For the parenting period of this knitter’s life, knitting never really became a family affair. By the time my kids were old enough to make their own choices about what to do with their time, they chose not to knit. I went from being disappointed, to ridiculously analytical (could rejection of knitting be a metaphor for rejecting your mother?). Eventually I made my peace with us being into different things – perhaps around the same time that they stopped hassling me to finish the row. We all had our different enthusiasms and as long as I didn’t show too much enthusiasm for theirs, my knitting cohabited amicably enough with their netball, nail-varnishing, pasta-making and the like.

Now it turns out that kids carry on changing and growing up, even after you think they’ve got there already. One of the sweetest spots of this recent holiday was helping my daughter block her completed Petite Knits Holiday Slipover the night before she returned to university. She’d chosen some bright red Lett Lopi wool and matching mohair silk before I closed up the shop, and just as I predicted (smug smile here) her fingers remembered how to knit from when I’d taught her when she was too little to know she wouldn’t want to knit when she got older. She ended up knitting her way through the three weeks at home with only family for company. I played it very cool of course, didn’t mention that my first sweater was also in Lett Lopi, (or that I made it when I was 11), and didn’t take (or post) any pictures of her knitting. But ever so quietly and secretly, loved watching her make it,  finish it, and triumphantly try it on. Now all I have to do, is resist the urge to suggest what she should knit next

Lessons learned: Just because your child doesn’t (a) knit their first jumper when they’re 11 and (b) want to wear said handknit every day, doesn’t mean that (c) child will never want to knit anything ever. Play the long game and one day you may just knit together after all.