There are moments in motherhood, well in life actually but as the most important years of my life have been motherhood they are one in the same for me, there are moments you snap. Long held on to moments where you have pushed back the anger and frustration of the moment and drawn deep breaths through angry or poorly chosen words, only in the end to...snap.
My second child was an easy baby and toddler, no terrible twos, with an abrupt surprising turn at four. This would correct itself at age six and remain for the duration of elementary school and one blissful year of middle school before shifting abruptly again, But it is the four year old turn where I can remember a particular snap.
I was a working mother. It's hard to imagine now, now that I don't work, now as the children are ensconced in college and graduate programs and I "momage" them quietly from afar with my two dogs looking on. But, there was a time when I worked full time and raised four children. When you work full time as a teacher your morning start time isn't flexible. At 8:15 thirty students will line up for you. When my second child was four, her older sister six, her younger sister two, and there was a newborn sister, I worked. So there were at least two stops in the morning. One for the two and under crowd, and one for those going to school and this was before my final stop to teach at a completely differently campus.
As a September baby, this second child was going to school. Two months of Kindergarten were attended as a four year old. She was difficult to get ready in the morning. I guess, to be fair, they all were, but she stood out as being the hardest to wrangle into clothes and shoes and a car seat. Looking back this could possibly be because she was going to an extended day highly academic kindergarten and was as previously stated, only four. But, I digress...
My children were always beautifully dressed. Not always because of me. I have a mom and an aunt who are incredible dressers and shoppers. We were blessed and had many, many expensive outfits and because such quality clothes were purchased, they didn't have a shelf life. As the second child, Reagan got her own beautiful clothes as well as steady supply of hand me downs. I cannot stress this enough, and anyone who has met my mother and aunt will know I am not exaggerating, my children were beautifully dressed.
The early details of the morning of the snap elude me, but the moment of the snap is vivid in my mind. Most likely I am remembering the snap, and the moments that led right up to it, in a light that shines much more favorably on me then I deserve. What I remember is a great deal of patience and kindness in getting everyone to their destinations and then arriving at mine half mad with pent up anxiety and angst. My memory is lots of patient words and encouragement and understanding as I coaxed her and her sisters to school every morning. But on this one morning she was crying. She was refusing to get in the car and I needed us to leave. So I picked her up half dressed, hair done and tights on (in the recollection of this story I remember that my girls always wore matching tights with dresses. I do not mean leggings, I mean actual beautiful wool tights in various colors that matched their outfits), naked from the torso up. A beautiful toe headed centaur headed to Kindergarten. I grab her dress and assume I can get it on her at school before she walks in. It is at this moment through big tears and gulps as I trying to shove her into her car seat, with her wide eyed sisters looking on, without bruising her that she says, "I won't get dressed, I won't...I don't know why you won't buy me the BEAUTIFUL clothes."
And that was my moment. I was incensed. Listen, there are are a million things she could have said that morning, a million....why can't you feed me the GOOD food? True not great at fixing meals for the family. Why don't you teach me to tie my shoes? True, they were all in velcro for years after they should have been. Why don't you....? Again, a MILLION things could have been questioned about my parenting during those busy years, but to reference the BEAUTIFUL clothes was not the right choice. I gave up trying to shove her in the car seat. I removed her and set her little centaur self on our cold driveway and yelled, "We are done with this game. You are to be dressed for school every day and ready to go or you we will sit out here in the cold until you are dressed." It was, of course, a total lie. We had no such option each day. Perhaps it was the coldness of the concrete, perhaps it was our lovely neighbor staring wide eyed at the scene before her and me unembarrassed saying, "Good morning Susan, we are having a rough start to our day, but things will get better," or perhaps she just knew I had reached my tipping point, but she put on her dress and got into the car, and after one more dumping on my best friend's wet lawn a few weeks later for refusing to get in her car seat....that was it. She was beautifully behaved (and dressed) for the next eight years.
As we rolled into eighth grade, I was unprepared for what lay ahead for me. We were coming off eight years of honor roll, good citizenship, independent homework accountability and the stuff parenting dreams are made of. And then we hit an academic rough patch. By the end of eighth grade the rough patch had me taking an afternoon off of work to show up at middle school unannounced. She had been less than truthful (big time liar) for weeks about her advanced history class grade and her insistence that said bad grade was no fault of her own, but in actuality the fault of teacher. My appearance at the middle school final bell and announcement we would be going to talk to the history teacher together left the impression I desired. Fear. Anger as well, but the fear in her eyes far outweighed the anger present in her gait.
In what can only be shocking news, the story and the blame on the teacher took a much different turn as we walked toward his classroom. To her credit she was quiet and humble as we talked to the teacher. It was too late to change the grade, but we agreed on some steps of effort to work toward change in the very few remaining days of middle school. At the end I asked her to leave the room so I could talk to the teacher. When she exited I turned and bluntly said, "I'm out of my area of expertise here. What actually does happen? Does she promote with this F? Is she doing 8th grade again?" In this moment an incredibly kind man took the time to say this to me, and it will be paraphrased and quoted as to how I remember it 10 years later...
"No she will be promoted. They all go through for the most part. They are much bigger academic issues here than your kid who is failing AP history. I've seen a lot of kids like her come through my classes. And a lot of them pull it together and move forward. Many go on to graduate from college and some even graduate with a history degree. A failing Eighth grade doesn't always determine the future."
This moment in time shaped my thought process and changed the course of my parenting for years to come. He could have said a million things to me. He could have put both she and myself in our place. He could have been an ass. But he wasn't. Great teachers change lives. He changed ours.
High school would prove challenging. On a million levels. She continued forward with a heavy academic load while both competitive dancing and a spot on the varsity swim team. By senior year she was drill team captain, varsity swimming and working on the weekends. Which, much like participating in a highly academic extended day kindergarten at four, in retrospect sounds insanely stupid on my part as a parent allowing it.
I could tell a few high school stories. Some painful, some poignant, some infuriating, and some funny. I love a full circle moment. I love the ability to take yourself from a really low moment and later find yourself having risen above. In parenting, I have few really good full circle moments and I am revel in them. This child provided me with one that makes me proud in ways I cannot fully do justice to, but I will try.
Junior year was tough. She was still taking a full load of AP classes and struggling to find her footing in them. Add in the juggling act of varsity swim, drill team and weekend job and it made for a long year. She would finish Junior year just under a 3.0. I was just glad we made it out. As the year ended we found ourselves at a banquet. Well, I always found myself at a banquet. But, my love/hate of all things banquet is a story for another day.
At this banquet the decision was made to honor everyone for both the sport and their academics. As well they should. Some of these kids get insanely good grades. This year the kids were all sitting in front of the parents at one long table and we, as parents, were all at tables facing them. As the students were honored for their academics they would leave the table and get their award to the side of the room. As the front table cleared out it started to become obvious to me, that we were probably going to be left with just my daughter at the table. Which could have gone fairly unnoticed if....the parents weren't all facing the long empty table instead of the many students who were honored. I wasn't uncomfortable for myself, but I was sick for her. It wasn't anyone's fault. When planning these things you are dealing with a million factors. No one anticipated this, it just happened.
In the end, she and one other child were left, and as luck would have it they were sitting on opposite ends of the long table. My daughter is a strong kid who hung out with incredibly academic children her whole life, this wasn't completely new to her. She also has the inherited ability to be self deprecating and make light of a situation, even when hurting inside. She also has a huge heart and it was obvious the other girl at the other end of the very long table was embarrassed. And to be clear it was an embarrassing situation. I will never forget the pride I felt in what would happen next. She stood up, with 25 peers and all of their parents watching, walked to the other end of the table with a huge smile on her face sat down and embraced the girl in a huge hug, and they laughed while facing the room. I have never been prouder in my life. She gave a hug that meant more to me than any honor received that night.
We would return to the same banquet the next year. Different room arrangement and awards handed out differently, lessons learned. Senior year had proven to be a stronger year for Reagan. She would walk up to be recognized for her high GPA. The parent sitting next to me was stunned and muttered something like "Really? No way." and then yelled out "Way to go." Again, I love a full circle moment. And this was a great one.
Amidst the struggles of all that was high school, she set her sights on going to the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York. I was a hard no, as in immediately HELL no, when this was mentioned Junior year. We are struggling to achieve in a small California suburb, how was New York going to work out? Is this even a real school? Will you get a real degree? The answer was No, just No. No, No, No. I was not open to it. I was negative about it. I did not engage in any conversations. No, no, no.
Senior year found us headed to New York to be a part of the Thanksgiving Parade for drill. I decided to throw a bone. We would go early and visit FIT. To be honest it was really just so I could confirm that I was right and this was a fake school with no real merit. Long story short we sat through a great presentation with a great presenter and it turns out the school was real and the degree would be real and I was wrong about it all. I turned to her at the end of the hour and said, "If you can get in, you can go." She got in. She went.
We are just back from a beautiful graduation week with a beautiful graduation ceremony held in Central Park. It was perfection, all of it. She was and is perfection. I am reminded that I heard once, you have to raise the children you have not the ones you thought you would have. I think that is what I learned that day in eighth grade, the gift that teacher gave me. I have not perfected this part of my parenting. I definitely have some wasted time where I have tried to parent my children as I felt they should be and not who they are. But when I lean in to who they are...it turns out they are amazing and do amazing things.
She graduated, with the added fun of a pandemic in the city hit the hardest, with a fashion business kind of major and two fashion business kind of minors. She will stay in New York and work in the fashion industry. And because I love a full circle I will just say....of course it was fashion, I mean all she really wanted were the BEAUTIFUL CLOTHES!
