I Like That

Lying in bed last night at one in the morning with my daughter, we were the last ones awake. I was reading my book. She was trying to settle down for sleep. She has been sleeping with my deodorant under her pillow the last two nights. She doesn’t want me to see because she’s afraid I will take it away from her. She goes under her blanket and opens the deodorant. I can tell she’s busy doing something. I ask her what she is doing. She says, “don’t look.” It’s too late. I have already glimpsed her rubbing deodorant all over her hands. “Are you putting that on your hands?” I ask. “Yes. I like that,” she mutters. “Does it feel good?” I wonder. My kids are an endless source of information about things I have never tried. “Yes,” she answers tersely. “Well, don’t twist it up too high so it breaks off. And don’t dig your fingers in it,” I remind her. OK. She won’t, she says. “Thanks for telling me.” Thanks for telling her? She knows how to melt my heart. She has such uncontrollable desires to spread, smear and paint with anything smearable. I’ll admit I have gotten quite upset with her many times because of the messes she makes. “I like that,” she mutters under her blanket. A little while later I notice she has slipped out of bed. She comes back with blue eyeshadow heavy on her eyelids. Her hair is parted down the middle and slicked down with water. She is dripping and shivering slightly. I go back to the bathroom with her and dry her off. She asks me not to mess up her hair. Then she climbs into bed, slides the deodorant under the pillow and falls asleep. I think about how I have a need to keep things somewhat organized and unpainted. And she needs to mix paints and color her body. She needs to dwell in the possibilities of creams and colors and the whole world as her canvas.
Earlier that day she went out into the garage. We have paints and paper set up out there. She wanted to paint. I didn’t want to stop what I was doing to help her. And she had been asking for two days to paint. I had put her off long enough. I could tell she was determined to do it whether I said yes or not. I just asked her to at least take off her dress first. A little while later I peaked at her. There she was with pink paint spilling around her. She was still in her dress. I yelled at her, “I told you to take off your dress.” She got perturbed with me and showed me that there was no paint on it. I told her I want to keep it that way so take it off while she paints. This is, of course, not at all how I like to talk to my children. I take great pains to work with them and help them be successful in a very supportive and loving way. I also try to balance my own need for calm and quiet with their need for rambunctious experimentation without being overbearing and punitive. But lately I have been feeling self-absorbed and impatient. When she comes into the house with paint on the bottoms of her feet, I sigh loudly. She sighs back at me. Clearly she is just as frustrated with me being frustrated with her. Her muttering, “I like that,” under the blanket like the incantation of a bag lady brings it to light for me. She really needs to touch and feel and rub and paint. I remind myself to reach her there and help her meet that need. She also desperately needs to know that I still love her even when I get angry. Whenever I raise my voice at her, she makes a kiss at me and says, “Mommy, I love you.” And when I get really mad like when she poured syrup on the carpet, she asks me, “Mommy, do you still love me?” “Of course I love you,” I answer. “I’m just really frustrated right now. I always love you even when I’m mad at you.” It’s the best I can do sometimes. I would love to greet these situations with patience and a peaceful, “Ah, well, let’s clean it up. Please ask for help if you need the syrup.” Or, “please do your Picasso drawing with face paint crayons on paper instead of the carpet.” I’m still working on my reaction. Isn’t that the very definition of mindfulness? Bringing clarity and peace to the most stressful moments. I’m a work in progress.
At the park last week another mother and I were talking about our daughters and how they draw on furniture and walls, etc. no matter how many times we have asked them to stop. This is a mother that, I can already tell I have very little in common with. She has already said a few motherisms that I recognize, such as, “I don’t let my son…” or “we don’t allow this and such.” Just the typical bossy way moms talk about their kids while their kids are young and they still feel in charge. The kind of annoying smugness that says she is clearly doing the right thing. What she said about her daughter was, “she has been threatened within an inch of her life,” to stop drawing on the walls and furniture, etc. Of course she didn’t mean it literally. I know how exasperating it is to have girls who believe their whole world is an extension of their bodies and their bodies are their canvas. I wonder how many of them are out there. Parents at their wits end. Girls desperate for artistic expression, promising not to do it again. Then, unable to help themselves, doing it again and again. I’m reminded that there is no end to what a person will do in a position of authority if they feel they have to make a child do what they say. Perhaps threatened within an inch of her life is not such an exaggeration after all. I remember my aunt almost bragging about how she spanked her daughter so hard she gave her bruises. Her daughter kept running across the street to visit her friend without looking and without permission. This happened years ago but my stomach turned when she told this story at my cousin’s wedding shower.
At some point you have to stop and ask yourself, how far am I willing to go with this. This kind of forceful control so easily leads to violence. You have to realize she will grow out of it. So, I will keep reminding my daughter. I will keep cleaning up after her and even ask for her help. I will encourage her to follow her interests. And I fervently hope she will continue to be true to herself.