Emotional Binding

Suffer the children (for their own good)

Four year old with seven inch survival knife.

When you write, often, it’s all about the title. It comes first—and ideally, also, last. Especially these days, when most people don’t get past the first paragraph.

I’ve had the idea of writing a piece called Emotional Binding for three weeks. And although sometimes you just need to bang out the words, other times, an idea or notion—the germ of something—is sticky. Best to let it roll around in your head, see what it picks up day by day.

The groundwork, before the title, was probably laid down over 53 years and four kids. But the foundation was built over the last three weeks.

My wife, Vanessa, signed my son Noah up to play kids’ football on Saturday mornings, at 9 a.m. I can’t remember the name of it—maybe something like Little Dragons or Little Bastards or something—but the age range seems to be four to five. It takes place in a nearby sports hall and is run by a giant of a man, bald-headed, like Mr. Sugden from Kes. A policeman by day, with a regulation commanding presence—and shout. When he yells “What’s the time, Mr. Wolf?” you’d better have a good answer.

The first time we took Noah there, dressed in his kit—long socks and all—he dragged his feet the whole way, like a condemned man up the gallows steps. He had no idea who was who, what was what, or how things were meant to be. He was an outsider. Not in the clique. It was awful.

He wasn’t used to so many kids in a hall, all knowing the rules, knowing what to do. And the noise. And the coaches shouting. Every five minutes, he’d turn to me—me sitting at the side—and slump his shoulders, crying a silent cry. Only for me. He hated it.

I saw other new kids who felt the same. Some parents stood beside them for strength. Some let them sit and watch. Others just left. This wasn’t for them.

When I went to climb El Cap with my daughter Ella, people asked, “What if she can’t do it?”

I always replied: “She has to.”

And she had to. And she did.

So each time Noah turned to me, I was firm: “Keep playing.” “Keep playing.” “Keep playing.”

“You only have X minutes left.”

Even though he cried inside and hated every minute, he stayed until the end.

I told him how proud I was of him.

What harm would have come from bundling him up and taking him home?

The second time, he knew the game. He knew what was afoot, the coaches’ names, and that when people shout, they’re not always angry—they just want to be heard over dozens of screaming kids. If this was a dance, now he knew the moves, and moved with everyone else. This time, no tears.

The third time, he ran from the car, played his heart out, and stayed after to ask the coach a question—him looking like Jack to the Giant. Fearless now.

I could write countless thumbnail sketches like this. Little fumbles of parenting. Trying to make a working human without any instructions. I’m far from perfect, but I try.

One of the most painful things anyone ever said to me, when I was about to give parenting advice, was:

“I don’t think I’ll take advice from someone like you.”

In truth, bad parents—like bad husbands, wives, or partners—people who struggle with connection, often have the most useful advice. Not because they’re good, but because they understand why they’re bad.

The other day, I saw something while doomscrolling (which shows it’s not all bad). Someone said there are two kinds of people:

Those who see every bit of bad luck, pushback, or stumble as proof of their own shitness.

And those who use the exact same things as a challenge. A hurdle to jump.

To them, it’s just part of the adventure.

In my life, the things that have happened to me—and that I inflicted on myself—led me to the idea that before any great leap, there’s always a hurdle. Which probably tells you what kind of person I am.

And honestly, most of the barriers I’ve jumped were self-made.

(Maybe I just like the exercise.)

Back to emotional binding. (I’ll wrap this up quick.)

I overhear so many parents struggling to help their kids these days. To fortify them for school. For bullying. For the storm of social media and the cruelty of a digitized world (made up of natural human horror- only commercialised, magnified and sold on).

For boys, it’s bad.

For girls, it’s worse.

So many parents want to know how to build resilience. Fortitude. How to make their kids independent. Capable. How to help them grow from children into adults.

When someone last asked me, I quoted Morgan Freeman.

When he was asked how to defeat racism, he said: “Stop talking about it.”

No matter how much we want to protect our kids, we have to understand that humans are made from equal parts love and pain—maybe more pain.

When you interfere with that mix to save them… are you really saving them at all?

A rough example: Noah learned to swim at four.

When I told someone recently, they said, “I guess he had to?”

And thinking about it, he did.

No one ever gave him a lesson or showed him how. Only near-drowning did (under the watchful eyes of his parents).

Some might see this as neglect.

But maybe that’s the remedy.

As for girls, from an early age, they can be cruel. (Boys are dumb brutes.)

Boys will savage each other physically.

Girls will eviscerate each other emotionally.

But it’s a process.

One girl tortures another like a serial killer with a rabbit.

But if the rabbit could fight back—maybe there’d be fewer serial killers.

Girls mangle each other, and they learn. Like puppies biting. Or boys punching.

They learn how it feels. To give and take.

Pain, love, shame, forgiveness.

When adults step in to stop this, with good hearts, they often do worse than harm.

I used to think my own teachers and guardians were heartless. Careless.

All cries for help met with:

“Sort it out yourselves.”

“Don’t tell tales.”

“Life’s not fair.”

“Punch them back.”

Now I think they were building a foundation.

Climbing works like this, you’re on your own. Maybe this is why being rescued holds so much stigma; you failed to sort it out yourself.

Like I said, this idea has been rolling around for three weeks—ever since I saw Noah’s tear-filled eyes, begging me to save him.

Then today, I sat in a coffee shop.

Three women sat beside me, brainstorming ways to help their daughters.

I had my headphones on, so I didn’t hear much. Just scraps. But it was the same thing I’ve heard again and again.

As they finished their coffee, I took off my headphones and asked—maybe like a jerk, or maybe just a fellow parent—if they were talking about their kids.

They said they were.

“That’s funny,” I said. “I’m writing about that right now. About how you help your kids survive the world.”

Two of them looked at me like I was butting in—typical man.

But the third seemed open.

“Do you know how the Japanese used to bind women’s feet, thinking it made them more beautiful?

Well, I think we’re doing the same now, as parents.

But instead of beauty, we’re aiming for safety.

And just like then, we’ll end up with the same result—

Deformed things. Not what they were meant to be.”

Now all three looked at me like I was mad.

Maybe I am.

Or maybe I’m just a parent, grasping like everyone else.

Trying to find a way,

So they can.

“I’m going to call it emotional binding.”