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I’m always amazed at how well kids deal with death. A friend called today, she told me that one of their foster kittens had just died. Since my son was on the way to her house for a play date with her little girl, she wanted to know if it was alright to talk about it around my boy. How would he take it? Does it concern me? I have such thoughtful friends. But it was fine as my boy is all too familiar with death. And, while she was also concerned about her daughter, and how she would take it, it turns out she was not distraught at all. She had two other foster kittens, their two dogs and a friend to play with. But that’s the mind of a six year old. They haven’t turned the corner on their consciousness yet. They haven’t become people of the world, they don’t see the larger picture, and this is good.
I read once that around the time a child turns seven or eight they begin to see themselves as part of the world, instead of the center of it. This is when they begin to understand empathy in a truly deep way, not just as a pattern developed by consciences parents. This growth, these concepts are actually felt now within their own psyche. It’s when death does become profound.
So, before a child turns seven or eight, before they have the weight of the world on their shoulders we have a great opportunity to help ease the realities of life. After all, isn’t that what childhood is for? To prepare us to face the world as adults?
When my boy and I went to the carnival a few weeks ago and he won two goldfish it was truly a gift. Not the fish, not a pet for him to be responsible for, although that’s nice too, at least until the thing is floating belly up, as goldfish are apt to do… and quickly, but it’s that belly up fish that was actually the gift.
Goldfish are a great introduction to death. They are pets, beloved in a feed them and watch them swim kind of way. But they are not cuddly, like a kitten, or loving like a grandparent and these are deaths that children will have to face at some point, if we’re lucky and they outlive us. Ideally, a child would loose a fish first, hopefully during these early years when their brains have not fathomed the depth of death yet and they can move on. My son’s reaction to his fish dying was to plead for the privilege of dumping it in the toilet and getting to flush.
Once the dead fish has been dealt with, if you can call the joy of flushing “dealing with it” we’re ready for the cat. Let’s hope we don’t have to say good bye to cat soon, but when we do, we’ll have that fish experience. And after that, it’s the older people we love, hoping that’s years away, hoping that there were enough fish and cats and distant others to help up along the way. If all goes according to this idea we’ll have that something to point at and say, “hey you got through that remember? You are alright now, you’ll be alright again.” It’s a gradual thing, a gradual understanding that we can face the tough realities of life, that we are strong and we’ll be okay. Even when these realities don’t come at us as planned, even when we loose someone dear, young and close too soon, these experiences remind us that we’ll find a way. And it all starts with a dead fish.
Contemplating life between reality and the ideal has me comparing situations for their potential placement. For example, cooking, for me, lives well within the world of the ideal. I have time, space and creative energy all to myself and then I get to share the fruits of this pleasure with my loved one. And, as if that wasn’t enough, it’s okay to ask if they liked it. But getting myself to the ideal state of cooking means I have to navigate the world of reality, known as menu planning, a task best left to those who enjoy relating to a mime in a box, and then grocery shopping, a small stopping point in between. I know that most people do not like grocery shopping, but for me it’s a moment, well an hour, of unbridled creativity as I make my way through the veggies, fruits, cheeses, breads and other fresh ingredients to sort out what I want to make or the variations of what I’ve already planned. But having to do that with child in tow, and then there is the checkout, loading and driving, not to mention having to put everything away, and by the end I’m usually feeling pretty harried.
One of my favorite contemplations has become kindergarten. My son comes home with tales of his life in another world. He lives in a place where you cannot tell secrets, you are not allowed to judge each other by superficial characteristics and more to the point, you are expected to accept each other for your differences.
Recently a new girl moved to my son’s school and joined his class. His teacher prepared the students to welcome the newcomer, a personal guide for the new child was assigned and everyone was a twitter with excitement. When she arrived, the children were enamored with her. There was some curiosity for where she came from, and everyone was excited to know her. When we arrived at school on her first morning, in the middle of our Spring semester, even the other parents made a nice showing. There was a circle of mom’s talking with the new girl’s mother and everyone seemed to be enjoying getting to know someone new. I wonder how differently that would play out in sixth grade or tenth.
The most striking “life in the ideal” scenario that plays out everyday in my son’s class is that his teacher has coached the children that there is no such thing as perfect. She is so diligent about this message that anytime anyone says that something is perfect my son will retort, “there’s no such thing as perfect.” Yes, he will say this in the store when we find a warm jacket, after a haircut and even at the dinner table, to my chagrin. It took me a while, but now I say that his homework is “excellent!”, as is my cooking.
Sitting at my desk each morning, faced with the day’s fires ablaze and waiting for my attention, bookings, articles and communications, I contemplate this idea that there is no perfect. I wonder what my perfectionist of a boss would think if I told her that there is no perfect.
Children, lucky children, those in my small town and hopefully most children, live within the world of the ideal. Not to say that their lives are perfect. I can attest to that every time I have to drive my son to his dad’s house and leave him to be put to bed by someone else, to sleep through the night without my midnight kisses, to be bathed, fed and read to by someone other than his mother. But children are resilient, they seem to be able to live with tragedy or “less than” with great happiness and hope. They find ways to cope and integrate these less than ideal realities as life and go on in their world of the ideal. I’m sure some of this “strength” to tarry on is because they are bombarded with these messages of life as ideal, these messages that you don’t tell secrets in front of friends because it will hurt their feelings, that going to a new school will be okay and you’ll be accepted because it’s the right thing, that there is no perfect and failure is simply a springboard to learn from. They receive and willingly accept these messages that life is that black and white, and at least for now, at least in kindergartens it is.
As adults, most people know that telling secrets is hurtful, but they also think they can’t be heard whispering. When you move, or rather, start a new job, you usually have to prove yourself before people will accept you. And while there really isn’t any such thing as perfect, you’d better plead your case that your work breaks that rule if you want to stay ahead of the curve. Of course, in this last example, a lesson from my dad comes to mind. He has always told me that most people do C jobs, so if you do your best it will surly be an A, since most bosses have only seen C jobs. But that’s for another essay.
In the end, I have to admit that I tell my son to stay a kid as long as he can. I tell him what I wish the grown ups in my life had told me. You’re only a kid for a short time and then you’re an adult for a very long time. This is a big message and needs to be repeated. You are an adult for a long time… and there’s a lot of paperwork involved.
Recently we had two separate incidents of theft by friends, but each was completely different and they left me wondering.
The first occurrence happened in our home. I exchange after school care with a friend two days a week. On one day she picks up both of our kids and watches them into the evening and on a second day I pick up the boys for my turn. Needless to say, each boy is quite comfortable in each other’s hone. So, it was surprising when, upon leaving one day, my friend’s son, who we know so well, slyly scooped up a small, green high bounce ball that was sitting on the floor waiting for one of the cats to bat it around. I saw the ball as they walked past because I was thinking I should move it away from the door.
As my friend and her son walked past the spot where the stray ball was resting I realized it was gone.
I asked about it.
The boy denied picking it up.
I asked again, “are you sure you don’t know what happened to the cat’s ball? It was sitting right here.”
His embarrassed mother stopped him on the stairs, he was moving faster than usual to leave. She demanded that he open his hand, now clenched, and yes, there was the errant ball in his fist.
This is a nice boy, he’s not a thief. He looked at his mother, a smart woman, and claimed he didn’t realize it was ours.
“It’s the cat’s,” I said, letting him off the hook somewhat, as he handed it back to me.
His mother told him to apologize and then gently reminded him that he needs to keep in mind that he’s not to take things that aren’t his. She didn’t make a big thing about it, but she addressed it with him. I’m sure they talked further in the car.
Although I have no idea what possessed him to swipe the ball, except, perhaps the romance of a high bounce ball to a first grade boy, I’m still pretty comfortable with him in our home. He’s not a kid who’s going to steal, and I suspect, in the grand scheme of things, he was just testing what he could get away with, where the boundaries lay, the end of his envelope, as my friends and I used to say in college.
The second incidence left me feeling sad. To begin, we need to back up one step. My son has a love of fine detail, elaborate patterns, and gems. So when he received a gift certificate to one of the big box bookstores, he didn’t use it to purchase a book (although he loves books too), he found a lovely pad of paper decorated with an ornate pattern of squiggles and curly lines intertwined with colors all bound and held together by a magnetic cover with a large green plastic gem over the flap. He loves this pad of paper and writes little notes to himself in the car. The pad now lives in the car.
On a Tuesday not long ago, a friend asked if I could bring her son home from school for her. They live about half a mile from us and while our boys go to the same school, and are in the same grade, and have known each other since they were about six months old, they are not friends. When we have had play dates, or exchanged babysitting, I see my gentle soft spoken son trying to get along, but they do not meld well these two boys. Her son is a nice kid, don’t get me wrong, they are just different boys, not a good fit as some say. On this Tuesday, however I saw a side to her son that left me sad and a little confused.
When the three of us got into the car, buckling our seatbelts and discussing our day, both my son and I saw our guest looking at the aforementioned prized pad of paper. At first I almost said something as I saw him start to rip the top pages out, the pages with writing, but then he stopped and closed the pad. I didn’t think much about it, yet.
When I turned down his street instead of ours, my son asked where we were going. To bring our guest home, I told him.
“Mommy, I though we were going to have a play date.” My son asked innocently. I informed him that, when we had stayed after school for an extra half hour that was the play date.
“Good,” was our guests answer in a sharp tone. “I like play dates with my friends, but not my mom’s friend’s kids,” was the nasty conclusion to this conversation. I was stunned and couldn’t believe what I had heard. Perhaps I’m spoiled by my caring son and nephews, and their friends, but this seemed like an incredibly cruel statement leveled clearly at my boy.
I didn’t say anything, but suspected that my son was equally as shocked. And then he asked where his pad was and our guest child said nothing. My boy pressed, “I saw you playing with it,” he demanded in a kind but strong tone.
Denial.
Request.
Denial.
Finally, I stepped in. “Well we know it was in car when we all got in, so we’re going to have to find it before we get out.” And with that, he leapt out of the car as we pulled in front of his house. I stopped him and asked that he open his backpack. Yes, sitting right on top was my son’s beloved pad of paper with it’s bright green plastic gem.
“I don’t know how that got in there.”
“Uh huh.”
I couldn’t bring myself to say anything to his mother, and ultimately, I suspect that this boy is also pushing the ends of his envelope like our other friend.
But there was something different about this occurrence, something cruel, menacing, specific. This boy saw the pad and immediately took it for his own without thought or care for anyone else. How is it different than the other taking the high bounce ball? It’s a gut thing, or perhaps just a little bit more. My son has toys that our other friend loves, truly loves, has had crying fits to continue playing with he loves them so much, and because he loves them he would never take them. He couldn’t fathom depriving his friend of something so beloved. He took something he thought no one wanted.
Adults know the black and white of theft, or rather should. If it’s not yours, you don’t take it. We learn through these trials, through our errors, getting caught, feeling humiliated by our own actions, our own hurt, sorry and sadness.
For the second boy, it seemed that he was already in a place of hurt and sadness, he didn’t care about the effect he had on others. He took the pad because he wanted it and didn’t have a care that it might hurt my son, or perhaps that was the goal. Perhaps he was tired of being pushed together with my son when his mother and I needed to exchange babysitting and that’s why he wanted to hurt him. Perhaps it was just a one time thing, maybe he too felt the humiliation of being caught and learned what he needed to learn, I don’t know. But what makes me the saddest is that it truly felt that he wanted to hurt someone, my son, or me, or his mother. I don’t know what motivated him, but it worked. I still think he’s a nice kid, but perhaps we’re not the right fit for each other.
At bedtime I read to my son. He picks three books and we curl up together in his bed and we read and laugh. It’s one of my favorite rituals and it makes going to bed a pleasant experience. By the time we’re done with reading he’s usually calmed down, relaxed and ready to sleep. He’s also happy, he loves to be read to, he loves books.
When he feels happy like this he usually proclaims, “Mommy, this is really fun being together.” What a statement, from the heart, full of joy and his own sense of wellbeing, it fills me every time he says it.
But then one night about a month ago he said, “Mommy, I love you more than Daddy.” Ouch, that was a stab to my heart. There is a small side of me, to all of us, that loves it, we want to be the favorite parent. And in a house with both parents, this is normal and not an issue. Unfortunately, if you find yourself parenting in a two home family, this can be a sign post for problems up ahead. In the big picture, I don’t want him feeling like he needs to love one of us more, that he needs to appease us or make us feel… well anything in particular. That’s way too much responsibility for a young child.
In my dismay, in an effort to take a moment to asses things, I looked across the room and saw his chest of bins. This cute little dresser type stand that holds six different colored bins, in our case for toys, sits across the room holding all of his favorite treasures. So it struck me as a wonderful metaphor.
Rather than go with the statement of his comparative love as a compliment, which I didn’t feel, in my heart, that it was, I decided to discuss the bins. I told him that when we love someone it does not affect the way we love anyone else, that we can love as many people as we choose with as much of our heart as we wish without taking away from the way we feel about anyone else. Like his toy bins. Each bin has the capacity to be full or empty on its own, without regard to the quantity of toys in the other bins. One could be empty while the other is overflowing. That’s love, that’s the power of love, it’s infinite, or as infinite was we choose to allow it to be. I probably said it in more six year old terms, but the metaphor was well received.
I looked over to him, resting in his bed, looking up at me with the biggest blue eyes nestled within his creamy soft skin, cuddled into his blankets, sucking his fingers with his old warn blankie and he smiled. I kissed him goodnight and he said, “Mommy, this is really fun being together.”
Living between reality and the ideal means that I am constantly thrown up against the most counterintuitive lessons. Sometimes these are the most horrible feeling experiences and yet they turn out to be the best of all worlds. When we were young, if we grew up with security and a feeling of safety, we took our parents for granted. We tossed them aside like our old, used toys only pulling them close when they suited us. That was fine for me, when I was a kid, but now I’m the grown up, the adult, the parent. I am the one tossed aside as the painful expression of my own child’s feelings of well being. For good or ill, my son doesn’t actually toss me aside as much as he tosses his emotions, loudly, into the center of the room. He continues to throw tantrums, even at the advanced (ha ha) age of six. Generally he is a calm, happy kid, but when he’s tired, or worse even, hungry, he reverts to an over stimulated, emotionally driven three year old with ear twisting screams and cries that would make the most tolerant of parents seek a paddle (and for the record I do not spank or hit my child, ever).
Some well attached children simply reject their parents. A true sign of love. One night a week my dear friend from down the street brings her lovely daughter over for an evening play date (babysitting) so that she can get some personal projects done on her own. Last week when her lovely daughter was here the kids played, and dressed up, and ran around with the dog. They laughed and they built things, and just as we all sat down to read books our time was over. Her mother returned, her face filled with a bright smile ready for her lovely daughter’s, usual, warm embrace. But none was given. The child, beautiful with her blue eyes and happy smile turned sad and started crying, not a tantrum a cry, an honest, deeply felt sadness brought to the surface, cry. She looked at her mother and said “I don’t want to go home with you, I want to stay here.”
Let me just say, as flattered as I am that she loves coming to our home, this isn’t about me, this is about the joy of playing with someone else’s toys, this is about what it feels like for two kids without siblings in their homes to play as a brother and sister, and most of all, I believe, this is about her deepest feelings of security that she can reject her mother. She is four, too young to connect the dots of life without her mother, life in our home with different rules, different food, and a completely different rhythm of life. These are not her concern, her concern at that emotion filled moment was simply to keep playing. And, in her deepest feelings of security she could reject her mother, push her away, treating her only everyday parent as dispensable. What a treat, huh? But yes it actually is. Because this lovely daughter is telling her mother is that she, her wonderful mom, is completely ubiquitous within her life, within her own secure view of the world and thus she can push her away physically because she is always with her in her heart.
My son expresses the same message through his tantrums. For him, it’s not about my ubiquity in his life as much as my unconditional love. This is not an excuse to let the tantrums continue, we are working on getting those managed, but in the meantime, they are his ill formed articulation that he knows he can be who ever he needs to be at any moment with me, that he can show me his full range of emotions without rejection and that he’s always safe with me.
And he is.
Shortly after my husband and I split up, my son, then just over three and half years old, wouldn’t get out of bed one afternoon after his nap. This was not like him, to just stay in bed. He’s always been a mellow child, but after naps he usually likes to see what I’m doing. If he is still feeling tired we might read a book or perhaps watch a movie if we don’t have plans. But this day he just stayed in bed. It took me a while to realize that he wasn’t getting up. I was busy unpacking our boxes as we had just moved a week or so previous.
Realizing that something was wrong I went into his room and asked if he was going to get out of bed. He said he was tired and didn’t want to get up. My instincts kicked in, lucky me. Why is it that my instincts lead me astray when I’m talking with people at parties, or my extended family on vacation? I guess I can’t complain as my gut seems to work well for my head when it comes to my son, that matters more and I’ll try to remember that the next time I’m tasting sock at a party.
“I’m tired and don’t want to get up.” He said. I offered a “special treat” our code for candy or cookies, that always motivates. He turned it down. I watched him for a moment, he laid in bed with his big beautiful blue eyes open staring off into nothing, sucking his fingers with his little blue flannel blanket wrapped around his free hand. I did what any sad, depressed, newly separated mom would do when faced with a son who won’t get up after a nap, I got in bed with him. I asked him if he was tired or sad. I guess kids are easier to navigate than grown ups. He told me he was sad, he told me that he wished we didn’t have to live here and that we could go back to Daddy’s house. I wanted to cry. I wanted him to like our new home and I didn’t want him to have to pay the price of our problems. But there it was, that’s how it is. The kids, the innocents, are the ones to pay the bill for our indulgences.
Laying in bed together I held him and we started up at the ceiling for awhile. Then he asked outright if we could move back to Daddy’s house. I reached as deep as I could go, through all of the pain and anger, all of the filters that work so hard to keep him away from these feelings and deeper still into the truth of the matter and I apologized to him. I told him that I was sorry that he had to be so affected by our problems. I told him that we are now a two home family and that he will live with Daddy sometimes and me sometimes. I apologized that we couldn’t work out the things that made us, Mommy and Daddy, sad in any other way and that he was not to blame. I told him that we both loved him deeply, and that the best way for us to all be happy was for Mommy and Daddy to live apart. I reassured him that we are still a family, we’re just a two home family now. He looked over to me and then got out of bed.
He left his bedroom and went to play in the front room. Like a gust of wind his depression had passed. That was two and half years ago and he has never again asked for us to move back to Daddy’s. And this recently past holiday season when his class was asked to draw pictures of their families he drew a line down the center of the box and put me, him and the two cats on one side and his dad, him and their cat on the other. When he showed me his drawing, he proudly exclaimed that “this is our two home family.” I wanted to cry.
One of my dad’s favorite sayings is that “in life there is what is and what ought to be, and they are not the same thing.” He said this my entire childhood and now as an adult I still hear him saying it. I have come to believe that wisdom is found in understanding how to bridge the chasm between these two, between reality and the ideal.
I am now a divorced, single mother, although that is not how I define myself. We are all multi faceted and varied, not as easily defined as the world wants to see us. There are moments when I am still that 24 year old recent college graduate who just moved to San Francisco with my entire life in front of me, staying out late with friends to watch the sun rise over the bay, going to shows to hear our favorite bands, or sneaking on the roof our apartment with the crazy lady on the top floor who would come out and yell at us for being up there; and other times I’m a frantic single mother with too much to do and not enough time, loosing patience with my son as he follows the dandelion seeds through their wind guided travels and my stress jumps over the fence with him.
Regardless of these robes, these masks, these outer shells, I, like so many others out there, find myself exploring the world of this chasm between reality and the ideal. I ask myself, how do I help my son understand it and create his own bridge, his own reality, his own peace and happiness? There will be a day, all too soon, when he’ll be old enough to connect his own understandings of “what is” and “what aught to be” and I hope I’ve done my job to give him the tools to navigate this world of joy and disappointment, abundance and sadness, peace and strife.
Getting divorced was a giant leap into this chasm, for both of us (that’s my son and me, my ex and I get along just great, but he has his own realities to work out). Now, my life lives here down deep in the abyss, but there are others here and it’s kind of pretty. My hope is to create a community of friends down here in our pastoral valley of our own making. Perhaps we’ll build some bridges, perhaps we’ll just hang out here and throw a party.
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