My Conversation With A Four-Year-Old
Making the decision to have a child is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body. ~Elizabeth Stone
I heard this quote a few years ago, and since I’ve had children I think it often. Before I had children, I was pretty much dead inside. I wasn’t the emotional type at all. I could watch sad movies all day long and not even shed a tear. Old Yellar…Brian’s Song…nothing.
But now that I have children, all of the bad things in the world just seem so much worse. Sure, I worry about the Big Stuff – cancer, car accidents, etc. But I also worry about little things, like getting picked on at school.
Such worries are probably the underlying motivation for this conversation I had with a 4-year-old girl in my daughter’s daycare class last week.
(I’m not proud of this exchange, by the way):
Satan’s Spawn (Pointing at my daughter): She’s always staring at me.
Me: Really? (Not really caring – just trying to help my daughter into her jacket so we can leave. As usual, we’re in a hurry. This time, it’s to meet my husband at work for a family event at NTC).
Satan’s Spawn: Yeah, she’s always looking at me. Maybe she likes me.
Me: Yeah, maybe she just wants to be your friend.
Satan’s Spawn: Yeah, because I’m really cute. But I can’t be her friend because her nose is messy.
Me: (Looking at my kid’s runny nose – the result of a cold she’s had the past couple of weeks – then looking back at Satan’s Spawn with a withering look, and saying with a little too much attitude): Well, doesn’t your nose run when you get sick?
Satan’s Spawn (sheepishly): Uhh…no?
Me (loudly as we walk away): “Come on, Sweetie. We have to get going so we’re not late to the really fun party at Daddy’s work.”
I wasn’t often a target of meanies and bullies growing up, but it must have happened often enough to create some sort of latent anxiety that flared up when Satan’s Spawn criticized my daughter.
I do remember having trouble standing up for myself as a kid, so it is interesting to note that somewhere in the past 30 years, I have found my voice. But next time, I should probably pick on someone my size.