>Unattached

Not long ago, I read that until fairly recently, parents were encouraged to maintain a healthy distance from their small children. Smiling at them, hugging them, or playing with them too much was considered to be unhealthy, both for the parent and the child. Mothers were to see to their children’s physical needs, but not to burden them with attachment issues.

It wasn’t until around the 1950s that important and wide-reaching studies were done, studies that showed that children actually benefited from forming close bonds with their parents. It seems unimaginable now that our parents’ parents may very well have believed that they needed to draw an emotional line between themselves and their children, a line that couldn’t be crossed. Perhaps it helps to explain the relationships some of our parents had with our grandparents. I know that after hearing this story, my own family’s emotional history made a little more sense to me.

And while I can’t even imagine living in a world where hugging and kissing and snuggling with my children was frowned upon, a part of me sort of… understands. Because if we have to let our children go off on their own some day, wouldn’t it be a little bit easier for everyone involved if we didn’t get so unbelievably attached to them that it literally feels like an arm or leg is being amputated when they finally leave us?

I look at my children and imagine them one day moving on, or even one day wanting to move on and I feel a large lump begin to form in my throat. How could the little girl who asks to snuggle at least once every two hours ever, ever want to move away from me? How could the little boy who cries the moment I leave his sight go and live some day in another city? Another state? Another country? Would that even be possible? How could that ever be possible?

My older girls pretend to be far more independent and suave, but even though my oldest will be eighteen in October, I just don’t think she could live without me. She can’t even open a can by herself. She doesn’t know how to clean a toilet, or change sheets, or cook a real meal for herself. No, she absolutely can’t live without me. She’ll just have to stay here, that’s all.

Now that I think of it, I couldn’t do any of those things, either, when I went to college. But I learned, usually because I didn’t want to embarrass myself in front of my roommates or some boy.

Why am I setting myself up for heartbreak when one child after another leaves the nest? Maybe it would be better for all of us if we were more detached from each other, but I can’t even imagine now how I’d begin living my life that way.

This post originally appeared on Parents.com.