not long before I had to bring them up on my own. The moon fell from the sky and overnight it was just the three of us. One was 12 years old, the other merely six.  

Single parenthood is never easy. Most of us did not plan it this way at all, this bringing up of children singlehanded with no other point of reference at hand. Two heads and two hearts are infinitely better than one. But we are not given a choice.

To a certain extent, mine have more or less brought themselves up with little interference from me and now, both married, the die has been cast. We muddled through it all and I am proud of them.

We are all subject to our nature and our genes. Many qualities are inherited, even from far off ancestors. Perhaps parents after all, have little to do with what their children actually become.

The question parents must continually ask themselves is: How much should we police them? Since my upbringing was stern, I always promised myself to be more indulgent with my own – and I was. Give them space, I would tell myself, let them breathe and have liberty of experience.

We sometimes fail to realise that children have secret lives, too. We may think we know exactly what is going on but this is a fallacy. They want to have secret lives. Sometimes these are harmless but not always. In some cases, these absorb their lives and parents find out what is happening when it may be too late. Now, in this digital age, these secret lives are more dangerous than ever before.

Looking back, I laugh at some of my antics, as they must have done, in my frenzy to try and protect them

Lately, I came across a small number of ‘contracts’ I had concluded with them when in their teens, which now amuse the three of us. But those ‘contracts’ reflect some of my fears. In one of them, signed and sealed, there is an agreement between us that they would not go to Paceville in high heels on a rainy day. What was I thinking of? I have little doubt that the ‘contracts’ were completely ignored and merely signed to humour me and allay my ‘what if’ fears.

Throughout, I am certain of one thing. I did not want them to spend their youth with an endless list of dos and don’ts. But of course, although I claim to be fearless, it has to be admitted that I had my own anxieties (and still do).

My vows not to be as strict as my father were hastily revised if I happened to make a chance trip to Paceville at night, or even merely to drive through it. The hurly-burly of Paceville street life and indeed indoor life, mostly unknown to parents, has so much of what I despise. And it used to worry me to think that my girls were out there, in its very heart. We never had ‘scenes’ but the occasional differences of opinion. At times it took long to reach a compromise. Rarely, but it happened, we were like the troops of opposing armies on the Western Front who came out of their trenches and fraternized briefly at Christmas. And always there was that ever-recurring question: Am I doing it right or…?

The worries were there, as there are in the subconscious of all parents. But I would talk myself out of them. Let them enjoy themselves. Why should I keep them tied to my apron strings even if that were possible? Let them find out for themselves what the world is all about and learn to navigate in it. It is essential for children, even if we wish them to retain their innocence for as long as possible, to be prepared for a life in which they will constantly have to make choices, take decisions, some involving risk.

What a tremendous responsibility parents have, now as never before. We keep on hearing how many people have been fouled up by their childhood experiences. Indeed, a psychologist friend had a whole collection of books on what she termed ‘toxic parents’. I have wondered from time to time whether I am perhaps one of them. I tried hard not to be one. Had I set too many prohibitions, too few perhaps? The self-questioning never stopped.

Moral lassitude is all around us. Do youngsters understand the dangers of promiscuity, above all to the spirit? And here girls are especially in danger. Each life is made up of the decisions, some important some less so, which we take, day after day.

But it isn’t only how we bring up our children which matters. It is also what their peers are up to. Sometimes you agree to things simply because you don’t want your child to be left out and look like a freak.

Bringing up children is an endless questioning of the self. Am I doing it right? Should I be doing something different? And you delve into your books to try and find the right answers.

I have always believed that the best line is to trust your children. But they need guidance and none of us have all the answers and there is no harm in admitting this to them. We cannot shelter and cushion them forever. It is essential for them to choose that which is good and right but to understand evil as well. I tried to lure them away from the idea that all is well with the world.

On the other hand, there are so many wonderful people who are good to us. How can we give them a blanket prohibition order not to trust anyone?

I didn’t want them to be buried by over-domestication either. I wanted them to have their own interests and a job they enjoyed: to grow up as much as possible with inner integrity and healthy boundaries; to cultivate their female instincts; to know when enough is enough. To learn and know when they have to walk away and when to stay, whether it is in a relationship or a job. They are entitled to grow and to thrive; to have satisfying work and endeavours and not to be shut up in too small a mindset; not to fear to bite back when there is nothing else to do. To be dumb and too sweet is dangerous.

I have come to believe that we are on a journey and each journey is different that we have to learn our lessons through our own individual experience. You can only teach children so much for it is their own life’s experience that is finally going to matter and not yours. They will learn their own lessons.

Guillaume Appolinaire wrote: “We took them to the edge and bade them fly. They held on. Fly we said. They held on. We pushed them over the edge and they flew.” It is essential that, in spite of our fears, we let them live.

Yes, ‘though there’s one motor gone, we can still carry on, on a wing and a prayer’.