On Belonging: The evolutionary origins of running away from home.

Dancing "The Twist'

When I was very young, I ran away from home. A lot. But not just to the backyard or neighbor's porch, I ran to the Mcilmoyle’s house a long way down a footpath through some cottages, fields, more cottages, and finally, a wheatfield. My hair was wheat-color, nature’s perfect camouflage for a four-year-old who wants to run away. 

My Canadian “mum” would see movement in the field and eventually, she made out the tiny little figure that was me. By now, this had happened several times before. She asked me if my parents knew where I was, and I lied and said yes.

Her place felt more like home to me than the cold cottage with my family. Apparently, I delighted these grown-ups with my baby antics, including dancing and pretend-singing, but until recently, I never quite understood what would draw a little girl so far away just to dance and swing her arms in someone’s side yard. 

Adults often say that children, “just want attention” which is the slop bucket phrase for all things adults don’t understand. Babies need the delight in the caretaker's eyes that mirrors back to them their lovability. It's the delight that coaxes and softens our stoic adult nervous systems into cooing, babbling, and making faces. 

Children also need full-on engagement, eye-to-eye gazing with signs of endearment. That’s how we learn to attune. Like musicians warming up backstage, there’s a strumming of instruments and rhythms that will eventually coalesce into harmony. Pitch and catch is the back-and-forth sway of human signals. As silly as it sounds, simple things like echoing a child’s words or mirroring a child's expression are the great tuning forks of brain and love development. Rhythm and rhyme.

And all of that (attunement, delight, and rhythm) is the warmup to the big symphony of Belonging, the survival code of our species. It is overlooked and under-represented in many circles, including therapy, but in belonging sits the very core of us hiding in plain sight. Humans have all kinds of radar to detect if we belong or not: Do people approve of us? Are we acceptable? Outside of our awareness, we constantly calibrate our place in a group to see if we are safe, in or out, or liked by our peers. Was I too loud or demanding? Our culture faults us for traits like people-pleasing and looking for approval (which, to be clear, can be debilitating), however, part of our very survival depends on fitting into the tribe and belonging. Our social radar is finely tuned because for half a million years of human evolution, not belonging meant we might get scraps of food instead of a leg bone or our babies might starve in the next drought. Belonging is nothing to sneeze at. 

Once I began to understand the significance of belonging, I understood that maybe I was hungry for it, and my wise little body knew where to find it. As I write this now, I can still feel the summer sun warming my tiny bones. I can feel the dirt driveway under my feet, and see Uncle Lorne’s adoring, toothless smile shining on me. My as-if family did the same thing every time. They gathered and clapped to the imaginary beat of Chubby Checker’s “The Twist” while I danced for a penny. I ran away from home to find a warm spot in the cadence of a clan. 

Once I understood this, a second memory came to the surface, a memory of being invited to stay for dinner. I was the little one at the table with five older children, my Canadian “mum” and “Uncle Jim”. I don’t remember what we ate except that dinner included peas— Peas were out of the question.  

Except there because when everyone is swapping plates, passing salt, sharing food, and telling tales, peas taste different. That’s when I knew this was never about “wanting attention,” or being a bratty kid. This was a little girl hungry with a deep longing that never had a name; seeking a seat at a dinner table that hums with story and belonging. If my would-be siblings were eating peas, then I wanted peas, too. That’s what we do here: We eat peas.