Too Old to Knit Your Own

Tonight, I got Dressed Up for a shindig at M's work. It was probably a lot more fun for me than for him and his colleagues, because I was there to socialize with people I hardly ever see, and they were all there having dinner with the same crowd and talking shop.
At our table was one of M's colleagues who is a really thoughtful parent. She seems to have this overarching philosophy to her parenting style. To me, this is remarkable in two ways: she has cultivated and managed to adhere to a parenting persona--a philosophy which saturates the way she deals with her children all the time and, also despite being a working mother she has a pervasive calm that clearly reveals she's not just in "survival mode" with her kids--a trait I respect tremendously.
So, at dinner, we were having the standard small talk about children, and she revealed this very sweet anecdote. She explained that both she and her husband remember the trauma associated with the (inevitable) wearing out of their security lovies of infancy. He, apparently, lost his pacifier in a sibling tug of war and she wore her lovie out. Now, as so many parents are, she is determined to spare her beautiful girls this painful milestone. She has been tenderly mending her daughter's lovie so that she will be able to outgrow it on her own terms rather than at the whim of the washer/dryer.
The earnestness of this mom and her effort to avoid recreating this childhood drama struck me as so beautiful and intimate. It was a nostalgic moment to a time when articles were mended rather than tossed. But also, it was a stand against the recapitulation of childhood rites. Of defying convention and preserving the idyll of youth for a moment longer. And I thought that this effort, so clearly articulated and so gently rendered testified to this mom's philosophy, to a coherent plan to raise children.
And then, naturally, my thoughts wandered to the completely non-coherent "plan" of raising my children. Of winging it, day by day. Of the mercurial inconsistencies with which we deal with our own kids. And how, in some zany way, this reflects the way I was raised.
Now, let me say this before my mother calls me and chastises me for publicly criticizing her parenting plan: I clearly admire colleague's thoughtful plan. I think it's a great gift to her daughters and will yield positive results. Our "plan" and the one with which I was raised are merely different. I refuse to pass judgement on any one.
My kids also have their security blankets (in their cases, they both have blankies). My mother bought each of them several in the event of loss or damage. While this certainly lacks the olde tyme nostalgia of repairing a lovie, it is certainly more practical. I see no end to the lovies. Both boys still seek them out before bedtime, and are insistent that we travel with them. I have no plans to ween them from their lovies or in any way interfere.
That being said, I should probably reveal this teensy detail: I still sleep with my lovie. Sort of. My lovie from infancy went with me to college, through marriage, and through my first son. After 30-ish years, it began to wear thin, and I was concerned about irreversible damage to it. So, last winter, I knitted a new one. It's a similar size, though different in color and texture, but it serves its job just fine. My sister, for the record, also sleeps with her lovie. When she and her fiance were married, my parents gave HIM a lovie just like hers because lovies are (truth be told) nice to sleep with.
But this leaves us with the fact that in our thirties, my sister and I still have attachments to our security blankets. Normal? Certainly not. Going to change? Hell, no. My blankie still serves the same purpose it did 30 years ago: it is comforting. Its smell, its coolness, its softness, all are familiar and positive. I sleep better with it than I do without it.
Is this a failure? A failure to move away from parents? A failure to soothe my fears and anxieties as an adult? Is it a failure of my parents to remove it from me at the "appropriate" developmental moment? By sparing me the trauma of taking it from me, did they instead condemn me to its necessity? Should I recreate that parenting decision or should I tell my children at the "right" time that they are too old for it? That their lovie is beyond repair? That all of the tears and frustration and love and security that they have poured into and extracted from that simple soft fabric are gone? Deposited in the landfill or some mothballed box in the attic?
In what I consider an era of stunted adolescence (adult infatuations with video games, "retro" cartoons and fashions, and a pervasive nostalgia for simpler times) I can see the argument for removing the lovies. For taking the safe haven of home to introduce a child to maturation and independence. I can see that indulging children can be construed as the first step in a lifelong obligation of indulging and supporting adult children.
But at the same time, this is an era of premature maturity. A time when adolescents are challenged by emotional and physical choices and opportunities not previously seen until college or perhaps ever. Can extending the comfort and bliss of childhood a little longer possibly be a bad thing? Can a sleeping child cuddled into his blankie be stunted? Couldn't even Freud argue that sometimes a lovie is just a lovie?
But, then again. When my sister and I are together at my parents' house and we head off to bed in our jammies with our blankies, my dad the "child expert" sighs and says, "How could I have raised children who never outgrew their transitional objects?"
How could he, indeed.