Little Brother is playing with Girl Next Door (she’s 8). Right now they are playing the organ. This is a classic case of What Boys Do and What Girls Do.
Girl Next Door is trying out the different stops, changing the tone of the organ and making some lovely-sounding combinations.
Little Brother is hanging off the side of the organ bench, yelling, “Help me! It’s a volcano! I’m falling into the lava! Can’t you see the lava?”
Middle Sister came home this afternoon after spending Three Whole Days with her All-Girl Cousins. We’ve missed her!
And now, on to the Deprogramming.
While she’s with her All-Girl Cousins, she is treated to all things girly. There are no light sabres around that house. Everything is pretty and feminine and looks like it came out of a Pottery Barn catalog. There are hair accessories and makeup of all kinds, and my sister-in-law knows how to use them.
I should be happy that her aunt and uncle generously invite Middle Sister into their home to spend time with the All-Girl Cousins, and truly I am. But I always wind up feeling insecure. Instead of reveling in the fact that my sister-in-law can pick up the slack in the hair and makeup department, I worry that I am failing my daughter in some way.
I know that I will never be able to be All Things To All Children. There will always be things I cannot do for my kids, things I cannot teach them. I will never be able to turn myself into a decorating, fashion, hair and makeup expert. And I’m being my own worst enemy by worrying about this.
Still, I wind up comparing myself to another mom. And I feel a little guilty that in a few minutes I’ll be stepping into my kitchen, putting on my apron, and making Middle Sister’s favorite chicken for dinner, in the hope that she will realize how much she missed being at home with her mom who loves her and loves to cook for her.
Middle Sister’s new green sweatpants will never be the same again.
This weekend, she and Boy Next Door spent some time on two afternoons, exploring a local creek. And when they explore, they don’t just walk on the sidewalk. They get in the mud. They climb stuff. They stomp in puddles.
On Saturday, Middle Sister wore a pair of Big Brother’s handmedown sweatpants (good choice!) But on Sunday, those were still wet and muddy, so she decided to make a fashion statement and wear her new sweatpants to the creek.
She and Boy Next Door came back two hours later, pretty chilly and very proud of the (empty) snapping-turtle shell they found, and full of stories of what they had seen and how they fed the ducks.
They came back really muddy too. In fact, she was so muddy from the knees down that I just threw her socks in the garbage. They weren’t worth the effort.
The green sweatpants have soaked all morning in a bucket of Oxyclean, but I’m not expecting miracles. I might have to turn them into capris.
In the meantime, I rummaged through the handmedowns and found one last pair of Big Brother’s old sweatpants. I left them on Middle Sister’s bed. I should have done that a long time ago, I guess, but sometimes it doesn’t occur to me that girls need to have a few “old grubbies” in their wardrobes too.
It has occurred to me, though, that I’m lucky to have a daughter who enjoys playing in the mud and looking for turtle shells with her friends–even if she does put on the purple eyeshadow, really thick, before she leaves.
Donna Marie Cooper-O’Boyle has an excellent post about our culture’s pressures on young girls.
There are so many more things I worry about with my daughter than I do with my sons, so many more fears I have, and so many ways in which I feel inadequate to the task. I know that other parents feel the pressure too; my sister and I were just talking on the phone this morning about one of her daughters’ experiences with the Not-Nice Girls at her school.
I know I can’t shield my daughter from everything–but at 11, she’s just about to have to face so many challenges. I hope I’ll be able to help her weather the storms ahead.