But Camille is Camille. At nearly ten, she is incredibly confident. She doesn't care what people think of her quirks. She has two close friends and she's pretty content with those two. I used to feel like I had to push her to have more but these relationships are both rich and good for her. The two girls understand Camille and accept her. What more can you ask for in friends? Certainly not a need for more especially when Camille is content.
Piper, however, is not content. Piper loves people and she wants a lot of friends. But other kids don't seem to like Piper. She has two good friends as well and again they are wonderful girls (in fact one girl is the sister to one of Camille's friends). Piper loves them but she wants more. She is not content to go to park days and read if none of her friends are present. She wants to play to be involved. And she gets rejected a lot.
I used to tell her "Piper you have to be friendly if you want people to be friendly back. Talk to the kids. Put yourself out there." Then she did at a park day a couple of weeks ago and the girl she spoke to ignored her and walked away with what Piper described as a "nasty look." Talk about your bad parenting moment. I knew that what I had told her wasn't true. Sometimes you can be the nicest person in the world and people will still treat you like dirt. But here I had held that out to my daughter as truism. A sweet platitude.
Piper's anxiety has exploded over this. We've had a few issues that I won't fully disclose but let's just say "NOT FUN FOR MOM AND DAD." She's started to be scared of the dark again too. I think it's because she cannot fully articulate the question "What's wrong with me?" Piper isn't like Camille. She doesn't have that self-confidence to just be herself. Sometimes I feel like I failed her. I am worried that all my own insecurities about friendships have effected her. The times I cried because I felt pushed out of mom's circles. The quiet voicing to H that I had said a bunch of dumb things and was convinced that everyone hated me. I know Piper has seen me sitting alone at Park Days while the other mom's gather in different groups. I wonder if she has internalized all those things. And I feel like I should just sign up for worst mom of the year.
H is more practical about this. He says "People are jerks and we shouldn't be telling her to put herself out there. We should be telling her that sometimes people are assholes and they're mean." And I know he's right (without the asshole part of course) but it's sad to that to my funny bright girl. It hurts me deeply that she experiences so much rejection, and again I am not sure where this hurt is mine and where it is hers. I think she's lovely of course. I can see how she puts a grumpy defense at times, and shuts people out before they can get close. But I also see her so excited to share something with someone and see that someone shut her down. I see how she's creative both with pictures and words. She has a lovely smile and a sweet nature. I want to shake the little girls who are mean to her and say "What the hell is wrong with you? This is a wonderful person before you."
I wonder why she can't be happy with her two friends whom she loves and who love her.
Mostly I feel helpless because this pain is so close to my own experience. I don't know how to help Piper because I never learned how to help myself. This is the hard part about parenting. The not knowing. The stumbling because you never learned. I don't know how to see the world as Camille and Horacio do. I am not effortlessly popular as Umberto is. I am like Piper. I try too hard, and then lash out when rejected. I cry even now when I think people hate me. I can never a social gathering without agonizing later about everything I said and did. And now I am at 40 trying to figure out a way to reach past my own hurt, my on ineptitude at handling rejection to help my sweet girl be stronger. This is when parenting becomes about taking those roads unknown even to yourself and wondering if at this age one can map a new route.
3 comments:
I feel so much of this as well. It is such a bummer, how parenting takes our flaws and anxieties and holds them up in the mirror, isn't it??? On the flip side of that, however, is the fact that when Piper grows up, no one will understand her like you do. It is the connection you have with your family, and that'll help her get through her trials and tribulations, I'm sure.
Well, I'm also that mom all alone at the park :)
Can you go to the park with one of Piper's friends? That way she won't care much if no one else comes to play with them. And perhaps, other kids would like to join them when they see them playing. My girls don't usually like to be approached by other kids they don't know but still they are nice and play with them. However, I find that they feel more at ease. more comfortable when they are playing at the park on their own as other kids are and then start exchanging comments until they decide to play together. Or can you register her at a gym or other class where she can be with other kids having fun and perhaps make some friends? Weren't they at scouts?
I think we're all guilty of this. You've been a mommy way longer than I have, and you're frankly likely much better at it than I am. But there are times when I see Issa mirroring my own perfectionism, and it makes me cringe. I put so much pressure on myself to be the best, do the best job, try the hardest. I don't want her to be as tightly wound as I am. I don't want her to feel like a failure if she gets a 90 instead of a 100 on a homework assignment. You don't want Piper to feel the sting of rejection or to take it as harshly as you have. But some of ourselves winds up in our kids. I think it's the nurture part. We nurture them and as we do bits of our personalities rub off on them, good and bad. But we can help them through the bad parts because we've already been there. Maybe that's the silver lining....
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