Wednesday morning we had a particularly hard time getting everyone out the door and to school. Especially Trout. She was grouchy, whiney, and just a wee bit sensitive, bursting into tears about her pants. She was also her usual slow-as-a-snail self, so to motivate her to actually get dressed instead of laying around for an hour doing nothing, I told her if she didn't get dressed in time I wouldn't make her lunch for her and she'd have to buy lunch - this has worked great in the past and I had no indication that it wouldn't work this time. She wailed even harder that she wished she was homeschooled, because then she wouldn't have to worry about making a lunch. Now, some of her moodiness was due to the fact that I had let her stay up a bit past her bedtime the night before to watch some of American Idol, which she loves, and since we don't have TIVO it's either watch it then or don't watch it, but intuition told me something else was at play here. When she mentioned homeschooling I thought I knew what it was, since the babysitter who comes and watches my kids for me on Tuesday homeschools her daughter and brings her when she comes to babysit, who is one of Trout's best friends, and she gets upset when the sitter comes while she isn't home and she can't see her friend. But just when you think you know your kids and feel confident you can handle a situation, they have a pesky habit of "growing" and "developing" and encountering problems that knock you off your feet a bit.
In an effort to get her out the door, I pulled out a couple pairs of pants and some shirts that I matched up for her and showed her what looked good, and she shrieked "I can't wear those things together, Mom, the kids tell me those don't match and make fun of me, and I WISH you would take me to get my HAIRCUT because they tell me my hair doesn't look good because my BANGS are too LONG!" So THAT's what this is about.
Just in case you aren't a girl, it's not about the pants, or the hair, really.
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My family moved to a new house when I was halfway through second grade. The area we moved to was a fairly wealthy area, and we lived far more modestly than most of my classmates - we were only able to buy our house because my father received an inheritance when his mother died. The area was and still is extremely cliquish, worse than most I've ever seen, and if you didn't grow up there in the In Crowd you might as well not exist. When we moved in I wanted to join Girl Scouts, and my mother was told there was no more room in the existing troop for me to join, so she'd have to start her own. Just a few weeks after she was told that they let in a new member who had lived in the neighborhood her whole life. I was the new girl, and I don't think I made a single friend the whole rest of that year. To make matters worse, I was small for my age, and smart, and bad at sports, so there was plenty of fodder for the bullies, and I was teased mercilessly, about my appearance and clothing and, well, everything - they called me "Itsy Bitsy Baby Fingers" because my hands were so small, and while true, it just broke me. Up until that year I was comfortable with who I was and my place in the world. I had friends and while I wasn't the most popular kid in school I wasn't teased either, and I had people to sit with at lunch and play with at recess and come to my birthday parties and play with after school. In one move, all that was gone.
I learned to get by with a shell around myself. I made about one good friend a year, usually one of the other kids that was teased and bullied and usually in a different grade from my own. I immersed myself in school work, and when I was old enough, I learned to play an instrument, thus ensuring my place among the Band Geeks of the world (and one time, at Band Camp...), but at least making it so that I had something in common with someone and making it a trifle easier to make friends. But it was still hard, and I was picked on for the rest of my school career.
It didn't help that the clothes my mother bought for me were awful. I hated them. She never let me pick out my own clothes - when she died when I was 15 she was still choosing my clothes for me unless I saved up my money and bought my own, which was hard to do since I didn't make much money. For some reason she was convinced that we were going to wear out our clothes (I do not have any idea to this day where that came from - we were not hard on clothes by any stretch) so she bought the hardest, most durable things she could buy - Sears Toughskins. Not only were these the most uncomfortable pants ever, but in an era of Jordache and slightly later Guess jeans, they left a huge amount to be desired in the style department. Just more fuel for the bullies, but more importantly, I knew they didn't look good and they made me feel just awful about myself. My mother also dictated my haircuts. As a child I had a boyish pixie haircut, which I hated because it made me look like a boy. Somewhere along the line I guess I pitched a big enough fit and grew it out, I think starting around age 8 or 9. My the time I hit Jr. High I had long straight hair down to the middle of my back, but it was scraggly and unkempt because no one taught me how to care for long hair and I never had it trimmed. Everyone started getting the Farrah Fawcett haircuts in about 5th grade or so, but my mother didn't let me get mine cut because then I would "spend all your time messing with it" and she didn't want that. In 8th grade something weird happened and my father took me to get my hair cut instead of my mother - I don't remember why, but he did, and he let me get my hair cut the way I wanted. My mother was furious, but I was grateful for my dad stepping in and letting me make some choices for myself. In my 8th grade yearbook, one of the more popular boys in school signed my yearbook with "I like your hair." A simple thing to be sure, but I had never felt better about myself to that point.
My mother was quite strict about all kinds of other stuff, too. I wasn't allowed to date at all until I was 16, and no car dates until 18. No makeup at all until 16, not even lip gloss. No PG rated movies until she had seen and approved them first (I found out later she didn't even see half the things she nixed for me to see, such as The Gremlins, she just jumped to conclusions based on a particular scene taken out of context - she wouldn't let me see A Christmas Story either, because "it showed Santa Claus in a bad light" WTF?). No one allowed in my room when they came over - she finally relented some on that the last couple of years she was alive, but the door had to remain open - we had no privacy whatsoever. No telephone calls longer than 10 minutes. As a parent now I recognize that she was motivated by fear, by the desire to protect me from the big bad world and to keep me from being sexually active too early, but I also recognize that she was on the extreme end of the spectrum, and instead of controlling my behavior we both would have been much better off with a bit of teaching and understanding instead of mandating. I have a rather independent and ornery personality, so I rebelled completely, engaging in all sorts of risky behavior the minute her back was turned, and I was smart, too, so I got away with it much of the time. The thought of my daughters (indeed, any of my kids) doing the things that I did terrifies me. It helps me to be mindful of this when dealing with them.
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I gazed into Trout's eyes and asked "Do YOU think you look nice?" She replied yes, sometimes, and I said "Then what does it matter what someone else thinks? It's how you feel about yourself that matters most." I told her that sometimes kids can be mean, and they pick on other kids about how they look, but that's wrong. I asked her if she had any friends at school, she said just B, the boy involved in the spanking incident, and F, another boy who is in her reading and math groups so therefore she spends more time with him than probably any other kid. No girls were mentioned. I asked about a couple of girls whose names I know, and she said they tease her and tell her that her hair looks bad. I reminded her it would help if she brushed her hair from time to time (like pulling teeth to get that done around here), but really, she shouldn't pay attention to them - if they are going to act like that then she doesn't want them as friends. I told her I would schedule a play date with her friends outside of school, and we'll get her hair cut, however she wants it done, but she would have to take care of it, meaning brush it at least. I then took her into my arms and told her that I loved her, and no matter what happens at school, she has friends right here in her brothers and sister, and that she can talk about it any time. I told her I had only had about one special friend at school at any given time, and that I had gotten teased about my clothes and hair and everything else, too, and I knew how she felt, and it was rotten. But I stressed that while she can't change them, she CAN control how she reacts, and how she treats other people; she can continue to be the kind, caring, loving girl that she is, and one day she will have friends just like her. She calmed down and then decided on some pants and got dressed, and I took her to school.
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I always try to keep my own experiences in mind when dealing with my kids, but for some reason I never imagined I'd have to deal with the jr. high school behavior in first grade. I thought I had a couple of years yet. This incident took me back to a place I had blocked out in my memory, a place I never ever wanted to go again. My heart breaks for her. I hope that my words help heal her heart, and help instill in her a sense of confidence in herself, that she's a strong, smart, independent, caring, loving girl who will grow into a strong, smart, independent, caring, loving woman. I also hope this little trip down Bad Memory Lane helps remind me what it was like to be a little girl, and helps me continue to do things that I do well, like let her pick her own clothes within reason, and to teach her WHY something is a no-no when it is (no Bratz, no words across the ass, no gathered shirts that make her look like she has breasts at 7, no Britney-wear); like watching all movies and tv shows she wants to watch and deciding if they are appropriate based on my knowledge of her and our values, not jumping to conclusions based on a trailer or a movie rating; like teaching her that she can come to me no matter what, and she'll have a sympathetic ear and answers to her questions and the promise of an open mind, and two strong arms to hold her when that's what she needs.
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I've struggled with getting this post out for a couple of days now. I want to do right by my daughter; I want to guide her and help her and honor the person she is, and I am wary of saddling her with my baggage from my own childhood. This seemingly small incident has opened up quite the Pandora's Box for me in regards to my childhood, issues that I thought had been dealt with and laid to rest a long time ago, but now feel fresh and raw and exposed. Combined with the postpartum depression I think I'm battling, it has made for a fairly emotionally wrenching few days around here. There's more to say but I can't even articulate the things I'm feeling. I just hope I can provide the place of refuge she needs, and pray that God gives me the right words to say and things to do to guide her through this part of her life.
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