A Life Lesson from Even the Youngest
Your daughter? Why not same?”
I was opening the door to step out of our taxi as the driver asked me this yesterday evening.
I ignored his question as my daughter and I got out.
After shutting the door, I remember that the responses my children see from me send them messages about their okayness.
What hurts most about these experiences is that I’m not the only one in them now – my children are, too, simply because I’m their mom. So, me pretending these moments aren’t happening isn’t supportive of my children (or me).
So, I take that breaking of my heart and pack it away temporarily. I’ll unpack that later. Maybe that’s what I’m doing as I write this.
I’m very aware that as my kids grow, it will shift to where the questions will be asked directly to them.
So, I turn to my 5-year old in her strawberry ice cream- stained school uniform and sparkly rainbow bow in her hair, smile at her and with a light, slightly joking tone say, “Did you hear what he asked me?”
She says, “Yeah, he asked why your hair is white and mine is brown.”
Kids hear EVERYTHING. Hurt and pride wash over me. Pride because she feels safe with this. She’s smiling and there is confidence in her voice. Hurt because this is still something I feel unsafe with. I wonder to myself how it is possible that I’ve been able to make it safe for her while it is still so very unsafe for me.
I lightly responded, “Yeah, he was confused. We didn’t make sense in his head. Isn’t that funny?”
She giggles.
“And I didn’t feel like explaining tonight. Sometimes I do. Sometimes I don’t. And sometimes it depends on the way I’m asked, and I didn’t like that way. When someone asks kindly, and I want to share, I do.” I’m pleased with myself as there is no anger in my tone…it’s just fact.
My daughter looks at me, tilts her head and goes quiet…
“Yeah, like how I don’t want to tell you where I got the thing in my pocket from.” She had a small amount of playdough in her pocket that she didn’t want to show me or for me to ask questions about, and ironically in the taxi we were playing a game with how she was ignoring my question about it. I think she thought she wasn’t supposed to have it and that I’d ask her to give it back.
She smiles. She’s made her point. I don’t get to know everything either. Intel on the playdough acquisition is not for me to know right now. Her feeling safe that I won’t push until she’s ready is far more important.
My kids and I share experiences like this one with the cab driver regularly. It’s important to me to teach my kids to be respectful, as much as it is that we are worthy of respect…to celebrate others and to celebrate ourselves.