Avoiding Dr. Phil

So, I didn't get to post yesterday...after doing so well, but in my defense, I posted twice on Tuesday.

This morning on my way through the normal, "wrestle child into clothes, throw sheets in washer, make lunch, get out the door, convince child we do NOT need Starbucks today, and get child to babysitter, get Starbucks for myself, and get to work on time" morning routine a couple of interesting things happened.

1) Lily is apparently running away, naked (of course) with nothing but her baby doll and her flowered lunch box; she will also be taking the car. I did offer to drop her at the bus station, but she said, no, driving would be more practical.

2) While trying to explain the metaphor of the song Little Boxes (which you may know better as the theme song from Weeds) my daughter informed me that she does not like herself and wants to be her friend Alyson from school.


So these are two new situations for me. I sort of sarcas-ti-mom’d my way through the running away conversation, which is what my parents always did to me, but is this something I should be taking more seriously? Is she totally miserable, or just trying out phrases? I catch myself watching Dr. Phil or something like that when I’m home from work sick and praying to every God I know that I don’t end up on one of those shows in 10 years saying “If I’d only have paid attention to the threats when she was 4, she wouldn’t be addicted to glue and running about with 40 year old men that work at Blockbuster” (other than Joe) Then she would come out with giant hoop earrings and make up that’s too light for her face and lipstick that’s too dark, wearing too much mousse, and have to be beeped out while she tells me that she’s pregnant and she’ll do whatever she bleeping wants with her bleeping baby. Oh God. I think I’m having an episode.
[caption id="attachment_368" align="alignleft" width="150" caption="thats an omage to my husband, facepalming due to our shame."][/caption]<

Has anyone else had to deal with the 4 year old ready to set out on their own? How did you handle it? Are your children at least marginally well adjusted now?

So the second thing, if you haven’t heard the song before, the jist of it is that everyone in upper middle class suburbia is living in this predescribed box , in which they will inevitably go to summer camp, university, go into business, and marry and raise a family. Picture the street Diane Weist’s family lives on in Edward Scissor Hands, that’s the idea. So Lily is asking me what this song means, I tried to explain to her that the song is telling you that its okay to be yourself, and to be different if you want to be. I started in on my diatribe that I had written at 14 while wearing clothes made of hemp and lamenting my parents inability to understand my need to practice Wicca (just like every other chubby white girl in suburbia)* She listened to me intently, and I felt the lesson was going well until she popped up with “Mom, I don’t want to be myself, I want to be Alyson.” Not the response I was expecting.

“Why is that buddy?”
“I don’t like myself, sometimes I do bad things”
“Well, you know Lil, sometimes everyone does bad things, even Alyson, the trick is trying to do good things when you have the choice.”
“Mom, I don’t want to talk about this anymore, can we listen to the dancin’ song now?”

So that was the end of the conversation for today, but I feel like my point was not conveyed appropriately. Other than my Dr. Phil nightmare, I have another vision of her, wearing skinny jeans and all black, hair an unruly mess, white faced make up, stabbing her thigh with a thumbtack and writing terrible poetry on her shoes.

I tell her everyday how smart, pretty, strong, brave and creative she is, but I live in fear that her self-esteem is going to be in the toilet by adolescence. Its easy to tell the child of a mom who was a fat, poorly adjusted adolescent, they are always wearing shirts that say “I’m great and you know it!” or “It’s Hard to be this Awesome!” or something equally ridiculous, they are also often uncomfortably performing in pageants, school and church plays, or various sports and esteem building activities while being forced to watch Dove commercials. All of us formally issue laden mothers are quietly wondering to ourselves, “Is it enough? How do I spare her that feeling of shame from just being who she is?”

With all the images the media, other parents, and magazines shove down our kids throats it’s a wonder any of us made it to adulthood without some sort of lingering eating disorder. How do we as mothers protect the next generation of little girls from feeling invisible, hopeless, and without a voice? How do we keep them from writing terrible shoe poetry?!?!

Or, do we just keep trying to remind them that no matter what the rest of the world looks like, home is safe, and you can be anything you want at home, because that’s the one place that everyone will love you no matter what? Maybe those experiences of feeling voiceless and invisible are what creates the next generation of artists, actors, and helicopter feelings oriented parents.


I am intending to read several books on the subject, cram Lily into a foofy gown for a pageant, and let you know what I find out.



*Not that Wicca is not a totally valid religion, I’m just saying, chubby white girls from suburbia have a tendency to flock to anything that they think might make either Justin Timberlake, Edward Cullen, or, in my case, Drew Carey, fall in love with them by simply chanting and melting stuff.