Bee Stings
The other day my six-year-old daughter said something to me that pierced my heart. I was in the middle of my daily after-work routine of rushing from one after-care site to another, swinging the minivan into the public places that care for my children. As I was robotically fastening her seatbelt, my mind preoccupied with unimportant thoughts, she quietly said into her lap, “I wish I was never born.” At that moment, my knees actually buckled. I looked at her for the first real time that day and asked her why. She admitted, with the raw embarrassment of a child, that she had no one to play with at recess.
I have never pretended that my child does not have problems. I have known for some time that she is different. Her words the other day just brought forth the reality that she now knows it too. The refuge of her mother’s love will no longer shield her from the world’s truths, and it will no longer be enough to make her happy. I know that every mother faces the awakening that her child exists in a daily world over which she has no control, but truthfully, I was not prepared for it to be this painful. A good friend of mine, the mother of grown children, did try to warn me of this. She told me of times when she found herself in the fetal position crying over the slights she helplessly watched her children endure. She also told me to never let my children find me in the fetal position, so the other night, I tucked my daughter into bed, cried my heart out in the shower, and indulged in an Ativan to help me process my child’s words.
But, here it is, days later, and I still have a lump in my throat. I have been reminding myself of Kahlil Gibran’s words of children coming through you but not from you, how they are with you but belong not to you, but these ideas have brought me little comfort. I want to house her soul; I want to protect it from all of the Queen Bees, all of the lunch room drama, all of the mean fourth grade boys. If she is this upset when she is six-years-old, how will she handle the hell of middle school and beyond? I used to think that parents played much more of a role in shaping their children. What I mean to say is I thought that if you provided children with enough love and stability, it would set them on a secure path. Enough time reading together, enough dance classes, enough play-dates. What I am realizing is that I can try my best to create the most healthy and emotionally nourishing environment for them, and still the best laid plans will not be enough. It will help immensely, but I have no control over my children’s feelings and how they experience the world.
I know that this may seem obvious to some people, but until it is a truth that you have to accept about your own child, it is just an idea. In practice, it is paralyzing. Accepting that my daughter’s happiness is now far outside of my control is not something that I am handling well. I often find her with a look on her face that I cannot read. I ask her what she is thinking about and she tells me, “I am not comfortable talking right now.” I have often joked that my husband and I are the genetic equivalent of the perfect storm. Our children seemed to have inherited his temperament and my debilitating sensitivity. My daughter does not like to talk about her feelings, and yet she feels every hurt so deeply. I do not want to smother her with my love, so I always remind her that she can talk to me about anything. I am just left wondering if there will always be secret hurts that are too painful for her to share. We have all been there, but I guess I naively thought that it was in my power to make it not so for my child. I now have to accept that there are no blank slates for the human heart.
When I am in my classroom full of teenage girls, I try to imagine what one my daughter will be. Of course, I know that she will be herself, but I see her face in every one of them. Will she be the one with the ridiculous green hair, the one who proudly displays the evidence of a boy sucking on her neck, or the one who so obviously eats her emotions? Will she want to be noticed or will she do anything not to be? Will I have done a good enough job for her to not have the need to numb her feelings? I must admit that when I used to look at some of these kids, I made assumptions about their parents. I no longer do. No parent, regardless of involvement level, has complete control over the outcome of their child’s life. We can do our absolute best, but sometimes that will not be enough.
I used to judge my own parents so harshly for my brother’s drug addiction. I now realize that their parenting did not have the power to change him. While of course I recognize that parents cannot be absolved from their responsibilities completely, I can see now that parents have to accept a certain level of powerlessness. When I would find my mother in the fetal position about my brother, it was not because she had given up on him. It was because she had understood that it was not her life to give up. That she would have done to ease his pain.
So, I will go on and continue to remind my daughter that the day that she was born was the day my life had meaning. I will continue to try to ease the wounds of the mean girls by helping her discover who she is. I will try my best to convince her of her unique worth and pray that she believes me. I will try to surround her days with love and involve her in the things that bring out her talents. I will do everything in my power to have the pain of real life and recess not hurt her so much that she never thinks green hair is something that will make her feel better.
Children, Classroom, Emotional, Insults, Kahill Gibran, Motherhood, love 
Reader Comments (5)
"Our children seemed to have inherited his temperament and my debilitating sensitivity. My daughter does not like to talk about her feelings, and yet she feels every hurt so deeply."
This may be the best line this website has produced. I was absolutely blown away with its insight into the human condition and the vunerability of the cutting truth.
Your voice is one we need. We bring children into a world that is cruel and meant to break them. We shield them only to find we are not large enough to protect them. We let them go to the world and be hurt, so perhaps they will return to us to be healed. And you are right, we have been raising them to be hurt by the world because no one will be able to heal them like their parents. The rest is fate.
You bring things to think about. Thanks
I wonder if mothers feel the pain of their children so intensely because there are things in our own childhoods that haunt us. I've always wanted to go back in time to right a wrong with that razor wit I've whetted over the years, but lacked as a child. I've wanted to confront the prissy girls who pointed out my shortcoming rudely, flaunt my successes, and shout out all the failures of their own lives. When I see those girls in my classroom, secretly hope that they will grow old and useless and friendless because my worldly mind tells me that's the retribution they deserve.
Being a little woman is difficult and confusing because other women know just how to shred up our esteem (Have you ever noticed girls have esteem, and boys have egos?) We moms feel that childhood pain fresh in every generation of girls we see come up behind us, and I can just imagine how awful it must be to see your face, in miniature, go through those horrible times all over again, and still come up short on words and helpless.
You should consider sharing this with a magazine that specifically deals with the issues of your baby. You've given an exquisite voice to such an ugly pain that others would appreciate knowing they aren't alone.
A wonderfully written, heart-wrenching post. I am utterly floored at your unquestionable devotion to your daughter and your family. The way that you symbiotically feel the pain of your daughter gives me a sense of hope and relief that I can't quite explain. I do not mean this in a sadistic way, but I see it as a refreshing contrast to many of the familial situations I have become calloused to through the media. As a man neither with children nor married, I am amazed by my inability to relate with my own personal experience. Can I liken any event in my life to the emotional distress a worried mother has? Quite simply I think the answer is no, I can not. Your empathy and foundation-building love for your child is something that I can simply view from my outsider's perspective and recognize it as great. I wish only good things for your family in the future and I am glad to have read your very personal story.
Sometimes, a hug will do the trick when all else fails.
"there are no blank slates for the human heart"
Once again, thanks for sharing your stories with us. I think it is a perspective we sorely need, especially those of us without kids who usually exist only within our own daily wants and priorities.
Maybe some solace can be found in the fact that your daughter has not only a mother who cares, but a sibling too. There is a bond between siblings that can be a good shelter against the cruelties of peers outside our bloodlines. My wife and I were talking about how hard it must be to see kids grow up after she visited her parents recently and saw the two kids next door that we used to babysit. Needless to say, after 8 years, they were much more mature than we remembered them to be. One was wearing her middle school cheerleading uniform and the other was driving his bright blue coupe around the neighborhood. My wife related to me how the girl had recently suffered a harsh barrage of mean girl texts from her friends saying that she was too ugly to hang out with, amongst other vulgar things. It was hard for me to imagine the little 5 year old I once put to sleep having to deal with such cruelty. But she also told me how her big brother had grown up into a mature, helpful son. When his mom, with some trepidation, asked him to drive his sister to a friend's house to which she'd never been, he not only complied but voluntarily reassured his mom that he would make sure she was safe and check out the neighborhood to make sure there wasn't anybody dangerous around. While this is probably a small consolation to his mother's worries, it must be feel good for his sister to know that a brother cares about you when others do not. At some point or other, most all of us have to face cruelty alone, unshielded by our loved ones, but knowing that a safe place and a loving family awaits us when we come home in the evening can temper our heartaches.