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Since I became conscious of it recently, I've seen it everywhere and even experienced it myself.
The mother walks down the subway platform, her four-year-old daughter beside her. Without conscious thought, just as a pure reflex, the mother extends her hand and the daughter, equally without thinking, takes it. They continue down the platform, together. Linked. Safe.
One of the young mothers on our street (I'll call her Mary) leaves the house with the youngest of her three daughters (and I'll call her Polly). Polly is not quite two. Mary carries a tricycle in one hand; her other hand is free. As they reach the set of four steps to the sidewalk, Mary stretches her free hand out behind her without even looking, and Polly reaches up to take it. Hand in hand they descend the steps and then cross the street. Safely on the other sidewalk, Mary sets down the tricycle and releases Polly's hand so she can begin her independent, wheeled progress—-free (for a while) from her mother's protection.
The gesture is universal and automatic and fluid and gentle and loving. What expresses motherhood better than this urge to hold a little hand? But it's not just motherhood. Fathers do it. Aunts and uncles do it. And certainly grandparents do it.
Children show great trust: a hand reaches down to them and they allow their own tiny, sometimes sticky, warm fingers to be enclosed by the larger, protective hand of an adult.
I picked up my favourite five-year-old from senior kindergarten, and I held out my hand as we left the playground. He took it, and then said, "Hey! Nana! Your hand is cold!"
"You're right," I said, "and that's why I need to hold your warm hand—to make mine warm." He thought for a moment.
"But if we hold hands, you'll take all the warm part and then my hands will be cold!"
"Maybe," I said, "but mine will be warmer."
He pondered (as we continued to hold hands) the fairness (or not) of this situation, but he continued to hold hands with me. We walked toward his house on the busy street with its heavy and noisy traffic. So he was happy to continue holding hands, even if I was sucking all the warmth from his fingers.
Nothing makes me as happy as holding the hand of a child. And when I see others doing it, my heart is warmed by their joy.
The automatic yet tender nature of reaching out for a child's hand has an echo in the passenger-seat barrier that I automatically erect when I come to a sudden stop. This is a holdover from the pre-seatbelt days when my children were small. When I, as the driver, braked, my right arm would fling out, unbidden, to keep the passenger from slamming into the dashboard or the windshield. Seatbelts are a much safer solution, but this arm-flinging is a hard reflex to get rid of. My husband does not drive, so when we do rent a car, I'm the driver and he's in the passenger seat. He gets very annoyed when I whomp him with my right arm if I have to make a sudden stop. I explain that it isn't personal—I know he's a big boy (and I know he's wearing his seatbelt). But I just can't stop myself from that restraining gesture.
Oh, and I do want to point out how sad it is—how very painful it is—when the six- or seven-year-old decides he is too grown up to hold hands. I'm already crafting in my mind little joined-hand games that might allow me to hang on for just a few months more.
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