Marveling at the Young Woman She Has Become

Couches and fireplace.  That is our criteria on this cold, unusually drizzly winter Saturday afternoon in Johannesburg as we decide which coffee shop to cozy up in for our delicious women time.    I am with my beloved heart friends, Zed and Tanya, and my 9 year-old daughter, Quince, in tow.     

Lucky Bean in Melville wins.  We order lattes and cappuccinos, extra hot.  Zed huddles by the fire, Quince and Tanya on the couch, me in the comfy chair.  We relax into ourselves and into each other’s company.  I start us off and ask for some input into the new title for my blog (I really am a one-trick pony these days.)  Tanya and Zed listen, ask questions.  Quince is occupied, writing in her book, working on her own blog.

Suddenly – I didn’t even know she was listening - she pops her head up and offers her idea for what my blog should be called.     We three grown-up women listen fully, letting her know by our attention that she is someone worth listening to, her ideas matter, consciously nurturing her 9 year-old girl confidence.  This is not new.   I have watched my friends before give my young girl this gift of adult respectful attention and I am grateful to them for that.

However, this time there is something new.  For me, anyway.  Quince is 9.  Her ideas don’t always make that much sense or aren’t necessarily all that well formulated.   But this time her idea is interesting, thoughtful and she explains it well.  So as she is talking and we are listening, I am moved.  Moved enough for my eyes to well up with tears.  I am moved because I get a little glimpse of a future with an older Quince.  A Quince who is no longer a girl, no longer just a daughter-in-tow, but a young woman, holding her own in these conversations. 

I watched this happen with my niece, now 25.  A slow, gradual, almost magical shift.   A shift from the days when we waited till she left the room to discuss the hard things, to today where she is invited in, her opinions sought, valued. 

I love my time with my girl now. But I am also really looking forward to this magical shift, to being with her amongst other women, listening to her, marveling at the young woman she has become.  

Growing Up With My Thirteen Year-Old Son

The conversation starts out innocuously enough.  Playful banter actually.  I am complaining, which I hardly ever do, about the puppies to Quince and Alexander.  I joke, “Don’t think when you grow up and leave this house, the dogs are staying with me.  Each of you will take one with you. And then we’ll work out a joint custody arrangement where you switch every week.”  Alexander jumps in, “Oh shame, they’ll have to go back and forth from a huge house to a shack.”  We joke about who will be living in the shack and who owns the huge house. 

Then Morals Mommy  can’t help herself, can’t stay with the lightness, can’t resist the opportunity to do a little values teaching.  “Now, guys, you know it isn’t money that really makes you happy.  It will be feeling like you are contributing to making the world better.”   And barely into teenhood Alexander can’t resist the pushback.  “Why do I have to help the world?  I just wanna make myself happy.  What has the world ever done for me?”   WHAT?!!  Are you kidding me??!!   Blam, he’s hooked me, like a fish on his line.    My blood pressure rockets.

 Fortunately, before I can retort with indignation at his ignorance and entitlement, Quince oblivious to the shift in mood, says, “I am going to be an artist.”  Alexander, smelling that he has drawn blood, smirks and says disdainfully, “And how does that contribute to making the world a better place?”  My cue.   I launch in. Only I don’t remember what I said, because I had barely begun my impassioned tirade about the all important role of art in a healthy civilization, when Alexander stops me in my tracks.  Looking straight at me he goes for the kill, “Mommy, when I look at art. . . it makes me want to vomit.”

I am absolutely speechless with fury. So I employ the most grown-up of strategies when you disagree with someone.  I turn and walk out of the room.  

Although in general I don’t want to teach my children to walk out when things get heated – in fact, I’m very invested in learning with them how to stay in the fire – in this case, it probably was the best thing.   Upstairs, as my blood pressure lowers and  I replay the conversation, I begin to understand it as the work of a 13 year-old boy needing to separate from his mommy, a boy on the path to develop his own identity.  Apparently, this process necessitates spitting big teenage lougies on all I hold near and dear. 

Eish.   I am not, AT ALL, a praying person.  But some things require unusual measures.  Universe, going forward, please give me the strength to not bite when my bright boy casts out that line, barbed hook on the end, begging me to chomp.   Let it drop down harmlessly while I maintain the smiling, peaceful air of the Buddha.