By Beck
I just got back from watching a classroom performance of The Three Billy Goats Gruff – my son was a very appropriately gruff-voiced troll, crouched underneath a set of classroom play stairs. The three little goats were three little girls, title of the play to the contrary, and they traipsed over the stairs while my kid bellowed at them. It was terrific entertainment.
I had said that I would bring snacks, which I then forgot about until I was actually walking to school and then I remember in one big panic-tinged rush. Isn’t that the best feeling? So after the play, I quickly threw together a tray of strawberries, “sandwich cookies” (oh, you KNOW the ones I mean) and mini cupcakes, and before I was even able to set out the strawberries, the cupcakes were gone, while the mom who had brought the vegetable tray gave me a bit of a dark look. Then I sat with my grubby, bug-bitten kid and his grubby, bug-bitten friends and listened while they called each other startling words. Golly.
It’s funny to see my children at school, particularily when they don’t know I’m there. There is who a child is when they are with their parents and than this other self, the self they present to their peers, and often there is very little relationship from one to the other. My grumpy oldest child is often praised for her cheerful kindly nature at school, while my sweet, eager-to-please son spends much of his school days in modest trouble. It will be interesting to see how school changes The Baby -and since I am writing this while she throws a prolonged, loud, furious tantrum behind me, I WISH HER TEACHER LUCK WITH THAT.
This shift in behaviours, the difference between one’s babyhood home self and the growing self that you make away from the home, can be sort of haunting, this feeling that someday your child might be largely unknown to you, a stranger who visits a few times a year and leads a life totally separate to your own, someone who rolls their eyes at seeing your number on their phone. I just totally depressed myelf writing that. Yuck. They will get older, though, and cross that bridge into adulthood and my role is changing as they do – from the wistful green field that must be left, to the thing under the bridge that wants them to go back, and finally, hopefully, as this unknown other on the other side, this relationship we might someday have.
Oh I love this.
And Billy Goat’s Gruff was the first of many neighborhood plays I put on growing up… and just yesterday my boys and the neighbor girls started rehearsing for a big Talent Show (for which I am supposed to press Noah’s church suit) and oh it takes me back.
But all that other stuff, I know what you mean.
Steph
That one kid at home and one kid at school thing drives me CRAZY! My son was like your Girl, well, sort of. He was a little bit like your son at school and your girl at home. My daughter is something else altogether. She doesn’t have the personality of her brother the her two sides seem more extreme. She NEVER gets in trouble at school. She isn’t loud. She always listens. Good grief! How I would love some of that at my house! Whenever we talk about her with her teachers, I don’t think they believe that there’s a little more feistiness to her. (She’s had the same teacher’s since kindergarten.) Just this year they’ve seen a little bit more of what we see. They aren’t quite sure what to do with that. It’s kind of funny, actually.
I have been pre-grieving that “growing self” you describe in my daughter as she continues to grow older. It’s been a little bit harder than with my son. Maybe because I know what’s coming. Maybe because I have more worries about the choices she might make. (She LOVES to have fun.) I don’t know. I just know that it is happening–quickly.
And I promise that I usually have better command of the English language than I did in that comment.
“She doesn’t have the personality of her brother the her two sides seem more extreme.”
CORRECT: She doesn’t have the personality of her brother. Her two sides seem more extreme.”
“teacher’s”
CORRECT: teachers
I couldn’t let that go. Geesh.
I worry about that too. I know a lot of men who have little or no relationship with their mothers, and I worry that will happen to me with my sons.
Funny, I’ve been thinking about this very thing recently. I can only hope that the undying love they have for me know will always be.
Have the baby punch a pillow, it helps ;).
That is a bit of a scary thought, isn’t it? With my oldest starting first grade this coming year it is something I have been thinking about a lot lately.
I get those glimpses too, of who my children are when I’m not around. Feeling them become their own people is both thrilling and terrifying. Knowing that some day they will be independent people makes me happy and sad all at once.
I don’t think your kids will ever roll their eyes when they see it’s you calling. Not possible.
I am the Daisy Girl Scout leader. I can’t believe my daughter on those days.
I felt bad about the eye-rolling, too, but then I remembered that I sigh heavily at least half of the times I hear them calling, “M-o-o-o-o-o-m-m-m-m,” so at some point we’ll probably be even.
I used to teach. It was always so funny to share my perception of a child with a shocked parent. “But they are so quiet at home!” I guess they got that all out of their system there then.
But now that it is happening to me, it isn’t quite as funny as I have always been the one who knows them best. And now I won’t.
i hope our troll under the bridge phase is mercifully short
Perhaps I shouldn’t read this on the last day of first grade. I’m going to go weep quietly now.
I have one friend who has an AMAZING relationship with her mom. Same with her sister. They both consider their mom their best friend. That one family helps me hold onto a shred of hope that I, too, can one day be friends with my daughter, and the eye-rolling will be kept to a minimum.
My youngest, who was the loudest, and certainly not afraid of making her wants and needs known at home, was always seen by the teachers as the quietest, shyest one in the class.
Sigh those crossing the bridge to adulthood days have come upon my household, and I have to say though some times were hard I have enjoyed to the journey and hope to continue it my kids as adults.
Oh goodness – that line depressed me too. And I always tell myself it won’t be that way, but we all know the truth…they’re totally gonna roll their eyes when I call. Ugh.
As my daughter has aged (yes, she’s the ripe old age of 14), I’m beginning to feel torn about those days ahead: on the one hand, I want to maintain this close relationship forever! I can make it happen, I know I can. 🙂
On the other, I JUST WANT HER TO BE HAPPY, my restless child.
So, go, restless one, if having a car makes you feel happy and free, go…
and if raising your family in another town makes you feel more like the grown-up you long to be, happy and satisfied, then go…
and if we run out of things to say to one another one day, I will try to remember what it was like to be a busy young mom, happy, content, and whole, and I’ll try to be happy for you, and happy without you, too.
(But everything in moderation, of course.) 🙂
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