Nancy shares what life feels like with a velcro child. If you’ve never heard the term “velcro child,” it’s exactly what it sounds like: a child who sticks to you like Velcro. A velcro child wants to be near you constantly—touching you, talking to you, needing you for even the smallest things. It’s often tied to normal attachment phases in early childhood, especially during times of growth, transition, or emotional development. While experts might call it separation anxiety or a strong attachment stage, many moms simply call it what it feels like—having a tiny shadow who never, ever detaches.
I try to hide in the bathroom, but my four-year-old daughter always knocks on the door, then bangs on the door, then tries to pry the door open. I have nowhere to go, nowhere to hide from my child. It’s my punishment for doing the same to my mom. Our bathroom was beside my bedroom, so I always knocked on the bathroom door when she was in there, even when I became an adult. The universe is now punishing me for stealing my mom’s peace.
My daughter wants me to put her to bed, read her a bedtime story, then stay with her until she falls asleep. Then, in the morning, when I’m awake and trying to get a moment of silence in the bathroom before the school/work routine…she knocks. And if I forget to lock the door, she goes in. I have no privacy. Then, during breakfast time, the conversation goes like this:
HER: “Mami, can you make my chocolate milk, please?”
ME: “Hija, your dad is RIGHT. THERE.”
HER: “No, I want YOU to make it.”
ME: “I can’t, I’m cooking breakfast and packing lunches.”
HER: “But mooooom, I need you to hold me.”
ME: YOUR. DAD. IS. RIGHT. THERE.
HER: NO! I want YOU!
A meltdown ensues, then we calm her down, then I take her to school. I get a break (and by break, I mean my full-time job). Then I have a two-hour commute to pick up my son from daycare, and then my daughter from school. By the time we get home, I’m EXHAUSTED. My son is usually asleep, and I try to sneak in a nap while my daughter watches cartoons, but EVERY SINGLE TIME I start to doze off…” Mami, can you make me more chocolate milk, please?” They say that sleep deprivation is a form of torture, and this is how I feel every time I’m woken up and asked to prepare chocolate milk.
I don’t know when my daughter became so attached to me. She was all about her dad for at least two years. I felt like such a failure as a mother when she was an infant because she LIVED for her dad. Now, I feel bad because I see how it hurts my husband when our daughter says she wants me and not him. I tell him that it’s a phase, and there will be a moment again where she will be closer to him than me. Plus, our son is his velcro child. My little boy has no use for me unless he’s hungry, lol.
This “velcro child” thing is no joke. My daughter is my shadow, and she wants to be with me every single second of every day. I love her to pieces, but it’s too much. My dad tells me that I was like this with my mom, and that when she was pregnant with my younger sister, I literally clung to my mom’s legs and wouldn’t let her walk. My husband jokes and tells me, “Algo estás pagando.” Sigh. I get no peace and no silence. If I want to eat a donut, I have to scarf it down in the kitchen before she sees me, or she’ll want to share. I can’t do my pelvic floor exercises at home because she and her brother decide it’s time to exercise, too (which, for them, means climbing all over me while I’m lying on my yoga mat). I have to do much of my grading and course prep after my daughter’s asleep because if she sees me on my computer, she’ll “want to work on her document.”
I’m overstimulated all the time.
But then, when we finish our bedtime story, she tells me how much she loves me, and then I feel guilty. And grateful. Because I know this will pass, there may come a moment when she won’t want anything to do with me, and I’m going to miss my velcro child like crazy.
But right now, I just want some moments where I can take a power nap, savor a snack without sharing, or watch novelas instead of cartoons. That would be so nice.
