I know first-hand how cruel kids can be. Don't we all, really? There's no magic protection from it, either. Kids are teased and bullied in public schools and private schools, for being too tall or too short, too fat or too thin, too unattractive or too attractive, too smart or too dumb - there is absolutely no formula or combination of traits that will spare you from that part of childhood. I survived it. Everyone I know survived it. But now I'm a parent. And I suddenly don't know HOW we survive it... I just have to be there to pick Nancy back up and nudge her forward when she is subjected to rejection, cruelty, and hurt. I have never had my heart broken so badly as to watch some outside force that I can't control swoop in and pluck a little piece of my precious girl's joy. To be helpless that you can't stop it, wise enough to know you shouldn't, brave enough to encourage her forward, and strong enough to hide your own pain. She's not the only one who has to be fortified... I'll be going through that cycle on her behalf for the rest of my life.
Nancy is incredibly sensitive. I am, too. My hope for her is to achieve a balance in life that I find most artists are forced to achieve: you have to be sensitive enough to empathize, emote, to absorb the complexities of humanity and reflect it; but, simultaneously, you have to be tough enough to endure rejection and ridicule, and persevere. Humans are ego-centric beings, and empathy has to be learned, and just a quick glance at the headlines or scan across the internet shows me we are not doing a good job teaching it in the here and now.
In "safe" places, like school, church groups, and parentally-arranged playdates - places where the kids, and their families, are familiar to you - , we have had a few forays into conflict resolution and instances of not bonding, or taking, to another child, and vice versa. Right now, she is at an awkward age. She is so advanced, in both her intellect and her emotional maturity, that she seems years older than kids her own age. But kids that are even just 2-3 years older than her are WAY too "cool" to include her. She likes dinosaurs and trains and cars and Legos and sword-fighting and pirates, but has great difficulty bonding with boys at this age, mostly because she is uber-girlie to the boys. In one rather humorous instance, at a church weekly playgroup, the mom with three boys age 4 and under had to remove them early and forcibly. Nancy sat next to one of the moms in the quiet after, and said, "I have a book about arctic animals. I sawded a snow hare, that's fancy for bunny. He's white and he camouflages in the snow. (Pause) I like to talk to grown-ups." So that is what she does, for the most part.
And yet, she was very popular in her preschool in Chicago, with everyone. The things her teacher reported back made me absolutely beam with pride. She interacted with all the kids, she was especially kind to ones who needed attention the most, and she was a positive role model. On her last day, her teacher told me, "There are going to be a lot of sad kiddos next week. They're not going to know who to follow..."
Here with me while I work this job out of town, we are struggling. She doesn't have regular contact with other kids. The only regular contact she has is me and her babysitter. We are living in the heart of a very kid-UN-friendly town, and our resources and transportation options are limited. So I take every opportunity I can to get her to places where she'll encounter other kids. But that means going into "unsafe" places, like playgrounds, festivals, and malls - places where the kids are unfamiliar and you just have to be prepared for any number of situations to arise. Today, at the mall, was one of the worst situations we've had to deal with so far.
Usually, in the "unsafe" places, the common situation is kids who exclude her. And she is sensitive to that, and I have to do damage control reassuring her of how likable and wonderful she is. Today was the first of its kind... Nancy was playing on her own in the mall play area, and as new kids came in, she would engage them in her play. Eventually, she was playing with two boys, both younger than her. The older of the two looked to be around four. At one point, she'd climbed up on the top of the play structure with the two boys making animal growling noises at her from below, and monster sounds and roars, stuff like that. Nancy sat atop the piece, and declared, "Nothing scares me off!" And I smiled. Then the older of the boys climbed up beside her. He proceeded to push her down, still growling, hawked a loogie and spit on her, pinned her to the ground, and punched her in the head full force with his fist. When Nancy is embarrassed or upset, the waterworks comes after some hesitation. Not today. She was hurt, and she started crying on impact. And I leapt up from my seat, rushed over to her, looked that boy right in the eyes and said, "HEY!" That got his grandfather up, who was not paying attention to any of this. I turned to him and said, "He hit her." The grandfather stayed on the outside of the structure, and told the boy to apologize. The boy came closer to Nancy and said, "Sorry." And this is when I had to flip into the parts of the cycle. Inside, I was livid. I wanted to punch that punk kid in the head for hurting my baby. But I calmly told Nancy the boy apologized and she needed to accept his apology. Which she did. I took her aside to calm her down, and make sure she wasn't showing any visible signs of physical damage. But out of the corner of my eye, I see grandpa sit back down and the boy is back to running around the playground growling - like nothing happened. And inside, I'm even more livid. Now I want to punch grandpa in the head for not taking the initiative to use this as a teaching moment for that boy, for not assigning consequences to his actions. I asked Nancy if she wanted to play some more, and she says no. I told her she doesn't have to stop playing because of the boy, that she has as much right as everyone else to be on that playground. She nods okay, and heads back into the play area, but at the sight of the boy, crawls into a tunnel, pulls her knees to her chest, and starts to cry again. I called for her and she came to me, and I reiterated to her she had the right to play but that she didn't have to play anymore if she didn't want to. She got her shoes, and we left. And neither the grandpa nor the boy even glanced up at us as we walked away.
I bought Nancy a pretzel, and I told her I was proud of her for the way she handled herself. I said, "You stood up to them bravely, but then when he hit you, you didn't hit him back and you accepted his apology. We can't control other people's actions, only our own. You did an awesome job." She said, "Thanks, Mom." When we reconvened at the company car, she told the story to my coworkers. I sat silently, thinking back over things, wondering if I did enough. Should I have been more forceful towards the grandpa? Did I stand up for her enough? Am I encouraging her to be too passive by teaching her not to retaliate, and to accept an apology?
Ultimately, in this society, in this here and now, what is the incentive for empathy?
When we got home, I sat in a chair and said, "Nancy, come here for a second, I want to talk to you." She came over and stood in between my legs so I could hold her around the shoulders and look at her face to face. I said, "Do you know how much I love you? You make me SO proud to be your mom. You are an amazing human being and I believe you are going to be someone very important some day. VERY important. And truly important people treat EVERYONE with kindness, and respect. That's why you are learning about the Golden Rule now, so you will always remember to treat other people that way you hope to be treated. Do you understand?" "Yes, Mommy."
Helpless that I can't stop it, wise enough to know I shouldn't, brave enough to encourage her forward, and strong enough to hide my own pain. She's not the only one who has to be fortified...
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