Two stories about not helping, listening, and learning to just be.
Buttoning a shirt
Julian would like me to help him get dressed. He picks his favorite red and black plaid flannel shirt, the one his Nana sent him last fall, that he wears at least three days a week. He likes that he can slide his thumbs through the sleeve plackets, the openings just above the cuffs, and wear it like a hand warmer. We put on his underwear and rainbow leggings first. Next is a striped long sleeve t-shirt with a myriad of well-washed stains. Finally, the flannel. He says he wants to do it himself, so I hand it over, but then he holds his arms out for help get his arms through. I slide the arms in one by one, and start to button. “No, HELP ME,” he says. “I am,” I say, and ask if he wants to do it himself. “No, help me the RIGHT way.” I ask him what the right way is, but at this point he is scrunching up his nose with proverbial steam coming out of the ears. “Stop being so rude,” he says, his phrase of the week. I am exasperated and it is obvious. I walk away but it’s time to go to school. Jacob comes over to help and he shrilly screams at Jacob that he needs space. The buttons are still not buttoned.
Eventually, the right way to help comes out: he wanted me to stand there, in silence, offering no help, observing him while he buttoned the five buttons, one-by-one, starting from the bottom all the way up to the top. I wasn’t supposed to offer to help, or talk, or leave. I was just supposed to be. My. Bad.
Ice Skating
On Saturday we went ice skating at Lakeside Rink in Prospect Park. Ada was a zealot and hardly wanted to spend a minute off the ice, despite it being only her third time ice skating, and probably her first time without a support aid of any kind. As we finished our 90-minute session Ada immediately asked if we could come back the next day. Jacob and I gave our semi-committed, ambiguous response of, “we’ll talk about it,” and then ignored the topic for the rest of the day hoping she would forget.
Ada never forgets anything, so on Sunday, after lunch, she asked when we were going. Jacob suggested I take Ada alone, a plan she endorsed for its singular attention from me. We got to the rink 45 minutes before our allotted session and Ada waited by the rink doors, staring down the Zamboni with the fiendishness of a coyote staring at a piece of meat. She was first on the slick, wet ice.
She insisted I hold her hand for the first five or so loops. Every few, she’d take a spill, sometimes whipping me around, and other times losing her balance such that I would distort by body and lunge to catch her. At first she was grateful, but also exclaimed, to nobody in particular, “Why do I keep falling? I’m horrible.” My reassurances that she was doing great for day four of ice skating were met with irritation. “Stop saying that. You’re wrong.”
Fifteen minutes later she wanted to move on from holding hands. “Now I’ll skate here and you skate next to me on the left. Don’t hold my hand.” I proceeded to follow her because it seemed easier to break a fall, and also because it was crowded on the ice. “NO, stand HERE. Next to me,” she corrected. I tried to follow course.
45 minutes in, she was peak annoyed at me. At this point I had suggested she adjust the angle of her foot, or pause on the side of the rink. I suggested we stop and have some water or a snack to combat her frustration and the visible pain from her many falls. I suggested it might be ok to take a break and the normalcy of falling and it taking a long time to learn.
This enraged her.
“Can you JUST HELP ME?”
I assumed my designated position as slightly-to-the-left-non-holding-support-mother and followed her around the ice. We did ten loops in silence and then she at last asked for a short break. We read two chapters of Heartwood Hotel while sitting on a bench in the rain and then she asked to go back on the ice. She asked if I’d help her the same way I’d helped her just before we got off for the break. “Like, don’t hold my hand and just be quiet and don’t catch me,” she said. “It helps me learn.”
//
I heard on a Dr. Becky podcast once that it’s frustrating to children that adults are so capable. That watching a parent zip up a jacket, tie their shoes, deftly put on gloves, or ice skate, is an implicit statement of better-ness that a parent often doesn’t know they are making. That a way to support a kid is to make visible their own need for help—to struggle to tie your own boot boot, to clumsily attempt to mend a sock, to admit and flail about not knowing how to draw a cat. That a parent watching a kid struggle while sitting on the capable sidelines is an exercise in learned patience and restraint, but a kid watching a parent struggle is a form of comfort.
Recommendations for the kids:
Play + Invent: This Brio Creative Builders set was the hit gift of Christmas, coming in with 271 gears, nuts, bolds, pulleys, knobs, blocks, wheels, axles and more to make any invention-vehicle-machine your heart desires.
Camomile London makes gorgeous (adult and) child bed linens that look like they’re made for dollhouses.
Books in Heavy Rotation: What is Love? the new book by Carson Ellis + Mac Barnett, Once Upon an Alphabet by Oliver Jeffers, and When I am Bigger by Maria Dek . Ada’s enjoying staying up late reading these chapter books: Heartwood Hotel: A True Home by Kallie George, the Clementine series by Sara Pennypacker, and the Ruby and the Booker Boys series by Derrick D. Barnes.
Watch: The new feature-length Hilda and the Mountain King movie (Netflix), based on the graphic novel by Luke Pearson.
Recommendations for the grown-ups:
Read: I just finished (inhaled) Crossroads by Jonathan Franzen, 580 pages of dysfunctional family, moral quandaries, religion, siblinghood, parent-child dynamics, aspiration, and love. Also finished Peter Ho Davies heartbreaking memoir-ish novel, A Lie Someone Told You About Yourself, about parenthood and loss from the POV of a writer dad.
Base layers: It’s mid-January and below freezing so who doesn’t love talking about base layers. Yes, they’re expensive. Yes, they work. This top from Smartwool will last you forever. They rarely need washing. For bottoms I go for the $20 heattech leggings from Uniqlo. Not merino wool level but highly affordable and do the job. You can also get the splurgey bottoms.
Newsletter: Motherloving, Maggie Pouncey’s new newsletter about motherhood, books and much more. (Pouncey was the owner, with her husband, of the beloved children’s bookshop Stories, which closed last year).
Shower better: Upped my shower game with Sisters Body Wash, which has just a bit of vetiver and lemon and with all this omicron stress you deserve it.
Bar accessories: This Hawkins Brass Cocktail shaker was my xmas gift to Jacob and it’s getting lots of use and looks classy on the shelf.
Personal plug: It’s a new year and I have space for a new client or two starting in February. I offer both career and leadership coaching, and advise companies on product and content strategy. Most of my clients make things for parents, kids, or families. Be in touch if that’s you or someone you know!
Otherwise, happy second week of January. May the week be as un-stressful as possible.