Lately I've witnessed a lot of parents help reinforce or create fears in their children. I understand being a parent is scary. It's frightening the first time you leave them in the care of someone else. Or when you realize they have figured out how to climb your cabinets. It's very easy to go from being a protective parent to being a hovering, suffocating fear factory. I grew up with very overprotective parents (and I'm sure they are reading this and happily agreeing with me that they were) and I know they did that because they loved me very much. But, I have a lot of irrational fears that I know stem back from my childhood of constantly being scared of things that truly were going to happen no matter what. I am petrified of stairs. I'm constantly scared of falling on them, which is ridiculous because EVERYONE falls or trips on stairs. It's going to happen. I've always tried to not share my fears with my girls. I guess I'd like them to develop their own without my influence. Anyway, I wanted to share a story about how one time I allowed Elisabeth to explore her own fears and strengths.
When Elisabeth was four, we were frequent visitors of DeKalb's public pool. I loved it because there was a kid section that was gated off, so kids couldn't leave without parents noticing. Elisabeth was old enough that I could bring a book or magazine and hang out on the side lines while she paddled around with other kids supervised by inadequate lifeguards on their high school summer break. Loved it!
This is also the summer that Elisabeth decided she was ready to dive in the diving well at the pool. Elisabeth is a fearless but practical girl. She had thought about this long and hard. She gave me all the reasons that she was big enough and old enough to dive in. She mentioned that she can go down the big slide at the pool and swim to the end of the rope as the rules dictated. She had jumped off the edge of the pool to us a million times. So, being a good mom, I told her that we could go and ask the lifeguard in the diving well what the rules were. She was psyched. As we made our way over, I was pretty confident that she'd be told she couldn't dive. I mean, she was only four and short for her age. I was sure there were age and height limits.
We make our way to the high school life guard who may or may not have been sleeping behind his Top Gun-esque sunglasses (the life guards at this pool were not Dragonland Ellis trained, I tell you!), and Elisabeth asks him in her confident little way if she can dive in. The teenage lifeguard wannabe says, "Sure, you just got to be able to swim to the edge when you're done."
WHAT?! He said yes?! Are you effing kidding me? I was not prepared for this at all. Elisabeth turns to me with big expectant eyes and her genuine smile that I love so much. "Can I, Mom? Can I?" Ugh. I am trapped. I kind of smile and say, "Well, I guess. Just let me get in first."
"Uh, ma'am, you have to wait for her on the side of the pool."
And that's when I wanted to leave. I'm sure my eyes about bugged out of my head because the poor boy apologized for the rule. I look up at the three diving boards, at the 12 foot pool my baby wants to plunge into that I can not physically wait for her in with open arms. There is no way, no way in hell that I can let her do this. And if Evan even knew I was thinking about it, he'd laugh and tell me I was crazy. I took Elisabeth's hand and pulled her aside. "Dude, I'm sorry, but I don't know if you're big enough for this yet. Maybe next year." I waited for the tears or the pleading. I waited for her to restate all her reasons of why she should. I even waited for a miraculous agreement and then we could go to the slides or back to the kid area. Instead, Elisabeth looked me straight in the eyes and said in a mature 4 year old voice, "Mom, I can do this." No tears. No pleading. Just pure confidence that only a child with no fear can have.
I have no idea what I was thinking. I only know that I believed her. I told her she had to go on the shortest diving board and that I would be standing on the edge of the pool where she had to swim to. I told her that if she changed her mind, that was okay, we could always try this later. She nodded and walked over to the diving board. She waited in line behind two middle school aged girls who were giggling at some high school boys doing flips and cannonballs into the water.
I slowly took my place at the edge of the pool. I kept arguing with myself in my head. "This is stupid. She's too little. Now you're the mom who's letting her baby dive into twelve feet of water!". I watched the bigger kids jump in and at the ginormous waves they made. I realized Elisabeth would have to swim in the wake of these big splashes to the edge. I decided to recant my promise and looked over to tell her to get out of line. That's when I saw that she was next. She was standing at the end of the board. She slowly walked to the edge. She stared into the pool. I don't know what was in her mind. I know she couldn't fathom how deep it was. I'm sure she wasn't thinking of the splashes the other kids were making. My heart was beating so fast that I was worried I'd get dizzy. I willed her to change her mind. That's when she looked up to find me. She smiled her famous Ebeth smile, gave me a thumbs up and jumped. My heart dropped with her.
I don't remember anything for the next ten seconds except watching my only child--my baby girl who I loved more than life itself--fall deeper into the water. She was a blur close to the bottom. It was when she slowly started rising to the top that I realized that I had fallen to my hands and knees at the edge of pool and was whispering, "Come back up. Come back up."
In the slowest seconds man has ever witnessed on earth, Elisabeth eventually emerged from the depths of water. She treaded water for a second until she found me. She smiled at me and started swimming towards the wall. When she got to the edge, I helped pull her up. She was elated, screaming, "I did it! I did it! Did you see me, Mom? Did you see me do it?" I could only smile at her. I had no words. I had tears swelling in the back of my throat, choking out any sort of response. I was so proud of her. So thankful she'd lived through it. And so happy I'd let her go through with it. She'd believed in herself. She'd known what her limits were and knew what she was capable of. I gave her a hug and realized that the high school boys who'd been showing off with their flips, were clapping for Elisabeth and yelling across the pool, "Good job!". She looked up at me and asked, "Can I go again?" I nodded. "Just a couple more times, though." She ran off towards the ladder to wait her turn.
For the rest of the summer, I stood by the edge of the diving pool and waited with my heart in my stomach as I watched my little girl be completely fearless.
And the birthday meal she chose consisted of tuna helper, corn on the cob and applesauce.
Julia decided it was her job to carry around the small garbage bag of wrapping paper. She's been carrying it places all week, actually.
Time for singing! The cat was dancing.
This is her telling Ethan goodnight. They all sang along with us on speaker phone. She's been talking about Ethan all week and even painted a picture of her and him playing outside at school. :(
Time for birthday pie!
