Anyone who has either met our family, or read our blog with any regularity is painfully aware that Pinkone is a kid who marches to her own drummer. Her unique brand of "Pink-ness" is kind of taken for granted as normal by the lot of us who are in the trenches with her every day. Generally, there isn't a problem until she, or we, are forced to interact with the world at large. Suddenly her new found love of Swedish Black Metal is looked at as a cause for concern rather than totally bad ass.
We had parent teacher conferences the other day, always a source of anxiety for me. The teacher had already called us a couple of weeks ago to let us know that apparently, our kid had a disconcerting odor. This was news to me, as she was given a shower that very morning. When she came home, it turned out that she had decided that simply standing under the water and not actually using soap was an adequate means of cleaning ones self. As I have mentioned in previous posts, it is still shocking to me that hygiene is not something all people are inherently born with.
So after a long and detailed discussion on how to properly wash ourselves and the importance of clean socks, we sent the child back to school thinking all of our problems were solved. Parent teacher conferences come up and Boss and I go like the good Queer-rents we are. Pinkone show's us her desk, her illustrated guide to the life cycle of a spider and the book of wacky learning songs she uses every day. We see the chart illustrating the teeth lost by each member of the class, see the quiet reading corner and learn about Kelso's choices. Kelso usually chooses to not be a jerk, so we like him.
Then comes the part where Pinkone goes to play with the student teacher and we sit down to talk to the teacher one on one. She starts off with all of the stuff we already know. Pinkone is great at math, she is super smart, has a little trouble focusing sometimes, but is generally doing very well academically.
Then we get into the bits we did NOT know. Apparently Pinkone has an issue with sneakiness. After work time the kids are supposed to bring a crayon to the magic carpet and circle the answers they got wrong. Pinkone brings her pencil and erases the answers and writes the correct ones on the paper instead. They are supposed to put the math blocks in the box after math time, Pinkone quietly stuffs them in her pocket and takes them home with her for no apparent reason. Teacher is concerned about the amount of sneakiness Pinkone is displaying, did we think there was something going on we weren't aware of? Did teacher need to be brought in on some sort of deep family trauma that resulted in the stealing of math blocks?
Awesome.
Pinkone went through something of a Hudson Hawk phase shortly after her bio-dad left as well. There were several instances of finding small toys and things in her pockets after returning from her friends houses. She would return the toys, apologize and be grounded, eventually the phase seemed to subside and we hadn't had an episode in months.
Has our child become a criminal mastermind? Is she a tiny sociopath in training?
I don't think so. The deal here is that Pinkone has embarrassingly developed a habit I myself, and most of my family seems to have. It is an issue with scarcity. Though we have never had an instance in which we have had to truly want for anything, we are all always afraid that there will suddenly not be enough of it when we want it. If we don't get this thing NOW it won't be there when we legitimately can get it. This is the issue that most often results in shop lifting, hanging on to abusive relationships, and disordered eating.
Where does this issue come from? I see it in myself, I see it in my family, and now here it is in my daughter. I take portions bigger than I want because I am afraid the food won't be there if I want more. I hold on tight to my partners whether I want them there or not because I am terrified they might disappear at a moments notice and I won't be able to get a new one. I either buy whatever it is I need the MOMENT I can afford it with NO research whatsoever or buy nothing at all.
While swiping the math blocks may not have been a huge deal in the grand scheme of things, the anxiety that goes along with the desire TO swipe the math blocks has the potential to be a life long issue if we don't nip it in the bud ASAP.
Pinkone has also been on a kick lately where she keeps trying to convince Boss and I that we should get married. She has even offered up her own pink plastic butterfly ring if only he would be willing to propose to me. While incredibly sweet, we aren't planning to get married any time soon, or possibly ever, its not really a priority for us. After her 11th request for us to get married. I asked her the other day, "Honey, are you worried that Boss is going to go away if we aren't married?." She admitted that yes, that was her concern. We had a long talk about the differences between commitment and marriage, and that the two do not always have to equal the other. Her bio-dad and I were married and it didn't stop him from leaving. Just because Boss and I are not married does not mean we are any less committed to each other than any other couple. She attended the "document signing ceremony" of our dear friends with us and we reminded her of what they told her that day. "Our relationship is no more valid today than it was yesterday. We are just letting the state of Washington know that we plan to file our taxes together next year". A fantastic lesson the true meaning of marriage if you ask me.
As I am telling her this, I realize that I have thought and felt the very same sense of urgency regarding my relationship, whether I have said it out loud or not. If we aren't married, or working toward getting married, our relationship seems somehow...less than. That is not OK.
What do you DO when you see your kids playing out your own issues in front of your face? How do you correct a behavior in them that is so ingrained in yourself? I didn't even realize that this was a problem for me until very recently. I have been trying to expend my energy reminding myself that if I don't have something RIGHT NOW it will either be there when I am ready for it, or if it isn't, then it wasn't meant to be. How to communicate this to Pinkone? I didn't realize I was communicating my scarcity issues to her in the first place so how do I communicate my attempts at eradicating them from my own life?
Have any of you been shocked to see your own issues mirrored in your kids? What did you do to correct it?
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