Lee's blog: Seventh Heaven

My eldest daughter turns seven this month and I can’t lie its making me feel many things:

1. Old
2. Nostalgic
3. Excited
4. Apprehensive 

She is beyond excited – she thinks turning seven is pivotal in her eagerly anticipated growing up phase. As the youngest in her class by quite a few months the wait for this key event has been agonising for her. Her conversations are sprinkled with references to what will happen when she turns seven “I can get my ears pierced” (Hard no!) “I can do chores for pocket money” (Hard yes!) and “I can have sleepovers” (Discussions ongoing!). I even heard her explain to her oblivious 2 year old sister one day “When I am seven you might not see me so much as I’ll have to be outside playing with my friends all of the time”.

Its such a topic of conversation and its really brought it to the forefront of my thoughts too. How have seven years passed in such a short time? Haven’t we done well getting her this far with a confident, imaginative, excitable disposition? She is kind, she is smart and she is charming. 

Its made me think back to how I was at seven and here’s the thing that shook me most – even now decades later -I can still feel all of the feels I felt at seven years old – from the playground politics, the tv shows I watched, the games I played with friends, my favourite toys, getting in trouble for antagonising my younger brother – its all there with clarity and detail and recall.

I’ve been talking to my daughter about when I was seven and all of my memories of this time. The memories she makes today she will remember fondly and maybe some unfondly when she is my age, those playground friends may be long gone or still key people in her daily life, she will remember her teachers names and how they made her feel, she may remember the moments when her parents became more embarrassing than heroic in her eyes. 

Right now she wants to be a teacher and a fashion designer – at the same time. She does not want a “boring job like you Mammy” – I hide the offense I take at that comment! When I was seven, I went on a trip to the zoo and wanted to be a zookeeper, when my husband was seven he wanted to be a teacher. I am not a zookeeper, he is a teacher so its not impossible that what she wants out of life at seven manifests in her thirty seven year old world.

I am so very excited now to see how she carves out her future identity, navigates her way through the everchanging landscape of childhood to adulthood and emerges to her own identity. I am nervous for all the things that I cant see in her future and how I move from the operational role in her life to the spectator or hopefully cheerleader. Its not just her life that changes its also my role too.

I can get emotional and to stop that I pull in my logical brain.  She’s just a year older she hasn’t moved out, moved country for 12 years or got married. For now we celebrate that she is seven, we embrace the sequins, the dreams, the chatter and the giddiness. I will let her call more of the shots and try to guide her more and manage less over time. And I won’t tell her just yet that I got my ears pierced on my seventh birthday!

Lee is a mum, accountant, coffee lover and sometimes runner. She is married, has two young girls and works mostly remotely for a London based bank.

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• Families