A Purple Heart

I’ve heard people say having kids is like wearing your heart on your sleeve. And today for me, that was the case. I was doing pretty well with P. out of town and the days before me of solo parenting stretching out. In fact I have gotten it down to a system. I work babysitter breaks in for myself and try and make sure I get some writing time in and yoga and pray for some time with a good girlfriend or two—the last not always working out because of the family demands we all seem to be under with the littles.

I was doing well until I picked my oldest, F., up at kindergarten. He got in the car not his cheerful self, and asked when he was going to have a playdate. (Playdates—what a construction of safety parenting! I balk a bit at them because when I grew up we played with the neighborhood kids and occasionally had a friend from school over, now it is all about the playdates; parents orchestrating friendships. And the reason I balk? Well, I have seen the long term outcome when I worked at a few universities in my previous life. I witnessed kids not being able to work out their problems with their roommates without a parent intervening or another adult they were so use to this friendship management that they lacked the confidence, tools and resolve to do it themselves.) Needless to say, I participate in these social norms of today, and F. has not had a playdate in a few weeks, which feels like forever to him. I told him maybe Friday as a mother had inquired about having F. over to play with her Boy x. F. perked up at this.

We arrived home and F.’s cheeriness dissolved again when we walked in the door and our golden retrievers greeted him and accidentally knocked papers out of his pack. Immediate tears sprung. I chided him a bit, “F. this is not something to throw a tantrum about,” as he cried and yelled at the dogs: “No one is being nice to me!” He took off his coat and ran up the stairs to his bed. I followed him and he broke down in wholehearted sobs. I held him. He finally confessed, “Boy x is not nice to me at school. I tried talking to him a few times at school today and he kept a serious face and did not respond except for once.”

Now, Boy x F. has regular playdates with… and has had some problems with him in the past at school. It seems Boy x is one way in the solo company of my son, and another at school. Mama bear in me comes out when I think about it. We’ve talked about friends and how a true blue friend is consistent not one way in one situation and another way in a different place. Put in kindergarten terms not hot and cold…and then discussed who is hot and cold and who is consistently nice to him—and he to them. We also have talked about how a person makes you feel when you are around them, that friends bring out the best in one another optimally; a fine balance. F. named some kids who do this for him and Boy x was not on that list, Boy x he said, “He used to be nice to me. He even said ‘Sorry,’ to me, but sorry means you won’t do it again and he has.”

By now my heart is fully patched outside of myself as F.’s tears resolve, and he changes into play clothes. After a phone call to his teacher to better understand what the school dynamic is that is occurring between the two, I agree to let him go to Boy x’s on Friday because he really wants to under one condition: we talk about some strategy beforehand and he agrees to discuss how it went afterward. With that pact in place, we walked downstairs to make Valentine’s Day cards for school. I watch as he moves so gracefully from protecting his heart for the day to giving of it again as he crafts his cards for his classmates. I know that some of those feelings he feels now I had as a child and while I want to protect him from the yo-yo friendships, I know I can’t so much protect him as prepare him for how to handle them. It took me nearly 36 years to come to the conclusion that I don’t have to be friends nor remain friends with people who are not consistent, or kind, or who drain my energy. I spent a lot of wasted energy trying to nurture relationships that I should have let go of gracefully. No one said to me as a child that I didn’t have to like everyone and that if everyone didn’t like me it didn’t mean that it was because of me per se. Since I have learned this, I feel much freer and more like I have the energy for the people I cherish. And I want to help F. set a healthy boundary that he does not have to try so hard with Boy x, because I will not let Boy x erode his confident self by his inconsistent actions toward my son. 

One of F.'s Valentine's.

So tonight my heart is raw and outside of my body a bit as I contemplate how letting my little boy move into the world where I can’t help orchestrate his friendships moment by moment takes courage. I know he will be better for navigating some of these seas himself, but it is not easy to watch and know when to intervene and when to let him test the waters. F.’s teacher is going to begin a lesson on friendship and caring for our hearts and others hearts. Her hope is that the kids understand that when we are mean with our words, our facial expressions, our body language that it creates a wrinkle in another person’s heart. And ultimately for them to learn at a deeper level, that hearts are soft and tender and we need to be careful with our hearts and others. Whew, you can say that again! My heart is wrinkled tonight and try as I might the iron is not hot enough to press them out. Perhaps, this is part of how we earn our purple heart as parents--that as our kids' hearts get wounded in action, our hearts ache too. And even though we'd do anything to take away their pain they are better served if we do our best to help them heal.

So what do you do when your heart is outside yourself as you navigate parenthood? How do you find the delicate balance of helping your youngins learn the social intricacy of school? And what do you do for yourself when your partner is out of town and you are with your littles to keep sane?