Sometimes I worry about this

One recent night, while Henry was having an unscheduled bath, James stood at the coffee table in the living room, building buildings out of blocks. He would build one to his satisfaction, then cover it with a piece of purple felt that's been knocking around the house for the last month or so, and, after a moment, snatch the felt away with a flourish, crowing with delight at the surprise underneath--over and over again. I was in the kitchen, washing dishes.

Without a doubt, Henry and James play differently--and better--when I am not around. The difference is even more striking when they are playing together.

If I am sitting in the room with them, or am visibly watching them, Henry is far more likely to snatch things away from James, push James down, or lie down obstructively in the path of wherever James is trying to go. James, in turn, is unlikely to go longer than five minutes without coming over to tug at my shirt, asking to nurse. Or, these days, to bite me. But if I disappear, productive collaborations are likely.

This morning, they did a spot of cooperative brick-laying, as well as a considerable amount of shoving long thin things into tubes and bottles. For at least 45 minutes, they worked together outside, while I peeked at them through the window from time to time, and listened. Then they came inside to make yogurt out of blocks--together--in an old yogurt-maker. The only hitch came about when they came to find me and offered a cup of yogurt. I dropped it, shattering the glass.

"I'M careful with glass," Henry said. "I'm a big boy." And a few minutes later, more sympathetically, "I know how you feel when stuff breaks."

I know this is good. In keeping with all my demographics, I am (mostly) on board with Free Range parenting. I want my children to have private lives, I want them to develop relationships with each other and the rest of the world that are unmediated by me. I am all for intrinsic motivation, learning through play, and NOT playing with my children except when it's actually fun for me.

However. Quite apart from the fact that this idyll is always in danger of being interrupted by a sudden and ferocious physical attack that I will be unable to prevent, or that it may result in permanent damage to our propertly, collaboratively (and silently) inflicted, there is a something that niggles at me: THEY are doing what they are supposed to be doing, but while they are doing it so beautifully, so usefully, so busily, what is it that I am supposed to be doing?