As a parent you hate to see your child get hurt. Any sort of pain that they suffer seems to be doubled back on you. Your ability to empathize with their feelings is either created (if you never had it) or amplified (if you were already empathetic). It’s kind of amazing that children have this effect on parents and caregivers. Children literally calm the world. It is for these reasons (and probably others) that I felt so bad recently when our son slipped on something and banged his little chin on the floor.
It happened while I had a friend and peer over to visit in order to do some work. Mom was doing an excellent job keeping track of the little guy but our son is accident prone in the way that most children are: he slipped and fell and banged his chin on the floor. This wouldn’t have been so horrifying if he didn’t do the type of crying where he forgets to breath for what feels like an eternity. Mom quickly swept him up and cuddled him for a long period of time. He truly was fine. It wasn’t a serious injury but his little chin did need to be tended to with some love. He scraped it a little bit and it was red. The next morning when he woke up it was worse.
Staring at a large scab on your chubby-faced angel is not the greatest pick-me-up. Everytime I looked at his little face throughout the day (and it was mostly blue eyes sparkling above a beautiful smile) I couldn’t help but see the scab marring our child’s adorable face. It took nearly a week for the scab to fall off on its own… but the wait was worth it. Now our son looks like his adorable charming self again. Hopefully we’ll avoid these accidents in the future — but I predict more scraping. I never imagined that the scrapes might be worse for the parents than for the child. That’s empathy I suppose.