Kids: a lifelong lesson in guilt

Having a child is a lifelong lesson in guilt, from forgetting to take folic acid before pregnancy, to missing their school play, or not being able to afford the latest

Xbox.

So my heart went out to the parents of little Axle, the 3-year-old who spent a night in the bush near Tolaga Bay before being found by a volunteer and returned home.

I think it would be fair to say that most parents have had so many things go wrong with our children, it’s a wonder any of them managed to reach their 21st birthday.

Every time I saw a picture of Axle’s mum and dad reunited with their boy, I wanted to reach out and hug them.

I wanted to tell them we’ve all been there in some form or other, but most of us were lucky enough not to have the drama slapped all over the media.

Conversations with colleagues and friends over the incident in the past few days have ranged from true confessions of parents to stories of the ways we tortured our own mums and dads by running into something, running under something, or just running away.

There is a hazard a minute when you’re a kid, and don’t we parents know it.

Runaways have got to be some of the worst, though. I’ve experienced that gut-wrenching horror when you turn around and the wee one’s gone.

I remember the head spins as you search blindly, screaming loudly while a thousand thoughts of their fate go crashing through your mind.

Like the time my daughter disappeared in Te Papa. The staff, God bless them, alerted every floor, but it was cold comfort when a teenage boy told me he thought he’d seen her being taken through the front doors with a man and a lady.

Turned out my beloved 2-year-old had intentionally shot up in the lift to watch the whale ride and was in no hurry to see Mummy.

My son disappeared in a multi-storey shopping centre. The staff didn’t want to announce he was missing, saying ‘‘there are bad people who might take advantage of the situation’’.

I almost swallowed my own throat when I heard that – only the week before, a toddler had been abducted in a similar area.

My son was simply playing hide and seek under a clothing rack, while I aged 10 years a minute.

I’m breaking out in a sweat now just thinking of both those terrifying experiences, even though each was only about 30 minutes long. So, when I think of Axle’s mum and dad searching and waiting for almost a day, throughout an entire night, living near a forest, I wonder how their heads and hearts didn’t explode with the overwhelming terror.

There is absolutely nothing comparable to being totally responsible for a helpless child and realising the consequences of taking your eye off the ball for just one moment.

And the feeling of exhausted relief when they’re found is something possibly close to the sensation at the end of an ultra-marathon. Although I will never know.

So I’ve decided to write a guide to being the worst possible parent. It will be a collection of stories of all our unintentional stuff-ups.

Its aim will be to warn mums and dads of every minute hazard of raising a child, and work to ease the guilt of those who have erred.

But, in the meantime, to Axle’s mum and dad, big hugs to you both. In one way or another, we have all been there.