Addressing an Owie

My oldest stepdaughter, Tracy, has an owie. What do I do?

The new mother in me rushed to the back door to see what happened as soon as I heard her howl. This is our sensitive one, so you never know how bad things are until you look. My husband checks it out. It doesn’t look bad at all, a tiny scratch on her ankle that isn’t bleeding. What do we say? I know exactly what both of us are thinking.

My husband’s feeling is that bandages often inhibit quick healing of such small “wounds” due to oxygen, etc. (He has a scientific answer to many of the girls’ questions.) He also wants the girls growing up believing they are healthy and strong, especially when they receive the opposite message from their hypochondriac mother every other week. He also loves it when the girls act unafraid to get dirty and explore. He wants them to be a bit tougher, learn how to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and go forward so to speak. However, I’ve told him that I wished my father was a bit more comforting than surgeon-like when I was little. So my husband has been better about offering cuddles in such cases.

Our philosophy is that we manifest physical symptoms as a result of our emotional state, because our bodies are trying to say something to us. My first thought is to address the feelings that she might have been experiencing right before the owie occurred.

My second thought is that their mother has accused us of abuse and neglect in the past. With her, they like to be sick, almost competing to be sicker than one another to receive more attention from Mom. Sometimes bandages just help them feel better. When someone else is hurt, Ashly, age 7, will explain how it might be better to let the air get to it. Yet when she is hurt, she goes and gets two bandages right away, even when she knows she doesn’t need them. It might be safer to just do what the doctors/nurses on those help lines always say, “Put some antibiotic ointment and a bandage on it.” This is what I propose.

As I start to go get them, Tracy says, “But I don’t want to do that. The bandage will make me think about being hurt. I just want to go play, cuz that will distract me from thinking about it.”

So for now that is what we let her do. My husband and I hug and smile with relief.

Tonight, we’ll check in with her about her owie while cuddling for a bed time story. Tomorrow, we’ll check on how she’s feeling about things like school, etc.

For now, we’ll watch them play some more with their new puppy. Sometimes the children show you how to parent.