One of the reasons we moved here two years ago was to get the kid away from a deliberately hurtful and terribly painful situation. I know full well that you cannot shield your children from every single slight and slap, and I've never tried to do that, but I do believe if you know the same thing is going to happen again and again...and you can pull her out of the fire, then by God, you do it. And we did.
But she has always been an extremely friendly and affectionate child, and because she likes everyone, she pretty much assumes they will like her, too. She isn't always aware when they don't--I worry, at times, that the kids in her daycare, which she thinks are her very best friends and which are noticeably (and often) cool toward her, don't like her nearly as much, and that she will come to know this in time. And it'll break her heart. I've been glad, if you could call it that, when she hasn't always noticed or known that her feelings are not reciprocated; that time, I knew, would come soon enough.
And it's been coming, slowly but surely, inexorably creeping into her sense of self. Even as a toddler, she'd now and then run into a kid somewhere on a playground or wherever, who wouldn't play fair. She never understood it.
Last fall when we attended Love & Logic parenting classes, she went to the gym to play with the other kids, and she was so excited about that. But for whatever reason, there was a boy who took great pleasure in telling her every night how much he hated her, and who treated her more and more cruelly than he had the day before. She was in tears by the end of the course, which lasted about 8 weeks (fortunately for her, only 1 night a week, but still....) We told her that sometimes boys do that when they like you and don't know how to handle it, but he was quick to dash that thought.
One of the girls in the 2nd grade class just ended took Betsy's pencils, erasers, anything she wanted, and then would tell the teacher they were hers. I told her when we bought her new school supplies for 3rd grade, I'd make sure that every single pencil was STAMPED with her name (another good reason for not giving a child a weird, soap-opera sounding name....classic names are easier to find) and then there could be no doubt. This made her feel better, and yet didn't make me feel I was overreacting or smothering, you know? It's such a fine line...complicated by the fact that Betsy is, and has always been, a giver. She would have gladly
given that child anything she had that was wanted, if asked.
And how do I explain cruelty when I've never understood it, myself...I can remember schoolyard slights in elementary school, can remember 'we don't want to play with YOU!' And I can remember enough parties that didn't include me
so clearly that I fully understand the ironclad rule in effect now: if you invite
one child in your class to your birthday party, you must invite them
all. By the time I reached junior high school there were several girls who took particular pleasure in tormenting me about my looks; it is no wonder I never felt there was
anything about me that was even remotely pretty for many, many, many too many years. (Like, in my early 30s.) My mom grew up at a time when you washed your hair once a week, period, and that's what I was allowed, too....which wouldn't have been so bad if my hair had been like hers--fine, soft, very dry. Mine wasn't; it was unbelievably thick and heavy, with a tremendous oil production...it was gorgeous when it was clean, and not so at ALL when it was not. And I will never forget Janie, in Home Ec class, asking me what I had done with my hair one morning and I said I'd just washed it, was all....and she said 'oh, I
thought something was different.....' smirking at her friends all the while. The worst fights my mom and I ever had when I reached high school was when I began washing my hair every single day, but I just had to.
So I pray for my girl, and among those prayers I always ask for wisdom and discernment; to not bring my own old hurts into my daughter's present, not to blow things out of proportion. I pray to remain empathetic and understanding without being crippling; I don't want her to grow up thinking life is just a bowl of cherries and she will get every single thing she wants. (It isn't just that it doesn't happen that way; I don't think it
should happen that way.) She knows better, already; there've been things she wasn't chosen for, pictures in a slide show where she's never featured, though she was there. I try to tell her that sometimes people can hurt your feelings, and they don't always mean to, but it hurts whether they meant to, or not. And I remind her that the hurt will help her remember to be kind, as kind as she can be, as often as she can be.
Little hurts for my little girl. She has few good memories of the years we spent at camp, because she remembers that she wasn't allowed in the kitchen with me: the very place most little girls want to be with their mommies, the place where the director's child had always been. Being asked to be a flower girl, then dumped for another child. Wondering why there was no flower for her to wear at a wedding just a week ago, why she wasn't asked to be in the pictures. And just yesterday....in church...when she reached over to the boy next to her to do the motions meant to accompany a song about the fruit of the spirit...and he pushed her away. The mother tigress in me wants to hurt someone when I see her hurt that way, but I don't, I can't....(even though the want is there, the how dare you!) I remember the promises we made to her birth mother, and the judge, about how we would always care for this child
to the very best of our abilities. I also remember, and know, that the hurts are part of life and a necessary part of growth. (Doesn't mean we're going to like it, though. It's kind of like immunizations and spinach.) One of Daddy's prayer partners told him to tell her that she just needs to remember that boys are knuckleheads, and so they are.
But oh...I can remember so clearly when the hardest part of being a mommy was just getting by with no sleep, sitting up with her all night when she was sick. I can remember her arms lifted to me in a silent "Mommy! FIX it!" when she fell, knowing that Mommy would, and could. I remember my mom telling me that the hardest part was yet to come...the time when my child would begin to know hurts that I could not fix.
She is not perfect. She tries my patience almost daily, and I know that is as much a failing in myself as it is a part of her nature to be inquisitive and curious and endlessly energetic. She can be careless--it's not uncommon to send her off to school in brand new pants and have her come home with both knees torn out, and I've never seen ANYone wear out shoes faster than she can, and she loses things.
But she is bright and funny and so, so beautiful. She is warm and loving and affectionate. She has a good, kind, empathetic heart, and she feels your pain if she knows you're having it--whether it's emotional or physical. She remembers things that matter to you--that Mrs. Beckett loves chocolate and frogs, that Daddy's favorite color is green, and that Mommy loves books and roses. And when that boy pushed her away in church yesterday--a boy who was in 2nd grade with her--she said nothing to his parents, because she didn't want to get him into big trouble.
She is my heart, and to hurt her is to hurt me.
In this movie I've been watching, I heard a line so profound it made me scramble for paper to write it down, quickly: 'A writer writes the first draft with his heart, the second, with his head.' This is my first draft, and I'm not going back to polish it...yes, angel_vow, I took your comment...well...to heart.
Comments (3)
oh, twinnie. I completely understand, and I don't even HAVE children. It hurts enough when things happen to my nieces. I worry about them and their impressionable little still-forming psyches and senses of self, day and night. And that is why I cannot have children. I will hurt too damn much when they hurt.
I know they say they will survive, but I know how you'd do anything, I mean ANYTHING, to ensure that they grow up with high self-esteem, confidence, and sense of self-worth.
love you, twinnie!
-k
Great post, and Finding Forrester is one of my favorite movies. I think it's a hard fact of life that we and the ones we love will inevitably have to learn from painful experiences, and I'm sure she's heartened by the certainty that you'll be there for her when she hurts. Hope all's well.
You have written an excellent post here. These are the fears I have for SP; like you, I will have to hold myself back when someone hurts her feelings.
ryc: Thank you for your kind comments!