I am a mother of two girls. For my shame, I can no longer deny my parenting is not equal. I am not fair.

Nor am I looking to defend myself. It is the truth after all. More, I found myself slumped sadly and just want some company… maybe some empathy too?

Now that Squidge is recognised as a young carers, Kev & I are relieved she’ll have a place just for her where her strange little world will seem completely ordinary and she will only be known for her wonderful little self.

“When Gabby is old enough, will we look to get the same help for her?”

A sensible, calm question from Kev, completely reasonable.

But I felt completely knocked sideways. The baby? A carer?

I don’t know why I felt so out of sorts when faced with the question. After all, the truth of it was precisely what brought us down this path for Squidge.

But my Gabby Gabster… my last little baby? Does she really carry such a burden?

Bam. There it is. My parenting is not equal. Because no, she doesn’t. Immy caught the load simply by the bad luck of being our firstborn.

“How old was Immy when you taught her to call me on your phone?”

I cast my mind back. “Three.”

Bam! Gabby is three now and I have not taught her. Not because I view it as Squidge’s responsibility, not at all. I know this would not be fair. As such, neither am I.

Truthfully, my inaction exists to coddle my youngest. Gabby now insists that she is not a baby. This I am fine with because even I cannot deny the fact. But she is perfectly content to remain my baby and so am I for her to be.  Not to hold her back or make her dependent, she is too wonderfully headstrong to submit to either notion, but to be able to cuddle her longer and to cover every inch of her face in more kisses.

She is the last baby of my own I will ever hold and oh, she has grown so fast. She, an August babe, will be full-time in school in six months, nest flown. I will never live these years again.

I certainly never wanted to teach my eldest that I depend on her but I do. I cannot change the family she was born to and happily know neither of us would wish to. Immy tells me she chose me. To help makes her happy.

But somehow, as misplaced as I know the desire is, I hoped I could spare my second daughter the burdens my first met with. Not because I ever expected Squidge to manage alone but because I hoped I would have learned lessons in mothering that would improve Gabby’s experiences of my care. Basically, I hoped I would somehow have made myself better.

Of course, I haven’t. I know now that I can’t. I have to be enough as I am. My wonderful loving girls help me massively in this endeavour just by being themselves, by belonging to me as I to them. But still, I carry regret.

I taught Immy about my disability from the earliest age because I wanted to normalise its unavoidable omnipresence in her world. Her acceptance of this I suppose has helped to reinforce it indirectly with her little sister. It has been a gift that Gabby has been able to be my baby for so long, here at home with me.

I suppose, being confronted with the truth that my last little baby will grow to share the burdens her beloved big sister met with first, has made me feel as though I am nudging her from the nest quicker than I am ready for. After all, once my last little baby is in school full time, I shall be alone with nothing besides domestic responsibility and self care for the first time in more than seven years.

I hope we will all thrive in our new worlds when time rolls them around for us. But somehow I must find a way to approach my last, little baby and begin normalising my differences with her too because she is in fact, my little girl. Just like her sister.