A Mother-Daughter Tango

We just walked out of a restaurant with K screaming and crying. I wanted to assure all the other patrons that she’s not normally like this… she’s really delightful, usually. Disregard the tears, the yelling, and the snot, please. And Kathryn, please stop making a scene – everyone is looking. 

Let’s live our lives according to the script our culture has created for us. Or, at least the one that “looks” good. You know, the one that makes us look like we’re parents who have it all together and are doing a phenomenal job at raising our one child (I am still impressed by parents with multiple children who are able to get anywhere on time). It’s the scene where our daughter quietly and neatly eats her food, stays seated until we are ready to leave, and smiles sweetly at the elderly women sitting at the table next to us. 

Fit the part. 

I’ve never been really good at this. 

In some ways, Kathryn’s breakdown can feel a lot like how I want to live my life. A little like, “Listen people… I’m tired. I haven’t taken my nap all week, I don’t really understand the world yet or why things happen the way they do, and I just want what I want when I want it.”  

It’s sometimes alarming how often I can relate to an almost-three-year-old. 

But we carry on. As we get older, we get better at concealing the things the world tells us to hide. We get better at showing only what we think they want to see, what they’ll accept. Our audience grows larger and impossibly hard to please, because somewhere, somehow…there’s always a critic. And, perhaps over time, our largest critic becomes ourselves. 

She teaches me something about owning our messiness, our rawness. She reminds me that maybe it’s okay to not have it all together… to be human. That even 38-year-olds don’t really understand the world yet or why things happen the way they do. And sometimes, when things don’t go how we expected or planned, it’s pretty normal to be upset about it. 

And together, we get to learn that life goes on. Even when we don’t get to listen to Cocomelon in the car again, or when we have to put on our shoes to ride a bike. Perspectives shift when we get a glimpse of what is around the corner, when time passes, when the world isn’t actually over. 

I was watching Kathryn the other day laugh and play, unaware and unconcerned with how her body looks. Instead, she marvels about how “big girl” she is and what her body can do. She can jump far, ride her bike with training wheels, stand on her head, run so very fast… She laughs with joy when she catches a glimpse of herself in the mirror. 

In these ways, I wish I were more like my three-year-old. It’s how I think we’re meant to be. Less bothered by the deepening wrinkles, more carefree about how I present myself each day. 

It pains my heart to know there will come a day when the simplicity and purity of her worldview will become convoluted and broken. Instead of a great appreciation for all that her body is capable of, she will instead (if history is any indication) be deeply consumed by how it looks, convinced it’s the thing that matters most about herself. Again, the script of our culture will eventually write itself onto the heart of an unassuming child, robbing her of an innocence she will never get back. She makes me want to fight against the current, to swim upstream despite the river’s force.

When her little mind doesn’t know how to find the words to say what she wants or needs, I often wonder what I do when I feel the same way. I’m past the point where hitting or yelling will suffice, but what do I do when we can’t verbalize all that lies just below the surface? How do we, as adults, cope? How do we interact with those around us? What did we learn was a safe way to process? Did we ever learn how to process, how to communicate? 

There is a lot to be gleaned in these days of toddler-hood. 

Lots that I can learn about myself and my own views of the world. Lots she can teach me about and remind me of – ways I can be more confident and sure of myself in a way that models the same for this little shadow of mine. Ways to reflect on my own coping mechanisms and processing of the events that unfold around me. 

It’s a cyclical pattern, of course.

I learn by watching her discover the world, and she learns by watching how I respond, hearing how I talk. 

It’s a beautiful dance, this dance of motherhood. 

Infuriatingly mesmerizing. 

One step at a time, figuring out a mother-daughter sequence that works for us, in an unknown world. Defined by love, one million (and more) of those second chances, and a whole lot of grace.