When I was in grade school we had a Community Dentist and Health Clinic attached to the school, and once a year each and every child was marched through the doors of the Clinic, in groups of four or five, to have their teeth checked.  I can remember little things about those visits, including the butterflies hanging from the ceiling, their wings made from cellophane and their bodies from the little cotton logs that were inevitably stuffed into your mouth as you lay back in the big chair.  The sun streamed in through a large window, I remember the room was very bright, and I remember the few other kids sitting along the wall to one side, waiting their turn.   I remember the kids who had just been, arriving back at the classroom and announcing who was next, and feeling relieved when my name wasn’t called.

Last week I took my almost-eleven year old daughter to the dentist in the city.  In our town we can get a year’s worth of dental care for our kids for about $60; you pay the fees when you have your first ever check-up and then anything that needs doing after that is covered by the government.  Madeleine’s molars are starting to come through before the old ones have left, and at her last check-up the dentist suggested we come back in a month to do an extraction if the old ones were still there.  Now I don’t know if our school dentist ever had to do an extraction, but they certainly had to do some things that involved numbing the mouth with an injection of anesthesia - I remember gripping the sides of the chair as the needle went in, but muffling my own cries for the sake of Being Brave.  Madeleine wasn’t interested in trying to be brave.  No amount of reassurance from me could convince her that it wasn’t going to be as bad as she imagined.  In fact, I’m pretty sure she was figuring out that, in the dentist’s office, the amount of pain to be expected is directly proportional to the amount of reassurance being given.  The more I tried to tell her it would be OK, the more she thought I was lying to her and it was going to really, really hurt.

Oh, the tears and the pleading eyes.  She was looking at me with such desperation - please, Mummy, tell the dentist to take these yucky cotton things out and let’s go home, alright?  Please?  The tears were streaming out of her eyes and pooling in her ears, and she gripped my fingers as though she was hanging ten feet above shark-infested waters and begging me to pull her up.  The dentist had assured her it would be a quick ‘pinch’ as the needle went in, it would only last a few seconds, then a second needle, then she’d be done.

As the needle moved towards her reluctantly open mouth, Madeleine’s left hand flew up and hit the dentist’s hand, causing the dentist to stab the thumb of her other hand.  It happened so fast I hadn’t even realised she’d done it until the dentist made a joke of it.

Half an hour later it was all over, the dentist’s thumb had started to wake up and the little tooth that had been pulled easily from Madeleine’s mouth was in an envelope to take home for the Tooth Fairy.  I said something about the dentist I used to go to when I was at school, and the dentist’s assistant smiled and saidshe used to work at one of those school clinics, and you hardly ever heard any of the little ones cry or squeal, because all of them wanted to show their friends how brave and tough they were.  In fact, she told me, it was a very deliberate ploy on the part of the dentist to bring those kids into the clinic in groups of three or four, and the dentist would always pick out the toughest-looking kid and do them first, so the others could see how easy it was.

I suppose, way back then, I would have liked to see my mother in that room with me, holding my hand and telling me it would be OK.  But standing there next to Madeleine last week, trying to calm her down, I really did feel as though my presence was actually making things worse.  Certainly the dentist’s assistant thought so!

But sometimes you really do need your Mummy.  I’m glad I could be there.