"She Knows What She Needs"
Another life lesson brought to me by my daughter, who is clearly wiser than me.
“I don’t want to compete with anyone.”
This was my daughter’s soft refrain as I read her the descriptions of an array of summer camps. Every time one of them mentioned something about a competition, she shook her head. I tried cupcake wars, as she is currently addicted to The Great British Bake Off, but no. Cake hurts her stomach, and she just wants to make them on her own, not with a team. What about a fashion camp where you get to create dress designs with your group and then compete for Best Design? Hard no.
Soccer camp? No.
Backstage theater camp? Me: “But, you’re not even on the stage. You learn what goes on back stage.” Her: No.
Baking wars of any kind? No.
After about an hour of this, we finally constructed a rigorous algorithm of a primary choice and secondary choice for each week of summer camp we need to cover this year. I realize it’s January and that summer is six months away, but we live in the nation’s capital, and that means that competition is squarely involved in everything…even summer camp registration.
On Tuesday, February 3rd, I will logon to the Parks and Recreation registration site and hit refresh repeatedly until the portal for the “Green Zone” opens at 9:00am (The Blue Zone is February 5th, in case you were wondering.) At that point, I will frantically enter the ridiculously long combination of numbers and digits for the codes of her most desired camps and pray I can get them all in my cart before they either fill up or the system times out.
It is the Hunger Games of summer camp, the quintessential competition. Can you secure the cheapest childcare available for your kid faster than every other parent in the greater DMV who is salivating at 9am - 4pm coverage for under $500 a week?
You must be savvy. You must have a game plan. You must have an exceptional internet connection. You must have the flexibility to be in front of a computer at precisely 9am on a pre-ordained day. You must have a working credit card and a hefty limit. The deck is stacked, for sure. It almost always is.
Part of me wanted to scream at my daughter, “Why must you be so difficult?!?” because, as is so often the case, my daughter’s personality gets in the way of my convenience. The other part of me sat in silent reflection. Why do so many of these camps involve competition? Is my child the only one who just wants to make cupcakes (or maybe just icing) and bead bracelets by herself without the pressure of having her creations judged by a room full of strangers?
My mother often told me that she hoped I would have a daughter just like me. I always understood that there was both a compliment and a warning in that. Little did she know, however, that I would have a daughter who was absolutely my mini in stubbornness, intelligence, and self-awareness, but entirely the opposite in every other way. And maybe she knew, although I don’t know how, that that’s exactly the kind of daughter I would need to teach me so many of the things my determined, self-assured, ball-buster self would otherwise never learn.
For so much of the past two years, I have been frustrated with my daughter, exasperated at how her anxiety gets in the way of such basic things…like choosing what she wants to eat for breakfast. She certainly has strong opinions about what she wants in every other aspect of her life, so why is breakfast so fucking hard? I’m frustrated with how slowly she moves, the coaxing and planning and preparation required to get her to do something new, her reticence to do anything, try anything, even explore anything outside of her comfort zone.
But, you know what, frustration hasn’t helped me a whole heckuva lot as a parent. It leaves me exhausted, angry with myself, and disassociated from her. And it leaves her feeling worse about herself, unmoored in her relationship with me, and even more resolute in her desire to do only the things she knows, the things that are safe.
So, I’ve been trying to wait out the frustration, to see if I can hold off from saying or doing with the initial surge, instead just sitting still until the simmer subsides. I cannot escape feeling that rush of rage, that much I know, but I can wait it out. And when I do, I often find on the other side is some realization that makes me recognize she is my antidote to what this world has done to me.
When I don’t know what I’m doing, ie. parenting, I typically seek out someone who does and sit at their feet for awhile in case some dregs of wisdom might fall my way. When a friend shared the “Raising Boys and Girls” podcast with me, I was hesitant. A podcast by two Christian therapists on parenting? If I wanted to know how poorly I was doing, my daughter would surely tell you without the investment of a 32-min podcast, thank you very much. But, I persevered, and now I find I can get past the Jesus-speak because what they have to say lands every…single…time.
They are starting this new year with a series on what kids today need socially, emotionally, physically, spiritually, and culturally. That’s interesting and all, but what caught me was when they shared why they are doing this series.
“We’re seeing parents abdicate to experts more than ever, and many of those experts aren’t helping. In 30+ years of counseling kids and families, we’ve never been more concerned about kids…about parents.”
Holy shit! You mean I am not the only one screwing this up on the reg? You mean my kid is not the only one struggling with basic stuff like making friends, navigating teasing, and going to summer camp? And, the people we’ve been paying to help us fix this may not know what they’re doing either?
It’s miraculous what validation will do for a soul.
My daughter has consistently become my best teacher, when I let her be. But, like most of us, I often have to hear things multiple times from different sources before it fully sinks in. The Universe is masterful at helping me out with a conflagration of the same point sent via different mediums all within a short period of time, so when I heard this stated concern emanating from Dave and Sissy, the hosts of the podcast, it hit me so hard what my daughter had been trying to tell me with her head shake and soft “No.”
I don’t need another place to be performative. I need a place where I can be myself.
I don’t want to spend my whole summer trying to navigate team dynamics. I want to marvel at my own masterpiece.
I don’t care about being first. I’m scared I’m going to be last.
I sat with that for awhile. My daughter, not resisting, just speaking her truth.
David and Sissy are right; It doesn’t require the input of an expert to understand what my daughter needs from me. As her teachers tell us regularly, “She knows what she needs.” I just have to freaking listen.
But, how is it that at seven-and-a-half, she knows what she needs AND can articulate it better than I can? Why do I find myself over and over shoving her into a world full of competition, surface level engagement, and performative pressure? Why do I do it to myself too? Especially when what I want for her, and myself, is community, creativity, and connection.
We’re taught to crave competition, to strive to be first, that hard work pays off, and winning begets winners. However, we are also taught that we are all friends, everyone’s a winner, trying is enough, and patience is perfection. WTF?!? Which one is it? Were we just lying about the second list as we fake nice to the folks we know will never make the first? Or is the second list what we wish for, and the first what’s expected of us?
I honestly don’t know. I am not a competitive person by nature, but I will damn sure pray for a Cox internet shutdown to half of the Green Zone if it means I get my kid into her top three summer camps. My competitive spirit is born of necessity, not nature. But there’s no joy in it. When I finally close the camp registration page, I don’t feel triumph at beating out other hard-working parents who are just trying to find an affordable, safe place for their kids to spend the summer. I feel relief. And disgust. It shouldn’t have to be like this.
I think what my daughter knows that I often forget is that it doesn’t have to be like this.
We can create the environment in which we want to live, operate, and love.
We can put voice to our own needs even when they are in conflict with someone else’s convenience.
We can risk losing the battle so that there is no need for war at all.
Assuming the Hunger Games ends in my favor on February 3rd, I am going to be driving my happy ass all over the DMV to take my daughter to her preferred, non-competitive camps this summer.
I hope I catch myself before I grumble. I hope I recall that I have the privilege of Driving Miss Daisy, the wise will-be woman who is unperturbed by what society expects of her, who makes her needs known, and who reminds me daily that we are the architects of our lives.
I hope when she hops in the car at the end of the day, a big smile on her face, her entirely self-constructed creations littering the back seat, that I will remember that this is what it looks like to choose joy.
So GOOD. You are so lucky to have her. And she, you. I was jealous of her for having you. Because you think, struggle, ponder, get irritated and can own all of that. Because you're curious and take parenting seriously. Because you have a sense of. humor and a wry intellect. And she? Your seven and a half year old. She knows the answer. I love this post. It's beautiful.