Letting your children go is a bittersweet wrench

Princess Charlotte looking utterly adorable in pictures her mother took before her first day at nursery brought back bittersweet memories of that moment in my own family life. On the Daughter’s bedroom windowsill, there sits a pair of red Mary Janes almost identical to the ones Charlotte wore to Willcocks Nursery School, near the Royal Albert Hall.

Evie always laughs at how ridiculously teeny the shoes are, but I cherish the thought of the little girl who chose them. Eighteen years have not muted the sensation of standing on the threshold of that classroom as my bumptious little angel stomped off (she can still stomp) towards the Wendy house. She turned briefly to look at me and waved in the vague, offhand manner of a minor royal who has been pleased to make your acquaintance but who really must be going.

Other toddlers clung to their mothers’ legs like very small sailors fastening themselves to the mast during a storm. Their snotty, upturned, beseeching faces begged Mummy not to leave them. One lay on the ground drumming her heels. Not my child. She was off, eager to begin this exciting new life of her own. I was proud and sad, sad and proud at the same time at this unwanted evidence that my baby would do very well without me.

Motherhood is the only job where true success lies in making yourself redundant. Judging by the huge, confident smile on Princess Charlotte’s face, I reckon her parents have done their work pretty well so far.