Enter Sandman..

As a child I had a great fondness for ghost stories and would read them all day and then lie awake at night in a cold sweat of terror, certain the undead were going attempt contact, until I summoned up the courage needed to embark upon the journey to my mom’s room. Somehow things weren’t so scary in there – safety in numbers maybe?

I don’t know, but now that I am a parent I am remembering those feelings when, in the dead of night, I am woken by a little hand gently pulling my hair, “Mommy I had a nightmare, can I sleep with you”? Without a second thought I pull her into the bed and hold her tight until she falls asleep.

She has her own room and it’s lovely and very close to ours, she has a night light and many teddies, dogs and elephants for company but they are no match for whatever it is that sends her into our room.

It gets me to wondering why it is in the modern age that children are expected to sleep alone. Now that I am 36 I am not nearly as frightened of the undead as I once was and yet I get to sleep with a big man and a wooly dog – we are both warmer and safer and if I have a nightmare, I simply roll over and wake the husband up. Now, the four year old with the super-vivid imagination, gets to wake up alone, deal with whatever terrified her and then get out of bed into the cold night and go searching for comfort. It seems almost barbaric doesn’t it?