Chronicles of Chaos

January 20, 2009 | Print

Powerlessness

Amelia takes a craft and sewing class on Saturday afternoons. Girls and some moms sit around tables sewing and beading, with a teacher helping us through the confusing parts and polishing projects at the end so they don’t fall apart.

I’m not crafty by nature. Michael often stays with the boys while I use Amelia’s class time to read magazines at the gym. As a kid, I liked hook rugs–lying on my pink bedspread matching pieces of yellow yarn to a lion’s head painted on scratchy hook rug fabric. I still prefer coloring in the lines, so when Amelia invites me to join her for class one day I bead a small star with an alternating pattern.

A school friend of Amelia’s happens to be at class as a guest of another girl. She and Amelia are thrilled to see each other. For adult reasons, the girl is in the midst of changing schools and they haven’t talked in a week. The girls sit side by side on the bench sewing and chatting. Gossiping really, in its second grade form.

I witness this aspect of my daughter more and more, the separate Amelia. We come to the party together and then she leaves me at the punch bowl. I believe she appreciates my presence, while wondering whether she’d notice if I left. My response is to become an anthropologist. I observe, noting the kids’ personalities, the dynamics of relationships, especially hearing the phrases Amelia’s learned from me and says with her own cadence.

This children’s world feels separate, with its own independent shape. Part of theirs overlaps with mine, but a big part remains just for them. When I’m lucky, and perhaps less and less as they get older, I listen and watch from the side.

As the class ends, Amelia and her friend approach me holding hands. I think, uh oh, a united front. Amelia explains that her friend hasn’t heard about their other classmate’s birthday party tomorrow. They think it would be a good idea for Amelia to bring her friend as a guest–If her friend can be a guest at crafting class, she can be a guest at a birthday party that she likely is invited to anyway.

I feel their hopeful eyes searching my face.

I try to look back with the same honesty, as I quickly review the truths I must hide. The friend most likely has been invited to the party in a phone call from the birthday girl’s mom just as we received (the three girls are close). My sense is the friend’s mom is in a tough position with the school change and perhaps decided to ease the transition by limiting her daughter’s exposure to old school friends. Unfortunately, the friend now knows there’s a party, and believes she wasn’t invited.

And I get to tell her she can’t come as a guest. I’m the asshole representative of parental best intentions appointed to dash young children’s great ideas–the “waahh-waah-waah” in Charlie Brown’s Christmas.

So I say, that sounds like a great idea, girls. Everyone would love to see you both at the party. The only thing is I bet the moms will want to talk about it, so why don’t I call [birthday girl's] mom and you can talk to your mom and then they can talk and work it all out. I’m so glad you girls got to play together today, and we’d love to have you over at our house soon too.

The girls are now looking at the floor, they turn towards each other, still holding hands. Amelia mumbles, “Okay, mom.” Her friend looks up at me as if she’s been hearing a few of these stories lately.

As I watch them, I’m suddenly struck by children’s powerlessness. How hard it is to have the creativity to make a plan, and know the adult world can wash you out at any moment. I realize the significance of honoring their ideas in a whole different way. I loved that space under the ping pong table where my best friend and I played Yahtzee for hours. When our stomachs grumbled we’d run into the kitchen saying please, please, please can we go to Hamburger Henry for dinner?! Most nights the answer was no, but when her mom smiled and said yes, it felt tremendous–like winning the eight year old lottery.

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