I am going to oversimplify here, but for the sake of argument I will state that LittleMan’s two great wishes in life are 1) more Legos, and 2) to be left alone, to his own devices, to build and play in his magical, mashed-up, imaginary world in peace (but with a comforting force close by). If he needs something — help finding a missing brick, a snuggle, a sip of bubbly water — he will ask for it. In this way, LittleMan and I can sit at home together on a Monday afternoon for hours with nary a word uttered between us, happy to coexist in the quiet and go about our private enterprises. This used to stress me out, like Should I be engaging him?? Until I realized that — between school and friends and hapkido and whatnot — he’s engaged to the breaking point as it is. LittleMan is a person who just needs some space once in a while, and more power to him.
Unlike her brother, Babygirl’s two great wishes in life are 1) snacks, and 2) INTERACTION (insert jazz hands for emphasis here). Babygirl is the extrovert born into a family of introverts, and to be honest, we are all mildly bewildered by her. She performs! She monologues! She changes her clothes ten times a day and models them for anyone who will take note! If we don’t take note, she strips naked and shakes her booty! Because that, my friends, is how you get people to interact with you. It is for this, her joie de vivre!, that most people who meet Babygirl find her enchantingly precocious. It is also for this reason that at least two afternoons a week I leave Babygirl at preschool to play musical chairs and sing Let It Go! with her posse of enchantingly precocious friends, and bring LittleMan (and myself) home for a sensory break.
Sometimes good parenting is just meeting people where they are. Nothing more, nothing less.
I often wonder how two people who emerged from the same mother can be so staggeringly different. It is a question as old as time, of course, but what only occurred to me quite recently is the impact that these opposite children have on their parents. As if we aren’t forced to be more flexible than a Cirque du Soleil extortionist by the sheer fact of having children in the first place, now we have to pivot-pivot-pivot all day long to meet their various contradictory needs.
For years (years!) we have had to prod LittleMan to go places and do things. Let’s go biking! Let’s go hiking! Let’s go to the science museum! To the pool! To play soccer! To the movies! But a great deal of what we do requires us pushing LittleMan out of his Place-of-No. Over time we have become rather selective about when to force — the sledding will be fun! (and it was); the swimming will feel good! (and it does) — and when to let LittleMan be who he is, which is a cerebral sort of engineer of a person with an affinity for monkey bars and floating under water for as long as possible.
Babygirl exists, decidedly, in a Place-of-Yes. I love this about her: her sense of adventure, her outsized spirit, her fearlessness. (Her defiance is another matter entirely, although I am often counseled to embrace that too, as part of her take-no-prisoners approach to life.) At the same time, she is forcing me to confront my own limitations: for example, midway through the holiday break, a two-week stretch of non-stop holiday and Babygirl action, I left the kids with my husband for an hour (by which I mean, I turned to my husband and declared that I just couldn’t take it anymore and locked myself in my bedroom) to research “how to get your three-year-old to play by herself”. I have realized that despite my best intentions and my gluten-free cookie recipes and my emerging interest in crafts, I am just not that mom who can transition from baking to Uno to glitter glue to Dr. Seuss for 336 hours straight. I know that my desire to engage with my children actually has a threshold.
Sometimes good parenting is just meeting yourself where you are. Nothing more, nothing less.
So where does this leave us? I took a walk the other morning before dawn, and as I climbed the hills around our home in the foggy streetlamp haze I found myself thinking about Babygirl’s spirit. I found myself shaking my head and smiling and worrying all at once. Acknowledging that she is a sidesplittingly funny, tireless, exhausting little soul. Then fretting that the world will find a way to beat some of it out of her, that boys and fashion magazines and Facebook and — heaven help us — other girls will come knocking on her bright, busy psyche and start to chip away at it. That she, like her mother and so many young women before and since, will someday (all-too-soon) face a crippling crisis of confidence that could lead her to doubt her own mind and to do stupid, harmful things to her body.
I have a responsibility far, far, far more important than providing puzzles and beads and cupcake mix on-demand.
I am a steward of my daughter’s spirit. I am a soldier at the gates of her self-worth. I am a keeper of her flame. Part of this responsibility means driving her out of her comfort zone — ironically, towards silence and alone time, teaching her to locate her stillness, to learn self-reliance, to become comfortable in the spaces between. Part of it means fostering her courage, and meeting her need to push further, try more, be out there. It means finally signing her up for gymnastics, but afterwards encouraging her to do stickers quietly on her own. It means that when I hear her familiar trumpet call — “I DID IT!” — I will pull her in my arms and say “You did it. And you are clever and strong and brave.”
Oh, my girl, my girl. Burn bright. Challenge me. I will meet you there.
Leave a Comment