"The difference between perseverance and obstinacy is that one often comes from a strong will, and the other from a strong won't."
~ Henry Ward Beecher
I think it can be hard, as parents, to stow away our baggage and trust that our kids might experience life's ups and downs differently than we did. Social dynamics can be a sticky mess for our little people, and a lot of what my kids experience at school throws me right back to the 1st grade. There I am with my shag haircut, apron dress, and unibrow.
This was the conversation between me and my two sons in the car yesterday.
D = 7-years-old; A = 9-years-old.
D: Sometimes Cooper is really mean on the bus. He took Scott's hat and made him cry and I had to tell the busdriver. Today he leaned over my seat and told me that I'm not allowed to have any clubs, and that he was coming to my house to babysit tonight.
Me: Honey, there is no way that I would let a fourth grader babysit you. He's not babysitting. And it doesn't matter if he tells you that you can't have clubs. He has no... jurisdiction over you. No control. It would be like telling you that you're not allowed to eat dinner.
D: But he told me I can't have any clubs!
Me: Do you know what you should do?
D: What?
A: Punch him in the nose!
Me: Do not punch him. Ignore him.
D, incredulous: I mean, doesn't he know that I'm the Head Boss of the Godzilla Club?
A: You have a Godzilla Club?
D: Yup.
A: Who's in it?
D: No one. I haven't asked anyone yet. But I will. I'll sign them up at school and we'll have meetings in my bedroom at home.
Me: I was talking to your teacher today, and she said you have another club, something about ice crystals?
D: Yeah, the Ice Crystal Digger Club. I'm the Head Boss. We dig for ice crystals.
A: Is anyone in that one?
D: Yeah, a lot of kids. Except they all left my club today to go be in the Chicken Club, where all you do is bang on sticks.
Me: What? They left? What's a Chicken Club?
D: I don't know, it's stupid, you just pretend sticks are chickens.
Me: Why did they all leave the club?
D: I don't know! They just all left!
Me, feeling sad: Does it make you really... sad that everyone left your club?
D: No. It makes me furrous.
Me: Furious?
D: Yeah.
Me: Do you you want to join the Chicken Club?
D: I would never join that club! NEV-AH!
A: You don't know, it might be fun.
D: NEV-AH!
My seven-year-old stands resilent against the mass exodus of his club. I'm pretty sure I'd be scheduled to see the school social worker by now. He's proud to be the Head Boss of not one, but two clubs*, and it doesn't seem to bother him that no one else is in the clubs. Is this confidence, stubborness, or some combination of the two?
The fine line, of course, is teaching him some flexibility so that he might eventually wander over to the Chicken Club and enjoy himself, or ask his friends why they left the Ice Crystal Diggers Club in the first place. I have a feeling he's not the easiest 1st grader to work for.
I'm just going to have to pack up my own 1st grade baggage and keep it well out of the way of the Head Boss. He'll navigate his own way, I have no doubt, through the inevitable conflicts between ice crystals and chickens.
*actually, he has a Fake Mustache Club, too, which I had forgotten about until he reminded me.
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